Integral Assessment & Plan

Introduction
Health and wellness professionals need to develop psychologically, spiritually, and physically (mind, spirit, and body) for various reasons. Pursuing integral health will increase our effectiveness with clients. Psychological and spiritual health helps us to remain open, objective, caring, and patient with clients. Our physical health keeps us alert and energized. Perfection might not be achieved but we need to constantly journey towards integral health. In doing so, we grow closer to flourishing and we inspire our clients to the same end.

I need to develop myself in all three areas of health in order to achieve my personal and professional goals. For example, one of my goals is to work as a group fitness instructor (and I am very close to achieving that goal). In order to be an effective instructor, I need to continue to increase my level of fitness (physical); remove mental obstacles that might prevent me from receiving constructive feedback (psychological); and get more connected spiritually so that I can connect with class participants in a loving manner (spiritual).

Assessment
After assessing my health in each domain, on a scale of one to ten, I give my spiritual, physical, and psychological wellness a score of six. If I were to take a test, I think I might score a little higher but I’d rather need too much development than too little. I do not have any major issues in any areas; my biggest problem is consistently practicing good habits.

Goal development:
Physical: Get 7-8 hrs of sleep a day. As an adult, I have always struggled with getting enough sleep; I stay up late even when I have to rise early in the morning. It keeps me sluggish mentally, physically and spiritually.

Psychological: Daily contemplative practice. The calm abiding and subtle mind exercises quiet my mind, reduce my stress, and help me to think objectively. My goal is to make them a part of my daily routine. Right no, I’ve been sporadic in my practice.

Spiritual: Attend church regularly (every Sunday). I used to go to church every Sunday and sometimes even attend two services (we had three at the time). Our pastor at that time took a position at another church (in a different part of the country) and since then, my attendance has been spotty. I do go once a month and to some special events, but that is because I sing in a choir.

Practices for Personal Health

Physical:

Establish a daily workout routine. Morning workouts are my favorite; I feel energized for the day. Meeting my goal of obtaining 7-8 hrs of sleep a day will help me to meet this goal. At the beginning of each week, I will set a schedule. I like variety so the schedule will not just include a time-frame but also the workout that I will do that day.

Get out of bed when I wake up; I typically wake up naturally every morning between 5:00 am and 6:00 am but just I go back to sleep. However, the earlier in the morning I wake up, the earlier in the evening I become sleepy and hopefully this will force me to go to bed early enough to reach my goal of 7-8 hrs of sleep a night.

Psychological:

Loving-kindness exercise. Preferably, in the morning before my workout.

Calm abiding exercise. I will do this exercise in the morning, after the loving-kindness exercise.

Spiritual:

Daily bible reading. I’ve tried this so many times before but I always fall off. I will select a bible reading program (i.e. read the bible in a year) and commit to following through.

Daily prayer. Praying directly after the contemplative exercises is amazing (I did that once during this session). It’s something I want to make a habit of doing.

Commitment:
I was recently hired as a group fitness instructor at the local YMCA. Two of the classes I teach will be in the morning from 6:00 am to 7:00am. In order to meet that schedule successfully, I will need to achieve my goal of getting 7-8 hrs of sleep a day. On the days I don’t have class, my plan is to do my personal workout. If I don’t have time to do my contemplative practice, bible reading and prayer before my workouts, I will definitely have time afterwards (my work day starts at 9:00 am). So I think this new job will help me to be successful in reaching all of the goals I have set for myself. I will do another integral assessment in six month to gauge the progress of my development.