Why focus on wellness when you want career confidence

Yesterday I talked about how it is important to get the foundations right when you want to balance work and life with confidence. Whether your ‘work’ is your career, your business or the work you do in the home.

For me, the core foundations of confidence and work-life balance are Contribution (valuing you for who you are and what is unique about you) and Wellness (your mental, physical and emotional strength).

Today I want you to explore your own Wellness. You might be wondering “Why focus on wellness when it’s career confidence I’m after”. 

I had an email recently from a law firm business services manager who’s interested in my Confident Leadership programme. However it’s almost impossible to pin her down to a specific date and time to have a conversation. She is covering two roles at the same time; she’s feeling pressure from management; she manages a remote team of 20 workers; is trying hard to focus on her core role as well develop her coaching & leadership skills.

In fact her workload is SO intense and she’s working such long hours that she took time off ‘sick’ just to catch up on sleep! No wonder we’re finding it hard to book time to talk.

But which comes first? The work-life balance? The confidence to say “No” or “Stop”?

To me, it’s obvious that one of the key elements to get the work-life balance that works for you is to look after your wellness.

Wellness is not just your physical health. It’s your mental and emotional health too. It’s hard to have the confidence to ask for what you want or be who you want to be, if you’re not confident in your mind and body. You need mental, physical and emotional strength to go and do what you want to do in the world.

Your wellness is about what you eat, what you drink, how you sleep, how active you are, how you deal with overwhelm, ditching the guilt, your strategies to cope with stress, your self-belief, your mindset, your resilience …

And it makes sense doesn’t it? If you are not feeling strong – physically, mentally and emotionally – how do you find the confidence to do what you really want. To be who you really want to be.

Taking care of your own wellness is not selfish. It’s self-care. It’s about respect for you, your body and your mind. And when we become parents, it’s very much about modelling the behaviour that we’d like to see in our own children too.

When you look after your wellness, you have more energy. You are more creative. You make better decisions. You cope with stress and crises more easily. You have more fun. More resilience. More leadership. More confidence. Simples, really.

Take 10 minutes today and ask yourself three simple questions:

1. What’s the most important thing for me to focus on for my own wellness?
2. What am I not doing to look after my own wellness? 
3. What can I start doing to look after my own wellness? 

Maybe you want to get more active, take time to yourself more often, eat more healthily or find ways to cope with menopause in the workplace. Whatever you want to focus on, you’ll love the speakers in The Confident Mother online conference. In particular Vicky Warr – The Beez Kneez, Mel Noakes – The Self Care Coach, Rebecca Hirst – founder of Glorious Wellness, or Julie Dennis – The Menopause Coach.

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Do leave a comment below about what you can do to look after your own wellness so that you balance work and life with more confidence.

p.s. if you like the sound of my amazing speaker line-up, register here to get access to the online conference which runs from 16-27 January (it’s free too)