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DO Masterclass Minutes: A summary of the insights and learnings from each class.

Topic: Work & Wellness – Optimize your Life

Expert Speaker: Alex Loh, Co-Founder & CEO of Actxa Wellness

This is going to be shorter than the other articles in the DO Masterclass Minutes series as it was a very interactive session with more application-based learning as compared to theory.

So, without further ado, let’s get into a (summarized) recap of what we learnt in the class.

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Work & Wellness.  

Optimizing Your Life.  

What do you immediately imagine when you read this?

Is it working from 9am-6pm and then going to the gym after?

Is it taking walks during your working hours?

Is it taking a holiday every few weeks? Or planning a longer one once a year?

Is it going for a spa day every month and having a “me” day?

Whatever you may have thought of, is probably the right way.  

The question,” How do you optimize your work and wellness life?” has no right answer. It just has an answer that works well for you.  

And keep in mind that this answer can change as life changes around you.  

Work & Wellness go hand in hand. We all assume that both these phrases work in tandem. But what we don’t realize is exactly how much work goes into making work & wellness balance each other and how it is an added effort to optimize your life in the long run.  

Alex started the session by asking us how we were feeling. From being exhausted and burnt out, to being happy and eager for the weekend, many answers covered the screen. From this, he went onto explain to us how our feelings lead to our wellness and vice versa.  

However, it was necessary to make the differentiation clear between wellness vs wellbeing. Sounds pretty similar, right?
But it’s actually so much more than that.  

Wellness
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This is the quality of being healthy and feeling well.

Wellbeing

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This is the complete amalgamation of activities that upgrade your wellness in general.  

Overall wellbeing is also to be categorized into 9 pillars, according to Alex.  

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1. Social
2. Emotional
3. Physical
4. Intellectual
5. Mental
6. Spiritual
7. Environmental
8. Financial
9. Career

To understand your wellbeing, you then need to look at the kind of activities that bring you joy. Are they leisure, physical, nutritional, social, or a mixture of them?  

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Some examples of these activities:  

Leisure: Sightseeing, going out

Physical: Working out, cycling, dancing

Nutritional: Eating king-sized meals, drinking coffee

Social: Meeting friends, spending time with your partner

After your activities are clear, you must match them to the wellbeing pillars that they fulfil. After which, you should check if all 9 pillars are matched with the 5 activities. If not, you know which pillars you need to work more towards.  

For instance, these are the top 5 activities that bring me joy:

1. Meditation
2. Singing
3. Going out with my partner/friends
4. Watching movies/Reading books
5. Cooking new recipes

After analyzing the answers, I can tell that most of my pillars are matched, however, I should focus more on fulfilling my environmental and financial well-being. To make a change, I need to amend my top 5 activities (instead of always adding more) in ways that can fulfil all the categories. For instance, I could go out with friends for a picnic but take homecooked meals to save money (financial) whilst cooking with ugly foods to be more frugal and sustainable (environmental).  

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This then gives rise to another major concept that helps in balancing one’s work & wellness:

Your Wellness Bucket

This concept, quite literally, mimics a bucket and makes comparisons between water and wellness.  

1. Bucket = Wellness Bucket ‍
2. Rain = Wellness activities ‍
3. Normal temperature/No rain = No Wellness activities = Stagnancy ‍
4. Problems/Stress = Holes in the bucket = Drainage (Not as resilient)

To maintain long term wellness and wellbeing, we must keep adding onto the bucket. Furthermore, to understand our previous wellness activities better, we must dive deeper into understanding why these activities bring us joy. Let's take my top 3 activities, for example.  

1. Meditating: This calms me down and helps me manage my anxiety better, leading to overall happiness.‍
2. Singing: This makes me happy because I get to practice my art and improve my skills.‍
3. Meeting my partner/friends: This makes me feel trusted and cared for and I enjoy laughing with them.  

On the other hand, you must also have a contingency plan in place, in case your wellness activities are not always doable. For example, one of your top wellness activities are “Travelling to a beachy location.” As nice as this sounds, it may not be possible to travel to a beachy location frequently for many people. To tackle this difficulty, you must answer 2 questions:

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1. Why does this activity add to my wellness? Does it actually add value?
2. Can I find an alternative for it?  

Chances are, if you think hard enough, you will get the answer to both.  

A potential solution for this activity could be:

1. I actually don’t find this activity adding as much value as others, so I will focus on other activities instead.
2. I actually really think travelling to beachy locations is a major part of my wellbeing so I will stick to it. But since I cannot do that more than 1-2 times a year, I will find an alternative and go to my local beach every 2-3 weeks as a contingency.  

There is a lot more to cover in wellness and wellbeing, however, remember the basics:

1. Know your wellness levels
2. Always try to keep improving them
3. Use your own scale to calculate your wellbeing
4. Don’t compare your wellbeing activities/levels to others – Everyone's got their own scale!
5. Be regular, prioritize, and schedule
6. Keep practicing and forge good habits

And that’s it for this Masterclass!
Stay tuned for the next one, folks!

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About the Expert: Alex is the co-founder and CEO of Actxa Wellness, a company that focuses on creating and delivering employee wellness solutions. He hopes to help and coach people from all walks of life. With his company, he hopes to help other organizations work on their fitness, wellness, and overall health to become a more successful and sustainable versions of themselves.  

‍Upcoming DO Masterclass: Increase your Rates 10x as a Freelancer

Expert: Travis Bennett, COO of Doerscircle

Date: 6^th April 2023

Time: 4 PM SGT (Singapore Time)  

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P.S. This is a premium-only masterclass, so go upgrade your account quickly and join us!

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