Well here we are, we have arrived at the business end of our SCS Wellness program and we have called it ” DETERMINED WAYS ”
Brad and I have worked on it tirelessly and have spent many hours brainstorming ideas and our own life experiences, coupled with tons of scientific research to do with how the brain works and what actually creates a feeling of wellness and well being within the human psyche to come up with a program that is unique and hopefully well worth the time effort and money to SCS as a business.
The letters in the words DETERMINED WAYS are acronyms for some of the strategies I will be teaching. Diet, Exercise, Teaming up, Expression, Research, Mindfulness, Imagining, Neuroplasticity, Effort, Willpower, Action, Your true value, Self awareness. Within each of those strategies are sub strategies like Intention, Integrity, Expectations, Effective communication, Body language, Assertiveness, Gratitude, Accepting change, Beliefs, Confirmation Bias, Self justification, Relapse, Cognitive dissonance, Self limiting beliefs, Concentration, Our internal toolbox, Curiosity, Comfort zone.
This is all knowledge that once it is known can help to create value in making self directing choices towards creating a more successful and rewarding life. Any individuals life can be changed when they have the knowledge and tools to be able to make informed choices to create a better future for themselves.
Taking responsibility for ones own life and the outcome of it is a positive change and understanding that wellness and well being are achievable when one has the knowledge of how to use their own tools within their internal toolbox to help them implement or begin that change.
Of course we can not force people to change or even to attend the Wellness program. It is their choice and of course if any individual ever wants to change the first thing they need is a deep desire to do so. The feedback I have had from those who have started the Determined Ways program is that they are definitely learning something new, one comment being “I have never in my whole life ever thought about any of these concepts but learning it is making me think” I like that thoughts are always the seeds that can lead to something new and exciting in ones life and I guess in some ways that is what we are doing and that is sowing seeds within peoples minds and it us up to them what they do with it.
From my own personal view, teaching all this knowledge is reinforcing the behaviour in myself as while Brad and I were creating the program when I learned a new concept I tried it on myself to see what the results were and if there were any and what we have come up with within the program has worked for me in my own life. I personally embraced one of our strategies to change, the new age concept of Mindfulness in my own life 6 or 7 years ago and it has become something I do on a daily basis.
One of these concepts being that when my thoughts or emotions and feelings are bothering me I bring my mind into the present moment and force myself to experience my 5 senses in that moment. What can I see, what can I hear, what can I smell, what can I physically feel, what can I taste. I then focus on things I can be grateful for in my life. Gratitude is a powerful tool to use within the concepts of Wellness. The habit of doing this takes me away from any unsettling thoughts or feelings I am having and forces my mind to behave like I tell it to and so I am not controlled by any thoughts or feelings that I do not wish to have. I have a choice as to what I want to think and feel in any given moment and I have the power to change how I feel or think by implementing any of the strategies within our Determined Ways program.
One of the things that I teach people is that we all have a choice, that often we don’t have power over the situation we find ourselves in but we always have power over how we react or respond to that situation and the easiest way to do that is sort out the things we can not change versus the things we can change and focus all of our energy on the things that we do have power over to change. So we direct all of our thoughts and feelings towards implementing the change over what we are thinking and feeling.
I personally do not have any power over someone’s attitude towards me but I do have power over my response towards them. It is my choice to stay calm and centered within myself and not react to what their opinions, beliefs or actions towards me may be. When I do that I am not allowing them to control my emotions or thoughts, I am in total control because I am focusing on what I have power over and control within myself.
The end result of our program will be that the students will have become more Self Aware and hopefully understand that when we want to change something in our lives we need to move from our inner Comfort Zone of how we usually think, feel and behave into that realm of feeling uncomfortable and to embrace that uncomfortable feeling as being a great thing because it is then that we can begin to implement change in our lives and begin to evolve on a journey of becoming the best possible version of ourselves that we could possibly be.
So we take great satisfaction in being able to offer a program of Wellness and Well being for our staff that may teach them to be more balanced and more self aware, that will hopefully create a happier and more satisfying life which will in turn create a much happier and balanced work environment for all concerned as staff learn to deal with not only work issues that can affect their work performance but help them deal with issues that may arise for them in their personal lives away from work. When we have happier more balanced people within our society in general it makes life a lot more pleasant for all of us. It is also said that when a business invests in training its staff, that in the long run, though it may cost to do the training, the investment is well worth the return.
Thankyou for your time and effort in reading this post and I look forward to updating you all again as to our progress within the Determined Ways Wellness Program.
Graeme Noone
