Flash Media 70.4 MB (1:01:44) View Text Download File
View Text
Hello and welcome everyone. My name is Dr. Donna Thomas and I am your presenter. And our topic is on healthy choices. The science of work life balance such a timely topic and such a challenging time, but we are going to get through it. So just to give you a little background about myself, my again, my name is Dr. Donna Thomas and my background is in health and wellness. My master's degree is in community health, and I have been working in the healthcare field for over, you know, three decades. So I enjoy the work that I do, especially where it concerns, you know, overall wellness and also working in the workplace. I've held various capacity jobs in terms of being, you know, a frontline staff in the healthcare field and also a supervisor director of programs and so on. So this, this is just really my passion to be able to talk about work life balance.
And a fact about me is that I'm also a certified fitness trainer and personal trainer, because I believe in being able to show people, not just tell people, but show people how to live a healthier life. Okay. So that's about me in terms of our housekeeping, the way the webinar is set up, you can see the chat, what you write into the chat, but you will not be able to see what other people write in the chat, unless it's something to me, to you directly that I'm giving you. So what we are going to do so that we can make sure that this is an interactive session, is that I will read what I see in the chat, but I will keep your name confidential. So rest assure that name will not be revealed. Again, when we go over an activity or, and ask a question, you'll go ahead and put it there in the chat.
And so we had that interaction interactive session. I will just read it out to people because you just never know something that you say there in the chat may actually help someone out. Okay. So that's our housekeeping. And again, I welcome you all here. This is sponsored by beacon and this is our EAP. So let me just go through our learning points. So the takeaway is for us to actually gain something from this webinar today. So I would love for you to take notes. So even after this session, oh, you'll be able to review your notes and go through the points and implement many things that we have discussed here today. So in terms of the learning points, we will go over the impact and the influences of our work life balance. You know, no matter what you are doing in, in terms of your, your life, sometimes it becomes a challenge, but we really want to look at it and evaluate how we can look at this a little bit better and things that we can actually improve.
Right? So look at the impact and the influences explore the five bucket principle of work life balance. So if you haven't heard about it, you're in for a treat today because I'm going to go through the five buckets of life and, and just show you what that's all about. That we're going to discuss the elements necessary to make sure we're feeling these five foot in our life and how we can look at it. Because so this will really cause you to really evaluate your life where you're putting your time, your effort, your energies, what's working, what's not working and how you can, you know, make those changes. So we could really determine what action steps you need to do to improve, improve your work life balance. Okay. So that's be, you know, basically what that's all about. So when you think about work life balance, I want you to tell me in the chat, what does that mean to you when you think about work life, what immediately, what comes to mind? Go ahead and put that there in the chat love to hear from everyone work life balance. So when we're working, we know what it is to get up, you know, go to work and involve ourself there. But what does it mean to have balance in life? What, what does that actually mean to you? So go ahead and tell me there in the chat.
Yes. Just being able to balance out fun self care, right? Those type of things are important for us to take a look at. Absolutely. Absolutely. So maybe more things will come out, you know, as we go through each one. So in terms of work life balance, when we talk about before the pandemic begun and we know we're into year three now we were already, many people were stretch thin. I know that I was, you know, just between actual work and the many things that I did do during that time and then trying to balance out life and then put the extracurricular and the community involvement that I was, it was a, you know, definitely a challenge. So, you know, going through to quarantine and having to, you know, go through the, the whole shutdown and it just really made me think, wow, what I was spending my time on.
So it really helped me to evaluate things that I wanted to keep in my life and what I wanted to change. So again, use this as an opportunity to be reflective of your life. So we regularly, it worked, you know, overtime, meaning extra time that was put out there, you know, including some nights and some weekend, some early morning, you know what I'm talking about? If this is you, you could you know, go ahead and put that there in the chat, that will be our again, our way to discuss. So were you doing all those extra things? Are you still doing these for things? Okay. So that might be an area that you want to take a look at today in terms of making a change. 26% of our work was being done outside of our regular work hours. So if you were a nine to five, I'll give an example.
And then when you got home, maybe you worked another hour or two, or maybe you got up early in the morning and you were doing extra work or maybe taking extra phone calls or working on a report from home just to try to stay afloat. You know, so again, this session is to really look at how you can balance things out a little bit more equally now in terms of our primary job, we used to spend 43% of our day in our primary work duties that we had to do. Listen, we spend the bulk of our, our wait time at our job. So now don't, we want that to be place that would be conducive to us doing what we had to do, but not stressing ourselves. Also, even when we, we get off, we are able to indulge in things that we do enjoy.
We average just under three hours of productive time per work day. Isn't that something. So what does that tell us? What does that of tell us if we averaged us under three hours, especially if it's a full-time job and you are working like eight hours a time, that means that there must be distractions or there might, might be some issues with time management there. So again, because we're so busy with our expectations and our job and our response, we may not be focused as much as we could be focused on looking at how productive we are and what we're actually getting done during the Workday. Okay. But I really want you to take this time during the session to evaluate that again. So you can make some areas of improvement. Now, we also had 23% of the us work, this feeling burnt out at work very often, you know, or always, I know that definitely during that time I crashed and burned, you know, because being a, a person that was working in the healthcare industry, servicing people, you know, you always want to do the best by people, but we were spending a lot time doing our, our job and just trying to keep people healthy.
And then once we got into the, the global pandemic, you know, we were worried about getting COVID or people who had COVID and how we can just help people to survive. So again, it's, you know, it's a very, very challenging time that it was, and we're still the challenging time. It just looks and feels a little bit different, but you know, there's things that we can do about it. So when we talk about worklife balance now, as it's we talk about like a post pandemic worklife balance now, what does that look like? It's been tested and kind of redefined and reworked over and over again. So now we're doing our work a little bit differently. I could say for sure that, you know, I'm doing work differently, things that we used to do in person being hands on with people and, and so on.
So now much of it is what we can do. We do certain things hands on, but there's others that we've had to learn how to use technology that we never used before in this virtual space to still deliver the type of care and services that we used to do. And so again, we're working differently, we've been dealing with clients pay customers, right? So it's a lot of things, your coworkers, your colleagues family members, neighbors there's so many people who are already stressed because of the uncertainty that is going on. So we, we don't know what's happening from moment to moment, you know, day to day. So there's a lot of challenges with that. Some of us worked in our existing jobs as it was as per usual. Some people didn't have the option to, you know, work from home or to work virtually or, you know, go to another location, which some people were able to do, but some people were not able to do.
And then you had to look at different policies and procedures that went along with that, you know, looking at safety and security, where all that's concerned, if there's anything that you feel that has kind of changed. And you've had to kind of work on, go ahead and put that there in the chat. What has that changed, invoked in you in terms of your work life balance? You know, we've seen others working from home caring for kids, you know, whether they're young kids or kids that had had to now log on and stay on and actually learn because they had to go to school, you know, and so on. And then, you know, you had to find a space for you to do your work and concentrate on the children. And if you had you know, pets, those they're expecting, oh wow, you're, you know, they're home.
And then additional noises when you might have normally had, you know, a quiet workspace. So all those things, all these different possible interruptions were there. There were blurred lines between working from home and, and work life balance. So it became, you know, very fuzzy and it still may be fuzzy, you know, for certain people. But we've had to, you know, take a look at that. And then we've had people that have gotten sick. We've had people, you know, pass away. We of people lose their jobs, resign from jobs. There's been a lot of change over these past three years. However, we know that the majority of people that we surveyed said that they would like the option to be able to work from home remotely, at least some of the time, you know, being going forward. Some people have that option.
Some people did not, but you know, just taking a look at those statistics. So when we think about 2020, can you believe it how fast the time has gone? 54% of the people survey said that their mental health has increased you know, mental health concerns that have gone on, you know, not being able to socialize or going out, like you had to being, you know, concerned about people being sick or getting sick or, you know, school. So it it's a real thing. And the stigma that's attached to mental health may have really affected people's ability to, or desire to want to even go out, to get any type of help for their mental health. So here, as you can see, assistant the Gallo was one of the best things that a company employees can do is to prioritize your wellbeing. Can anybody also relate to that?
How have you actually made your health and your wellbeing a priority during this pandemic? You know whereas maybe before you didn't, so now are you taking time to go and stretch or to be a part of a yoga class or doing guided meditation or going for a walk, just taking a break, you know, has anybody experienced any of those situations where you are actually taking better care of yourself, maybe you're eating differently no more. Looking at overall, maybe taking a look at your, your career, your social background the financial aspects of it budgeting more, maybe looking at retirement, retirement funding, you know, so again, it, it gave us an opportunity to really look at how we could do things a little bit differently. Maybe you're doing more things within your community, your neighborhood, again, you know thinking about our health and wellbeing has really know, taking a opportunity for us to look at how we can do things a little bit differently. So go ahead and let me know there in, in the chat, if anything has kind of resonated with you and things that you're doing here, just let me know. They're in the chat.
So if this is a new concept for you, I will go through it. If it's a not new to you, it'll be a nice review. So these are the five buckets. So when we think about five buckets, as we are living life, we want to make sure that we're putting something in it equally. And maybe that hasn't been the case. Maybe we're putting items in one, one bucket more than a, another bucket. So ideally what we would like to do is put in each bucket, 80% of our time, our effort and our energy putting a hundred percent in each bucket, really isn't a reality, but we want to at least work towards getting 80% full each one of these buckets. So we don't want to be perfect. We're not perfect people. You know, we're all human things happen, but we want to try to look at each one of those buckets.
So each one of these buckets, family and friends work community giving back financial and health, really each one of these buckets needs your attention. So let today be a day that we will go through each item and where you're seeing that maybe one bucket you're putting in 20%, you need to try to get it up to that 80%, but we're going to go through each bucket. You know, maybe one of these buckets, let me see. Well, I would say the buckets that I probably give the least in here one, well, maybe community and giving back. I do that through an organization that I'm a part of, but I would say family and friends before the pandemic, I wasn't giving as much in that bucket as possible. And one thing I realized is just reaching out to family and friends and having, you know, a couple of relatives, you know, pass away either COVID related or non COVID related issues.
Really let me take stock in how I'm spending my time with my family and friends, which that, you know, was very important is that I was spending a lot of time on my nuclear family. And then, you know outside of that, maybe no, not as much. So I made it my business to spend a little bit more time in that family, in friend's bucket, by reaching out, making phone calls to people, especially some of my older relatives that were living at home or living in some type of assist, assisted living conditions. So I made it my business to make sure that I made a phone call or we would do some type of FaceTime or just talking to them and, you know, just taking for granted, people would still be there, but you know, people getting sick and dying really just kind of put things in perspective.
So that's just a personal example of how we could put more time into personal buckets here. So just be reflective and see where you could be spending a little bit more time, you know, and how do we get all this done? How do we, we put 80% in all of these buckets. Of course, yes, we do know that it is a, a challenge, right? But it's about having a plan, effective time management and getting the support you need when you need those supports. So again, looking at your time, looking at your energy and empowering yourself and the other people around you, and just make sure that you're evaluating your goals, that you set up the realistic goals that you set up to do each one of these. Okay. So let's take a look one by one of these buckets. So we're going to start out with family and friends.
Okay. So what does that mean to you? When we talk about dealing with family and friends, we should look at quality versus the quantity of time. You know, we're all busy people and we may not have necessarily, you know, a lot of time to spend with people. But like I said, that's one thing that I realized I was not spending a lot of time. Like I should be and taking a lot of things for granted. So, you know, just going over, you know, to someone's house or checking in with them and seeing what they, they knew, sometimes people just need social time with you as well, especially if they're not getting out as much, or they're feeling socially isolated because of the global pandemic. A lot of that is going on. And as we said earlier, it's affecting the mental health of people who may not be getting out and may be affecting your mental health, my mental health.
So we got to take a look at, at how we're spending our time with people. And remember the quality of the time that we spend is important. It may be just doing puzzles together or singing songs together, baking, cooking together, you know, so we have to take a look at that. You know, being very selective about the way we want to spend now time. And who's going to be taking up the our time, right when to listen and when not to listen, right when to give advice. And when not to give advice, sometimes people just want to vent. They just want to be hurt. Sometimes you may just want to be hurt and you just want to make sure that you're balancing things out here. And when it's a, as setting boundaries, we are talking about setting up healthy boundaries where you're not getting taken advantage of, but your mental health is being preserved.
So again, that's you taking stock inventory of the people that are in your life and the time that you're spending with them, are they, you know, always taking, taking, taking, and then not giving okay. Or vice versa, you know? So again, setting those healthy boundaries up may mean that there's certain times that you may want to, you know, talk to people like my family knows, and my friends know that after nine o'clock is not to of time to call me, unless there's an emergency, because why that's the boundary I set up so that I can relax and get ready to go to sleep. Because sleep is such a very important part of us all being healthy. So that's just an example of setting up a, a healthy boundary or allowing people not to allow their negative to come on you because you know, it's going to affect you.
Now, of course, if people have, you know, some concerns, then they need to talk it out. That's one thing. But you have to really evaluate the people in your life and how they're actually, you know, spending that time. So if you do not spend physical time with them, you know that may cause anxiety. If you spend too much time, that may cause anxiety. So again, it's about you looking at the time that you're spending with people and how it's affecting you and what you need to do. So that is something that you need to think about. If those situations make you angry, upset, cause you know, some irritability or you feel agitated and that it's taken up your valuable time. So you may need to reevaluate how you're doing things. It's also okay for you to say no to family. Okay.
Sometimes we might give, give, give, and they take, take, take, and then we never think about how it's affecting us, but it's to our detriment and then it's okay, but you can respectfully decline and say no at this time, you know? So again, it depends on the situation. It, it depends on what you're trying to get outta up that situation. But you know, you happen to look at it because sometimes once that time is gone, you can't CA recapture that time that was taken up with you. So if there's a family member or friend, that's taken up space in your head and it's not being conducive to you being a productive individual, then you need to reevaluate that relationship and how you're going to interact with them. Right? So there are people who are addicted to negative negativity, you know, like they say, misery loves company.
So you have to look at that too. So look at that. You want to try to make sure, especially in this space that you're having, you know, or some feelings of, of happiness and you know, having those positive affirmations and looking at how grateful and thankful for that the light that you have and you want to keep things light. You want to keep things optimistic because after all, there's a, you know, there's a lot of challenges that are out there that, that are affecting those things. So if you can be in control of certain things that are, you know, close to you, as opposed to things that are outside of your control control, the things that you can and the things that you can't just control, the responses that you will have or the time that you'll put into those things. Okay. So let me know in the chat, if any of those things, you know, kind of resonates with you, if you are having, you know, individual that is venting, you know, research is shown like after seven minutes of people, either venting or talking and you have to really look at, are you, are we moving forward?
Are we being supportive of one another? But if people are saying too much or whining too much, then after that it is no longer therapeutic, you have to kind of look at a different strategy of how you are going to do it because it shows that if there's a lot of whining and you're not making any progress, it could have a detrimental effect on your physical as well as your, your emotional wellbeing. Okay. So in terms of friends, you've got to look at it. It basically the same way, things that we've gone over in terms of setting boundaries, knowing when to say no to, you know, certain things and it's tough, I'm not saying it's easy. You may have to practice a script and, and let people know what it is that you, you cannot and cannot do, but also your, the way you deliver it to them, right?
You don't want to be cur or short. You want to watch your tone and how you say things to people be O optimistic and say, at this time, I'm not able to do that, you know, and then do that. But you know, it's how you deliver it. People who are happy with you during the good times, but will coach you through the bad times. So again, you want to surround yourself with people who are, are going to be supportive of you supportive of your efforts and where you want to go and what you want to do with their life. And then, you know, vice versa as well, look to how to see how you can help that person out in their life, but be selective of your friends and how you want to, you know, you know, spend your time. All those things is so important. So go ahead and let me know if there's anything that you wish to add here. And I will make sure that we add that on as well.
Yeah. Just so let's just let me know. Okay. So in terms of that family and friends bucket, that's one area. So anything that I said that you feel that you can add to your action plan, areas of improvement, make sure that you, you put that down because even after this webinar is over, we want to make sure that you have a working document that you can use to, you know, make the changes that you need to use in your life. Now out, we have something called dig. That means darn I'm good. You know, so again, this is something positive for yourself. So at the end of the day, it will help you focus on what went right. And, you know, give yourself a pat on the back that you did do things well, and the things that you didn't do well. Oh, well, let's just try to learn from it and then, you know, be able to move on.
Okay. So now that we've talked about family and friends, let's talk about work. Remember you're at work more than anywhere else in life. So don't, you want that to be a positive, pleasant place, a place that you don't feel, you know, stressed out. Yes. So think about it that way. Think of areas where it could be more conducive to you wanting to be there and, and just, you know, having a positive attitude. So re, re reclaim your time, reframe your attitude and reframe the narrative that you tell yourself every day that you get up today is going to be a good day, you know, and how can I contribute to it being a good day? You know, it's all about our perspective, you know, so if you have a positive, optimistic attitude, when you walk in more than likely, that will do a, a, a good thing for you for that particular day.
And then when it works on that day, then you can work on the next day and then you can have a good day and a good week. So again, reframing your attitude is really important. Make a list of everything you like about work, you know? So what is it that you like to do about work? How do you contribute, maybe it's your report. You know, maybe it's the way you deal with your colleagues. Maybe you're innovative in putting together new projects, you know? So what is it that you feel that you can do? So ask yourself, what do I love about my job? You know, and if you can add that there in the chat, you can let me know as what you feel that you, you love about your job. I would love to hear that.
Yes. So what you love about your job, you know, write down the list of all the great things, because you may not even think about all those things collectively, but when you look back on, it will be a great thing for us to, you know, to do and getting back to that, make a darn good file. What are the good things that you know, that you're capable of doing? You know, and it's okay to pat yourself on the back and acknowledge the things that are good about yourself. Why not? You know, it's good to know what your attributes are. So remember positive people are 80% more productive than negative people. So again, what are you going to focus on at your job? So before you go home, give yourself a transition. I love to talk about these transitions because when you get up in the morning, you are transitioning from sleep, you're waking up, brushing your teeth, taking a shower, getting ready for work, you know, getting dressed, maybe having some breakfast or a cup of coffee.
If you have children, you're dealing with them. So there's a transition from sleep to preparing for work. And then when you're at work, you're doing what you need to do there, but it is very important to have a transitional decompression time between work and home. So, you know, whatever that is for you, some people like to transition by working out, you know, going to the gym, going for a run you know, speaking to people. So again, it's important for you to, to have that time. Some people I know I've heard them say, well, I just sit in the car and I listen to music, or I'm writing on the train on the bus and I'm listening to a song or I'm listening to a podcast. Okay. So that allows you to decompress, gather your thoughts so that you can go home and not, you know, take home with you.
Certain things that have happened during the, the day. You know, sometimes these easier said than done, but try to work on those times. So if you have some concerns, you can actually deal with it at work and not deal with the concerns or negativity that you may have going on at home. And it's the same way it works in the reverse too. If you have things that are going out at home, you don't want it also to affect your, your work life. So again, we're just raising the awareness so that we can have, you know, positive relationships in the different places that we go to during a day, which is work home. You know if there's any social or community service work that you do too. So we want to be great in every place that we go to where, you know, where possible and give an example of where you know, sometimes where it concerns us.
Like, we feel like we're our job, no matter what, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So remember the, the job is a portion of who you are, it's your job, it's what you do, but it's not fully who you are. There's many people here on the call that are, you know, parents, grandparents, you know aunt uncles you know, colleagues, you know, so there's so many other hats that you wear when you think about your, your whole day, you know you know, maybe you're a good friend to someone you know, maybe you're a kickboxer. So I'm, I'm just letting you know that it's not just your job that you're doing. That's not the only thing, but look at all aspects. So again, you can have that work life balance there as well. So go ahead and let me know there in the chat, if there's anything that kind of resonates with you and just remember at your job, just like in your personal life, where continually growing we're processing information, we're reading, we're doing our homework, we're doing research, right.
And we're thinking about that. The other thing that I want you to take a look at, which is a big item, is look at the interruptions and the things that may be coming between you and your work and being productive. So manage the interruptions and the time waster. So look at your time management. So are there ways that you could kind of streamline what's going on, maybe having more meetings, I'm just giving, you know, different examples. If you have other examples you can, you know, share them with me or are, are people coming in and interrupting you? Do you have an open door policy, or do you have set hours? Do you find yourself procrastinating perhaps maybe, you know, walking around and, and getting into other things and not staying focused on certain tasks or certain things that you need to do at home. So again, managing the, the interruptions and the time wasters, you know, time wasters could be on your behalf or maybe other people that are coming, you know, into your workspace, you know, so go ahead and let me know there, you know, about that.
So we are just talking about work interruptions and time wasters also work harder than you ever thought that you could before certain things are, are going on with people, no matter in the space that you're working in. So there's many great resources. If you want to take a look at the resources man search for meaning by Victor Frankel, this is something that if you want to take a look at it in terms of work again, the person's name is man Frankel. And that is search for the meaning, right, man search for meaning I Victor E Frankel. So when you take a look at work is where we spend the large part of our day, and if we can make the necessary changes, then we can make those changes in terms of community and giving back, are you doing any type of work?
Because it could be very a feeling when we help other people out, right? Such as outreach, you know, food banks, food pantries volunteering at a hospital or a community center, you know, this waste that we could do it and we could do it safely. Even during a global pandemic, we have one of the agencies that I'm connected with. We were able to collect eyeglasses, you know, for people that needed eyeglasses and collect shoes as well. But it's about keeping involved, keeping connected with your community, keeping connected with your neighborhood and being able to help out people. You know, this is another bucket that if you're not getting up quite up to that 80%, try to think of ways that you can actually give back and work in your community. So the beauty of giving and caring and it's what matters, you know, we all need to have some type of, you know, help there teaching your family members to get involved.
You know, especially the young children, teach them when they're young, that it's important to help their neighbor to help out in the community. You know, especially when we have these volunteer, you know, type days to, to be able to it back where they say, it's not a day off, but it's a day to give back in the community so they could think of other things outside of themselves. You know? So all these things are very important. So again, teaching family members to all get involved and it doesn't mean that you have to spend a lot of time. It could be five minutes here, a half a day there, 30 minutes doing what you can. And also you can also help online as well. So the world we actually live in is actually kind of small, it's big, but then it's small in terms of what we can actually do.
It's just really important for us to care, you know, look in and do your research on different communities and different organizations and see how your outreach could be. Maybe it's a personal passion you have because of, you know, a family, maybe, maybe there's a health, a component to how you would like to help different organizations where you are, maybe you want to work or help out on the local level, or maybe you want to help out on a global level. You know, maybe you want to do something with the earth, you know, so there's so many things for us to be able there it, because you know, we have such a sense of, you know, help and being grateful for other people in our, but this particular bucket community and giving back is often overlooked one. Or maybe if people think about it, they don't think about it until later it's almost like leftover, but think about, you know, really giving back within your community and helping.
Okay, so now the next bucket here is financial and this is a big one because there's been a lot of changes during this pandemic. You might have had to know rework your, your budget. Now we're going through inflation. We've had a lot of issues with the, the economy, the stock market the supply chain issues, the the lack of being able to get all supplies and having things readily available. So, you know, not having enough workers to, you know, either deliver the product or deal with the services. There's a lot going on here. So this is a big area. So if you are taking a look at it or if this is the area where you need improvement, make sure you're taking notes. So you need to set goals, no matter what area you are in your life, life setting up a budget, setting up goals.
What do you want to accomplish in the short term? Do you want to, you know, if you're a working person, do you want to save your goals? You want to make sure you get the necessities out first, like food and clothing and that type of thing. You want to set aside some time for, you know, recreation type of thing, but make sure that you're setting up goals, who's involved. Is it just for yourself? Is it one other person? Is it a family? How are, how is it being put together? So again, finances is the number one stresses of people in America. So does money make you happy for some people it does for some people it's not as important, you know, because some people who have a lot of money may not be the happiest people, right? So, you know, take a look, get that as well. But the reality is that we do need to have, you know, a certain amount of money so that we can live our life.
You know, basically, you know, we understand that. So when we look at our life and we think about, you know, saving and setting up a budget, reworking the budget, taking a look at it, you know, every week, how we're spending our money, look to see areas where we can cut back and maybe not spend as much. That's, what's very important. So, you know, reach out to get the type of help that you need to set up a budget, keep a budget. How about retirement planning? Has that been something that you have done or is this something you've been meaning to do? And what does that look like for you? Is it about having a savings plan, a, a bank account? Are you doing you know, IRAs or, you know, there's so many ways that you could think about retirement planning? What does that look like?
Do you want to travel? Do you want to move? Do you want to stay in the same house? How much income do you need to have that during that time? How, how much of your money is liquid? So these are all questions you have to take a look at when you're talking about the financial bucket and if you haven't done anything, now, it, you can always start now, you know, talk to a financial advisor, someone who's trusted that can help you out there. And then when it says meat versus gravy, meaning what is, what is it that you really need to take a look at the gravy's like all the extra stuff, but what are the bare necessities that you need to have in your financial portfolio? You know, definitely a savings for a rainy day for emergencies. I can't tell you how many people that I talked to, you know, during the pandemic that were grateful that they actually had an emergency fund, like, you know, hair stylist or, you know, people that are in the restaurant business.
So when we had that mandatory shutdown, two years ago, they had to go into their emergency funding to be able stay afloat. So, you know, think about that as well, how you're going to be prepared for the unexpected. You know, we don't think that certain things are going to happen, but they could, they could. So we have to have that, you know, that emergency fund, and if you're in debt, there are services and resources are out there to help you to get out of debt, you know, as well. And then you have to look at your family values, you know, how are we teaching the children in our life to manage their money and how to spend their money and you know, be able to, to move forward. So you have to take a look at that. And sometimes it may mean that you really need to have a sit down and have a family meeting or, you know, meeting with friends.
Whoever's a part of your, your circle of support and determine how you can of things financially. Maybe inherit certain spending habits that have been there as well, you know, look at generational wealth as it it's there. So again, looking at this bucket and trying to get it up to the 80%, write down what it is that you feel that you need to do to get it up to that 80% with that, everything that we've discussed thus far. And so now moving on to our last bucket, which is a big bucket, is the health bucket, are you at 80%? Do you feel that you're taking care of yourself? If not, where are the areas that you feel that you need improvements? So we member, we need to look at this holistically, actually, when we think about it, it's all forms of medicine. So whether it is, you know, the traditional Western medicine or alternative medicine holistic.
So look at the circle of support you have in terms of your health, the aspect of it, you know, going to a gym, having a, or having a trainer you're maybe accountability partner, if you have certain goals that you want to achieve with your health, you know, again, when you are, you could do certain things on your own, but if you feel that you need help in this area, don't be afraid or concern to ask for the help that you need, you know? And, and, and think about it. Are you getting enough exercise in the day where it helps you to feel good? Are you getting enough cardiovascular exercise where you're getting up and your, your, your heart is pumping, you know, raising the heart up in a healthy way. So whether it's walking or jogging, have you talked to your doctor about your disposition and have they given approval for you to engage in certain activities?
You know, it's very important for us to make sure that we're going for our, you know, preventative you know, medicine screenings and, and, and just taking a, a look at what it is that we're doing with ourselves. So your doctor can help you determine how much exercise is good for you. What's preventative screening, look at your family history. So in terms of family history, what are we talking about? Maybe cancer runs in your family or are you know, heart disease, you know, certain things. And so it's good to know what your risk is towards getting certain things doesn't mean that you're going to, it just means that it may put you at a higher risk, and it's important to share that information with your medical provider so that you can adapt your lifestyle accordingly to what you need. Right. So preventative screenings again.
So just as you would go have your blood pressure take, look at your cholesterol levels, look at, you know, diabetes like glucose levels. If you have a higher history for, you know, cancer they like to check you out, you know 10 years since the last person that was in your family that had cancer, but everyone is different. You have to again, go for those preventative screenings, GYN, you know, prostate cancer keeping a health journal is important too, because sometimes as we are living such busy lives, we may not stay on top of what it is that we need to do in terms of that. So, you know, talk about your, put a journal in, right in the journal. How are you feeling today? How there's certain things that work for you try to keep those things going, things that actually don't make you work.
So what does that mean? So when you went for a walk, did that make you feel good? You know, or are you looking at keeping a journal in terms of sleep, how much sleep you get in a night, and is there a direct correlation with you getting a good night's sleep and your ability to function the next day? Right? So you keep the help journal kind of helps you keep track of what's going on, you know, in your life and there. So it's important for you to keep that help journal, to know what your numbers are, your blood pressure, your cholesterol and, and so on. So going for your checkups again is very important. Your nutrition is very important. Talk to your primary care provider about your nutrition. If you feel on top of it. Great. If there's areas that are needed, ask them to refer you to the necessary medical personnel that can help you with that, you know, try to make sure you're eating lots to fresh fruits and vegetables, drinking water you know, proper nutrition and staring away from the things like, you know, the trans fats and not too much sugar and salt, everything in moderation and lean meats, you know, and beans, those kind of things just to keep a proper well-balanced is important.
Sleep is also very important and knowing how much sleep is important for you to feel good and to be able to function. So they say like the average person can get like seven to nine hours. You know, eight hours of sleep is good, but some people can function on much less or some people more, every one is different. So you have to look and see what is good for you and track it. There's trackers out there, you know you know, whether it's your, your watch that sync to your phone, I've been doing that as well. Just kind of monitoring my sleep, because again, there's a direct correlation to sleep. Sleep is important because it's healing, it's restorative. That's where, you know, we're recharging our batteries. Just like we recharge our devices such as your tablet and your phone. We have to recharge our own personal batteries by of getting a good night's sleep.
And then also balancing that out with stress management, you know, so what does that mean? Like they're doing yoga in this instance, that's a good way to release stress. Also guided meditation, relaxation. You know, they have music out there or maybe something as sick as doing deep breathing exercises that kind of helps us bring the, our heart rate down. You know? So all those things are important for us to engage in and they have certain apps out there called happier 10% happier, or the com app C a L m.com is out there as well up. So taking care of our overall health is something that could be done collectively with other people, helping you to do a better job. All those things are very important. So now when we think about investing in ourself, take a look at it. You know, whenever you've gotten on a plane, what is the first thing that they flight attend?
Tell us before we take off is when there may be an emergency oxygen, max are deployed. And so you want to put the oxygen mask on yourself first so that you can have the ability to help other people out. So that's the oxygen mask theory. So it starts with you and then you want to move on to your dreams, your hopes and your aspirations. That's investing yourself. So write down whatever your dreams are, what are your hopes and what are you aspire to do? What are your goals to be able to get there, write it down and then start to put a strategy and a plant in place to get there and then get excited about it. You know, talk about it to other people. So, you know seek out other people, maybe a role model or me a mentor that can help you get there and go into what that means is your discomfort zone.
You're not going to experience any change. If you keep doing the same thing over and over, you won't, you won't learn. So allow yourself to be in that discomfort zone so that you can start to, you know, make some changes. Because that's what changes when changes we are, we can be a little bit uncomfortable. So remember this it's important for us to have motivation, willpower and determination, and just keep thinking about that. We're not perfect people, but we can strive to do what we need to do to be able to get ahead. Listen, happiness and humor is very important for us. You know, we have to be able to laugh. Laughing is therapeutic, just like exercise, endorphins. Those are the natural feel, good hormones that are released into our body that make us feel good. So engage in enjoying your light, listening to a good comedy.
So embracing change and fear, because it's going to happen. Like I said, you may get uncomfortable. Things will happen, but don't take yourself so seriously, don't take everything that's going on. So seriously balance things out by having laughter in there. And yes, there is such a thing as laughter therapy as well. There's people who are certified in it, you know, and you see how kids have tense, see the laugh and then we grow to be adults. And then we take things so seriously. So again, lighten up and look at it and look at, you know, appreciating life, looking at things and being more grateful, being thankful for the things that are in your life, the people that are in your life, the situations that are in your life and being more tic don't give up, just keep, you know, moving forward and don't dwell on the past, you know, learn from the things that occurred in the past, learn and then bring that forward.
The things that are going to help you now and in the future, but don't dwell on it. You know, think about things. Think about moving onward and forward and upward. Okay. Be creative, be innovative against, around yourself with people that will help you get to where you need to get to. And don't think that you're alone, you're not alone. The help is out there for you and live mindfully, staying present in the moment. Walk about smell the roses. You ever drive, pass something and then you're so busy driving, but then when you're a passenger, you say, wow, I never even saw that building over there. So there are ways that we could live our life more mindfully, listen to funny podcasts, look at, you know, funny movies pictures, dance, like no one is watching, right? So there's so many things for us to do to lead a healthier life, guided meditation visualization.
So, you know, just again, just looking at life in a healthy way. So three rules of life, your life is limited. So don't waste time living it, someone else's life. Like if someone told you this is that life I want you to live. Think about this is your life. How do you want to spend your moments, your minutes, your hours, your days, your month, what do you want to accomplish at the end of this quarter? What is next year going to look like, take a conscious effort and write it down, create a strategy to get there. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. You know, so someone wants you to be a doctor or lawyer. Do you want to be a doctor or lawyer? Are you, what do you want to do? Don't let the noise of other people's opinions, drown out your inner voice of what you want to achieve in life.
Have the courage to follow your own heart, your own inter you know, intuition your gut, right? And, and be able to move forward. You know, Steve jobs. So have the courage to follow your own heart and your intuition. Somehow they already know what you truly want to become, but sometimes we are afraid of what other people may think, but it's your life live it the way you want to mindful breathing technique. Let's do this as we wind down. I'm going to tell you, I'm going to look at, see what my beats per minute are. So I'm at 82 beats per minute. So I want to bring that down. So if you ever find yourself, you know, in a stressful situation or you're just having some issues, staying focused, it's very important for us to do mindful breathing, right? You could take slow, deep breaths lasting for about five seconds in and out. So you want to breathe in through your nose, hold it and exhale. Let, just do that three times here. Okay. So we're going to take a deep breath in through our nose.
Hold it exhale out slowly. Good. This says repeat 10 times, but we're going to do it two more times. So you get the picture, but make sure you do this on your own again, you're just getting relaxed, relax your shoulders, your head, your neck, your eyes, take a deep breath in, hold it and exhale out slowly. Good. Let's do that one more time. So you get the feeling inhale and hold it and exhale. This is mindful breathing and it helps you relax. Especially if you're going through a stressful time or you had a stressful meeting or a phone conversation with people. So I just want to tell you that I went from 82 and now I'm down to 75 beats per minute. So you see how you can make a conscious effort to make changes within your life. So again, mindful breathing is a great way to do that.
So now we just want to take a look at this quote. I believe that being successful means having a balance of success stories across the many areas of your life. You can't truly be that are successful in your business life. If your home life is in shambles. Okay. So who said this? Does anybody know who said this? You know, you could go ahead and put that there in the chat and then think about if that's you and what's going on, are you having, you know, good work life balance? You know, so these are areas that we can take a look at, right? All these things are very, very important. Yeah. So it was Zig Zigler, Zizi Ziegler was his quote. All right. So it's so important for us to look at that work life balance and, and thank you so much for letting me know that you're using these devices to track your sleep and your step and your activity, keep it going because that will help us really be able to manage our life and be more effective, you know, and making the healthy choices that we need to.
So go ahead and let me know, before I go into the EAP, if there is anything that you would like to add and that will be great there. So what are three action steps that you will commit to work? Go ahead and, and put it in your action plan and then put it in the chat if you were able to, to do it. Okay. So action steps could be, I'm going to engage in more physical activity in the day, or I'm going to do some more guided meditation. I'm going to try to get it to sleep a little bit more, you know, and be more proactive with my sleep. Or maybe you're going to put more time into the buckets of using the, the family as well. Right. So maybe spending more time with family. Okay. So I see it coming in in the chat.
People say, oh yeah, I'm going to get to walking in the mornings. I'm going to eat better. Good. Put that down in your action plan because everything everyone is writing here is great. So make sure you listed there more activity during the day. Budgeting, fitness, self care. Someone says living in the moment and one increasing physical activity, spending more time laughing with friends. Number three, work harder on getting at least seven hours of sleep. I'm hearing you are not alone. Everybody's saying that they're going to work on their meditation, more walking work, disconnecting and getting better, sleep listening more, very good. Walking, eating better, listening, more practicing your I'm. Just going through the chat, sleeping better, being intentional about breaking away for lunch awesome. Someone. I said budgeting for sure. That's good. Activities, sleeping, spending more time with family and friends, walking the door, getting more sleep losing some weight and exercising.
Good. Oh, so continue to do all these fabulous things. Because remember this is your life and you want to try to fill up those five buckets at least to 80%. Don't beat yourself up. If you just fall back or fall off temporarily, just dust yourself up, pick yourself up and just keep being able to move forward. Okay. So this is how the EAP can help planning for life events, managing depression, anxiety, stress, grief, and hope planning for a strong financial future. So many people who talk about out that financial future, tap into the EAP strengthening relationships. If you want to look at your family and friends, there's help there achieving personal and professional goals, getting addiction, assessment, and treatment and recommendations. Maybe there's some more issues of work life balance that you're going to work on, but you feel like you need the additional help. Maybe it's also sorting through legal matters.
It's there for you. So before you all go, it's very important to us, for us to get your feedback. So please, you know, open up your smartphone and then scan this QR code that you see there on the screen. Then take a look back at you know, the, the, the, what am I saying? The link. Thank you. That's the word I was looking for the link. And then just take the survey. It's a real brief survey and we really appreciate your time here, you know, today and your input and you know, just go ahead and, and make that plan and execute it to the best of your ability. So I'm just watching the chat. Just let me know if there's anything that I can answer or something that you would like to add. And I would greatly appreciate that.
Oh, so yeah, they're saying that they want to keep themself calm. You want to limit your sugar intake. Okay, good. I'm glad you all are saying that the presentation was good. Okay. Very good. Love that's positive feedback. All someone said that they read a book. Oh, you're so welcome. Yes. The slide deck will be shared with you. Everything was being recorded so you will have access to it. So someone says they find peace with Nera Glover, Taba. I hope I'm saying that the right way, but yeah, there's so many books out there that will help us as well. So again, thank you all so much for participating.