6 Valuable tips for prioritising your well-being

Prioritising your well-being in a world that demands so much from everyone can sometimes be a considerable challenge. 

When work, family, friends, and other responsibilities take over your time, and you feel stuck between appointments and meetings, it can be tempting to put you and your well-being at the very end of your priorities. 

Think about the last time you did something solely for yourself.

This blog post is for you if it wasn’t today or yesterday.

But always remember it’s okay if you did not take time for yourself in the past. Be gentle and kind with yourself. You are here, reading this blog post; this means that you are willing to improve your relationship with yourself, and you deserve a high five!

What does well-being mean?

Well-being is the state of feeling healthy and happy. Feeling healthy means you are comfortable in your skin, have enough energy to accomplish tasks, and can perform activities without experiencing pain or discomfort. On the other hand, happiness is feeling light and positive emotions due to various circumstances or internal factors, like how you perceive the world around you. 

It can be challenging for some people to feel both healthy and happy. Many believe these feelings are based mainly on luck or external factors and may blame fate or higher powers when they don’t experience them. 

But there are indeed ways you can perform actively to increase the chances of feeling good most of the time. There are a few habits that, with little effort, can help you improve your well-being!

And we are about to talk about these habits today.

Let’s dive right into the 6 tips for prioritising your well-being.

1. Calm your mind with meditation

What I love about meditation the most is that it’s the absolute opposite of what the world tells us that success is. 

It starts in school, where students learn that good marks are the most important to be successful. Therefore, we understand what we must do to get good grades to succeed. After school, it continues. A successful employee is practical, productive, and can deliver results.

Everything we do needs to end with a massive, visible result to call it a success. No matter the area in our lives. There are always expectations, and there always needs to be a result. 

Meditation does the exact opposite.

You will never see any significant outcome by practising meditation because this is different from how meditation works. It all happens in your inner world. And you do not practice meditation because you want to create one more thing in the outer world, as we tend to do every day in our day-to-day experiences.

With meditation, you get still and let go of anything material, even your thoughts. You practice dismantling for just one moment. You practice simply being in the present moment without bringing ideas from your past into the present and without projecting the future. 

By practising meditation, you bring order into the chaos in your mind. You will feel calmer than ever before, and eventually, you will see a change in your life. You will get back control over your mind and your emotions. And getting back control over your life can support you in improving your well-being and feeling happier and healthier.

If you need guidance with meditation, I highly recommend Calm (this is not sponsored, but I love this app). It’s an online platform that focuses on guided meditations, and therefore, it’s perfect for any beginner or anybody who struggles with getting distracted during their meditation session. 

They also have a lot of extra features that are great for prioritising your well-being.

2. Move your body

Moving your body daily helps you to get stuck energy back flowing. And energy flowing within your body can help you feel happy and healthy, which, as we know, improves your well-being.

Your body is created to move, to be constantly active. It’s designed to get you from one place to the other. But your body was never made to sit still for hours. 

Think of it as if your body was water – which is indeed what our bodies are, at least to about 70%. 

Please think of water for one moment. More specifically, think about crystal clear water, pure, refreshing and energetic. What picture does appear in your mind when you think about water with these attributes? In my head, I envision a river moving fast and coming down from the mountains, making it move even faster. The water is crystal clear, ice cold and simply pure. So, there is much movement here.

But what happens with water that is forced to be still and cannot move? 

It gets stale, starts smelling, and its colour changes and gets dirty. Water that is still for a certain amount of time and without any movement loses its ability to fuel us with life. It even gets dangerous for us to consume it because of the high amounts of bacteria and toxins it contains.

The same happens with your body if you do not move it regularly. 

If you treat your body with kindness and love and move it daily, it has a much easier time detoxifying, providing your cells with all the nutrients they need and so much more. Moving your body moderately daily is the best way to start prioritising your well-being.

And please keep in mind that you do not have to get crazy about movement. It can be as simple as taking daily walks outside. This will help you significantly impact your well-being.

3. Allow yourself to be your priority

Sometimes, we must get specific and straightforward to change our reality. 

Especially regarding well-being, we often get stuck in false beliefs that we do not deserve to feel happy and healthy. Because to prioritise ourselves and our well-being, we need to compromise with something else. 

This could be, in some cases, people. Mostly friends or family members, that take too much of our energy, and where we need to decide whether it’s about us or them. 

To prioritise your well-being, you must allow yourself to be your priority. 

This includes saying no from time to time. Even if it breaks your heart, sometimes you must say no to a loved person to be able to say yes to yourself. 

But rest assured that the feeling of regret while saying no to a loved one only exists in your head. Because if the people you disappoint love you as much as you love them, they will celebrate your no even if you feel regret. They know that saying no to them means a big yes for yourself. And your loved ones want you to feel great!

As soon as it’s not about them anymore but about you, you can start prioritising your well-being and feeling healthier and happier.

4. Practice positive self-talk

If you want to prioritise your well-being, there is no way around it, but you must start with positive self-talk. The words you tell yourself daily have so much power over how you feel and perceive yourself. 

If you constantly make yourself down for everything you do, this cannot make you happy and healthy. 

The good news is that negative self-talk is trained!

This is fantastic, as this means you can also train yourself to talk to yourself more positively! But it involves training. And training means that you need to practice positive self-talk repeatedly until you can internalise it and make it your second nature.

Every change you make feels stiff initially since it’s unknown and you have no experience with the consequences. But you can do it! You can change your habit from an overall negative self-talk to a positive and vibrating one.

To practice positive self-talk, it is crucial first to become aware that the negative things you say to yourself can harm your overall well-being.

Mostly it’s some form of these sentences:

• “I’m not good enough.”
• “I’m not smart enough.”
• “I’m not beautiful enough.”
• “I’m weak.”
• “I’m stupid.”
• “I deserve this to happen to me.”
• “I will never be as successful as they are.”
• “It’s hopeless.”
• …

As you can see, many quotes involve the word not, since negative self-talk is mainly happening because we compare ourselves with others. Or it’s what we’ve “learned” from others. 

It could be family members, who told us such harmful things unintentionally or even intentionally, and we believed them. Friends who say the same things about themselves, and we’ve learned to copy them. Sometimes we adopt such counterproductive behaviour from the media or even social media. 

Be aware of what information you consume.

The most crucial aspect of negative self-talk is that it’s not real! Let me get brutally honest with that. These thoughts are only appearing in your mind. Negative self-talk is not reflecting reality. Just because you think you are unworthy and unloved doesn’t make it accurate. But I know that how you feel about these beliefs makes them very real for you.

You are worthy, and you are loved.

Let me tell you this: Just because it feels natural to feel bad about yourself now does not mean you can never feel different and better. If it’s not serving you – the feeling, the thoughts, the words, the behaviour – let go of them.

You can start now, at this moment, to treat yourself better than ever before. It’s your decision. And I know it’s a tough decision to make. Change is always frightening, even if it’s helping you to feel your best.

Please keep in mind that if you decide today that you start talking more positively to yourself, it’s not a one-time decision that you make. You will have to show up for yourself daily from now on.

You must show up for yourself daily and make the same decision repeatedly. This is the only way to make a difference in your life. 

Take action today. It will be worth it. 

5. Prioritise sleep

Sleep is enormously influential when it comes to prioritising and improving your well-being.

Getting enough sleep is essential for regenerating your body from the day. When you don’t get enough high-quality sleep, you may start experiencing negative consequences.

From feeling grumpy and unable to focus and concentrate properly to feeling tired throughout the day. 

It’s never a good idea to lack sleep. 

You can also experience major physical issues when suffering from a lack of sleep (less than 7 hours of sleep per night) or a sleeping disorder. A lack of sleep is linked to many diseases like obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and hypertension, experiencing anxiety and depression symptoms.

Therefore, it’s crucial to take your sleep quality very seriously.

Here are some tips on how to get more and better sleep every night:

1. Your last meal of the day should be three hours before you plan to go to bed.
2. No screen time at least one hour before bedtime (phone, TV, etc.).
3. No excessive exercise one to three hours before bedtime.
4. No alcohol or caffeine in the evening.
5. Try to get around eight hours of sleep per night.
6. Go to bed before midnight.
7. Get rid of any light in your bedroom.
8. Drink one glass of high-quality water (no sparkling water) before bedtime – this way, your body is hydrated and prepared to heal itself during the night.

However, remember that these are just general suggestions, and if you have a severe sleeping disorder, it’s essential to seek professional help.

When improving your night’s sleep quality, your well-being will also massively benefit from your efforts. 

Sleep is one of the most critical components for holistic health and feeling your best!

6. Practice gratitude

Prioritising your well-being and feeling your absolute best has much to do with your state of mind and how you perceive the world around you. 

If your glass is always half empty and you see the flaws in everyone around you, your risk of attracting more negativity is much higher since your focus is already on all the negative aspects of life. You are unable to see the good in your life.

There is an easy rule when living your life to its fullest: 

Where focus goes, energy flows. 

The quote implies that your attention and focus dictate your experiences in life. What you see, think, talk about, and how you handle situations can be positive or negative based on your daily focus.

Here is where gratitude comes to play. The moment you actively shift your focus from all the negatives around you to being grateful in your life, even if you can only see the good in your daily coffee, you gently force your mind to see the good things in your life. 

This shift, of course, only happens after some time. But if you’re consistent with your intentions and practice gratitude day by day without leaving one day behind (this is very important), your focus will start shifting. 

The easiest way to start practising gratitude is by working with a gratitude diary. I recommend the 6-minute diary. This is the diary I have used and loved for years. It’s guided and purely focused on the positive aspects of life. And the best part is that you only need to invest 3 minutes in the morning and 3 minutes in the evening.

You are worthy of investing your time into your well-being.

By practising gratitude day by day, you start implementing new and healthy routines that support your well-being journey.

Being content with yourself and prioritising your well-being is crucial when living a happier and more fulfilled life. Also, when you focus on your well-being and prioritise your needs, you will love living your life. 

Because then comes the moment where you will see that only your inner world matters and what you focus on and that you can be your life’s creator. This will give you power and self-confidence. And with these traits, you can start creating your dream life. 

By now, I believe you’ve realised it’s not about following a well-being trend but about choosing yourself and accepting that you are valuable. The decision that your life is all about you will help you gain more self-confidence and prioritise yourself.

Now is the time to take action!

If you want to take your well-being seriously and are willing to improve and prioritise it, it’s time to take action and follow my recommendations above!

If you struggle along the way, I’m happy to help you. 

Until next time,

Keep evolving into your most glorious self!