Tom Rath and Gallup Polls in a study comprising 150 countries researched wellbeing on a global level. They were looking at what differentiates lives that are thriving from lives that are struggling or suffering.
What they found is not what most of us tell ourselves; which is that if we are happy, healthy, wealthy and successful, we thrive. Their research shows that when we focus on just one element and don’t look at it in the context of our whole lives; if we look at that one aspect in isolation; we feel more frustration and even failure. The interaction between the five essential elements of wellness is more important than the pursuit of just one aspect.
What Rath and Gallup found is that the critical areas in our lives are interdependent. “Wellbeing is about the combination of our love for what we do each day, the quality of our relationships, the security of our finances, the vibrancy of our physical health, and the pride we take in what we have contributed to our communities.” From WellBeing; The Five Essential Elements by Tom Rath
What are the essential categories of a life well-lived according to this research?
Career Wellbeing – how you occupy your time (jobs)
Social Wellbeing – strong relationships and love (relationships)
Financial Wellbeing – managing your economic life (wealth)
Physical Wellbeing – good health and enough energy (health)
Community Wellbeing –engagement you have with where you live (community)
What’s fascinating with their research is that 66% of the people they surveyed are doing well in at least one of these areas. Only 7% however are thriving in all five areas. Rath state “If we struggle in any of these domains (as most of us do), it damages our wellbeing and wears on our daily life. When we strengthen our wellbeing in any of these areas, we will have better days, months, and decades. But we are not getting the most of out of our lives unless we’re living effectively in all five.”
Isn’t that interesting, we do best when we live effectively in all five of these areas, and only 7% of the sample are thriving in all five areas?
This research percolated to the top as I was writing my e-course Create Your Life - Your Treasure Map to Wellbeing. I started this course calling it 8 building blocks to success, but it has changed as I wrote, and changed me as well. This course is about stepping into the driver’s seat in your life and charting your life course to find the hidden treasures of you. When you aspire and dream and most importantly write it down, something happens that feels quite magical. Elizabeth Gilbert calls it Big Magic. The muse, the Universe, whatever you call the Mystery begins to interact with you and creation happens. After a while Flow begins, and what you do feels effortless and easy.
When you map your dreams and goals into the treasure map of your life, you create wonderful synchronicity. You feel empowered, uplifted, and excited about this adventure that you are embarked upon.
I started my career as a facilitator of life and career planning. It is quite wonderful when you set a course towards your aspirations. My blogging these last 11 years has been about creating success. This course invites you to plan for wellbeing and success to be part of your life so that you won’t be one of those people who as they are dying say “My biggest regret is that I never tried to do ……” Usually that is some dream or goal that they never got beyond their sense of inadequacy or fear of failure and therefore never attempted.
Create Your Life A Treasure Map to Wellbeing is a comprehensive approach to planning your life and looking for the hidden treasures of you. It is presented in three modules. Module One: Preparation for the Journey is available now. Modules Two and Three will be available this Fall. The following is a brief overview of the course.
Module One: Preparation for the Journey
Introduction: Becoming CEO of your life
Identity: Knowledge of self – knowing who you are, your wants, needs, desires, dreams, your strengths
Caring for Self
Module Two:
Emotional Wellbeing
Physical Wellbeing – Having the energy to create requires attention to the physical self.
Mental Wellbeing - Mindset
Social Wellbeing - Connection – Relationships with others
Module Three:
Financial Wellbeing:
Vocation/Career Wellbeing
Spiritual Wellbeing
One year, Five Year, 10 year Reviews
Tom Rath and Gallup Research are doing a wonderful job. They write about the “doing” part of life. What I have included is the “being” part of your life. Your motivations, your dreams and aspirations, your creations come from the deeper well inside you. It is necessary in my perspective to become aware, to develop the observer self, to reach for your stars, and to include a path of awareness, a consciousness journey in order to be the creative director of your life.
Women especially have a hard row to hoe as a result of traditional women’s training - part of our societal legacy. We still evaluate our worthiness on how attractive we are, how our body looks, how pleasing we are and there is a fierce sense of unworthiness or inadequacy that we have to transmute. A man will apply for a job if he feels he meets 41% of the criteria that is asked for. A woman will only apply for a job if she feels she meets a very high percentage of all that is being sought. If you think you have to be 99.6% of what an employer is asking for, that is a huge obstacle to overcome. Awareness, acceptance, self-compassion, and self-understanding are necessary to return to the fullness of who you are. Those are aspects of “being” as well as “doing”.
I agree with Rath and Gallup researchers, that our lives are interrelated, and the interaction of all these areas are more than the sum of the parts. We are complex. Our lives are rich and very complicated. But we can begin to navigate our lives as the Creative Director. To begin, we just accept that we don’t have well-being in all areas of our lives. Because we wish to invite more wellbeing and more success into our daily life and our overall lifespan, we with intention begin to focus on a few areas at a time. We invite you to consider embarking on the adventure to Create Your Life - Your Treasure Map to Wellbeing. Enroll in Preparation for the Journey. This is a journey that you will love and find fulfilling.