Wellness Calendar: Wednesday 31 January

Recognising progress

If you are doing some good wellness work on yourself, would it be useful to measure your progress? If so, how might you take stock of where you once were, where you are now, and where you might want to be?

If you were measuring weight you might use scales, for length you may chose a ruler. Yet when it comes to assessing the multi-layered aspects of our own wellbeing, it is going to need to be pretty unique and individually-tailored for there to be any real meaning behind it.

So, if you do want to recognise (and celebrate) your progress, here are some random suggestions for creating your own wellness measurer.

Regular diary entries that you can look back upon. Working out a survey for yourself, with your own set of questions. Adapting an existing measuring devise, such as a visual or metaphorical yardstick: a thermometer say, or graphic equaliser, or a weather chart. If you are on a journey, or aiming for a target, can you create something that demonstrates the distance that you have travelled? Can you regularly draw yourself, your mood, your current outlook on life? Can you use the basis of a classic game to measure your progress, such as snakes and ladders or SimCity? The choice, as always, is all yours and your alone.

We’ve now come to the end of January. We hope you’ve got something out of the calendar so far. Be sure to check out February - if you so wish - for more bite-sized nuggets, this time around the theme of coping.

Take care for now.