About This Product
Making Healthy Choices is a complete wellness
course. Its six (6) Videos and corresponding Skill Building
Guides address these topics: healthy lifestyle, eating, exercise,
stress management, personal relationships and change.
The Making Healthy Choices sessions can be used separately
or as a series to help you adopt positive and lasting changes
for life.
Healthy Change Video
While watching the Healthy Change Video you
will learn that wellness means change - in fact, wellness
requires change. You can build on the solid foundation of
wellness to take charge of change in your life. Wellness is
only a slice of life - not the whole pie. Wellness must be
viewed from the wider perspective of life and not just the
narrower perspective of health and fitness. You can take charge
of the change in your life by setting goals wisely, making
your progress measurable, building rewards into the process,
enlisting important people to support you along the way, and
taking personal responsibility for the entire process. By
completing the Skill Building Guide you will explore your
spiritual motivators and your reasons for making change; examine
how you fit into the lives of others around you and how they
fit into yours; learn how to find meaning in your life; and
identify specific changes you want ot make in your life.
Highlights of Healthy Change
Of course wellness can’t make us perfect.
But it can help us become healthier in body, mind, and spirit.
The key is to focus on the whole person, not just one narrow
aspect of health. In order to take the first step toward wellness,
it’s important to ask ourselves one simple question:
“Why?”
Why be well? The point of being well is to be
helpful and make a positive difference. Life’s central
purpose is different for all of us, and comes from our own
heart and our own context. But one thing we all share is that
we can’t be well just by taking care of ourselves.
The issue of meaning is vital. We need to have
a sense of direction. Our activities need to be infused with
a sense of purpose and a sense of meaning.
Setting wellness goals: It’s crucial to
have a sense of purpose. Still, wellness also has to be practical,
and that means setting goals and making plans to reach those
goals. To set meaningful goals, we should consider the different
components of wellness, assessing our life in many areas,
including how we exercise, our eating style, how we handle
stress, and how we nurture relationships.
Regardless of where we are on the wellness scale,
we can learn how to make healthy choices that can change our
life for the better. It can be hard to make lasting changes,
but many health professionals believe that we can trust our
own internal wisdom. We should ask the right questions, then
listen to our own answers!
Pushed by pain, pulled by purpose: There is
no single right way to make changes in our life. But sometimes
it can help to see how others have been able to make changes
successfully in their lives. One way that people make changes—often
unwillingly—is when they face a crisis in their lives.
We call this being pushed by pain.
We hear people talking about their painful “teachable
moments” that become turning points in their lives.
One man finally faced his own drinking problem when he saw
his son repeating his mistakes. A doctor quit smoking so he
could finally “practice what he preached.” The
death of a young man’s sister opened his eyes to the
world of literature and music.
We don’t have to wait for a crisis in
order to make healthy changes in our lives. People often change
because of a positive goal or purpose that gives them the
motivation they need to succeed. We call this being pulled
by purpose. That purpose can come from a variety of sources
from volunteering for a cause, from our own spiritual values,
or from our families. Where we find our purpose isn’t
important—what’s important is to seek the purpose
that can power our healthy changes.
Plan for success: Even when we’ve found
the motivation to change—whether we’re pushed
by pain or pulled by purpose—making lasting change can
be difficult. That’s why it’s so important to
have a plan. The following steps can help.
- Set limited goals. Most people can make only
one or two changes at a time.
- Create a contract for change. Write one long-term goal
with a deadline, and break it into several steps that can
be expressed as short-term goals.
- Keep track of your progress. Design a chart or graph so
you can watch the change taking place.
- Get support for yourself. Share your goals with a friend
and ask for encouragement.
Above all, remember that wellness does not have
to mean perfection. Well people try to balance the needs in
all the areas of their lives—but they also realize that
perfect balance is never possible. It’s also important
to know when to accept a less than perfect life.
Focus on your deepest needs: Trying to make
healthy choices in all areas of our lives can be time-consuming
and exhausting. Remember that one very important aspect of
wellness is taking the time to discover your deepest needs
and meet them.
Using your natural wellness skills: Finally,
many experts feel that we already have wellness skills within
ourselves and simply need to develop them. Wellness skills
are natural abilities that we can develop through practice.
Abilities such as breathing, relaxation, and meditation are
activities we can utilize to increase our well-being.
Too many people look to external cues when they
want to clarify their own values. While it’s important
to get opinions and ideas from outside sources, often we ignore
our own internal messages. Guided imagery is one way to get
back in touch with those internal values.
Center yourself: Making change can be scary.
It’s important to set goals and imagine what success
will be like. But before you begin, take the time to relax
and center yourself. Think about what you really want—not
just in one specific area of your life, but as a whole person.
That’s the first step toward reaching your lifetime
wellness goals!
Healthy Change Skill Building Guide
The Healthy Change 14 page skill building guide
is included with this video to help your audience assess their
options and plan for change. Your purchase entitles you to
reproduce the worksheets that appear in the guide for your
educational activities. Specific written permission is required
from the publisher for reproduction of the material in any
other publication.
Making Healthy Choices Leader Guide
Describes and summarizes the Making Healthy
Choices Video series. Guide for offering series. Additional
suggestions for augmenting course. Leader's Guide is 14 pages
in length. It refers to the contents of all six videos and
how to best use them. No charge with any purchase from Healthy
Choices series.
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