How to Focus on Your Well-Being in 2022

Before your schedule fills back up again after the holidays, it’s a good time to check in on your well-being. If you’re a regular reader, you know that I’ve always taught that the quality of your leadership (i.e., how you “show up”) depends on your physical and mental well-being.  In demanding times like these, that’s even more true. 

In the current environment, self-care is a critical strategy rather than something to get to when you have a spare moment. You and I both know that those spare moments may never come. So how can you start the year with a focus on you and your well-being?

3 Questions to Ask Yourself

First, let’s get a sense of how you’re doing right now. Life often gets so busy that we lose sight of this. This is why it helps to reflect before you take action.

1. How would you rate your energy level on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 is high)?

2. What one or two derailing behaviors do you want to eliminate from your daily routine? 

3. What are one or two simple changes you can make right now to support your well-being in 2022? Keep in mind the strategies that energize you and have already proven effective.

How I’m Making Shifts

To help you think about these questions, I want to share what answering them brought up for me.

I know from experience that I’m happier and more productive when I go to bed on time and exercise or meditate first thing in the morning. Leading up to the holidays, I had let this personal best practice fall by the wayside. I had gotten into the habit of working too late and then staying up even later doing something to decompress, like watching TV. Instead of jumping out of bed well-rested, I started hitting the snooze button each morning. This put a damper on my energy level. On top of that, I got drawn into reading the depressing news notifications on my phone when I finally woke up.

As I start off this year, I’m being much more intentional about my sleeping and waking habits. I have set more realistic expectations for myself, especially when I know I’ll be really busy, and have let go of all-or-nothing thinking. If I can’t do a full workout in the morning, a 10-minute walk or run still has benefits. I’ve adjusted the notifications on my phone and read the news when it’s less likely to affect my mindset. 

Another way I support my well-being is by proactively managing my calendar. This is a work-in-progress. I’ve been experimenting with blocking out time on my calendar for different kinds of work and then evaluating whether I used those blocks as planned. Over the past six months, I’ve tweaked my system three times to align with when I have the most energy, my clients’ needs, and the work I actually need to get done. 

What Steps Can You Commit to?

As you think about how to better support your own well-being, remember that it’s not about perfection or having everything all figured out before you take action. It is a process of continuous improvement. Commit to just one or two small changes right now and then see how they affect your energy and well-being. Use what you learn to help you continue to refine your approach. And remember that small steps lead to big results.

If you’re looking for even more actionable strategies to start your year on the right foot, check out my award-winning New Lens app. It features bite-size lessons like the ones in this article that you can quickly absorb and apply.

4 Questions to Take You Into 2022

Annually on this blog, I share a series of questions that can have a profound effect on how you move forward into the new year. Consistently, I hear from both my coaching clients and my readers that this simple exercise yields big insights with just a brief time investment. Whether you answer these questions each year with me, or if this is your first time reading them, I hope that they’ll create “aha” moments and positive momentum as we head into 2022. All you need are a few distraction-free minutes (as little as 10 should do the job) and a pen and paper. (Yes, you can use your computer if you want, but you'll get the most out of this exercise if you write your answers out by hand.)

Image by Alexandra_Koch from Pixabay

1. What Did You Learn About Your Leadership in 2021?

If there’s one thing we can say about the past couple of years, it’s that they’ve put us to the test. What have you observed about yourself amid the challenges of 2021?

2. What Did You Learn from Other Leaders?

You can learn a lot about the kind of leader you want to be — and the kind you don’t want to be — from the other leaders around you.

3. What Do You Want to Take Forward Into 2022?

Want to know a surprisingly common mistake that many high-performing leaders make? They don’t pause often enough to notice the results they’re creating and how they create those results. When you understand how you accomplish what you do, you can put your own personal best practices into play more deliberately — and help others leverage them. What were your wins in 2021? How did you make them happen? And how can you use those same strategies to achieve your 2022 goals?

4. What Do You Want to Leave Behind?

The end of the year is a good time to think about any setbacks, mistakes, conflicts or big changes that you find yourself dwelling on. Sometimes we can stay stuck in frustration even as we push ourselves to move forward and be more resilient. But resilience doesn’t mean simply powering through. Instead, it requires delving into our thoughts and feelings and taking a look at successes and failures – so we can learn from them and make different choices. My article “Why Can’t I Get Over This?” has some strategies you can use to get past any stumbling blocks you want to leave in 2021.

Planning for Next Year?

As the year winds down, arm yourself and your team with easy-to-use, high impact tools. If you haven’t already, check out the New Lens® app to start getting results immediately without breaking the budget.

This is my last blog article of 2021, and I want to thank all of you for reading this year. I’ll be back in the new year with more resources to help you accomplish what’s important to you.