My first ever Project Management role was running an Elderly persons volunteering project whilst I was at University. As the PM I was responsible for all the normal PM tasks – working with the care home (Client & stakeholders), managing the programme / budget & recruiting volunteers (the project team) to help deliver the weekly sessions. A key success criteria of the role was that we had to help improve overall wellbeing of the elderly members through creating a series of activities that engaged the Care Home members physically, psychologically & emotionally.
Recently, in researching course material for BuiltWell Project Management, I have gone down a wellbeing rabbit hole. Researching how our brains and bodies work has become a passion for me. I’ve read books, listened to podcasts, watched TV shows, attended workshops & events to hear from leading experts in the industry. All to discover how I can help other Project Managers succeed better, so that they can help their teams succeed better, so that collectively we can improve the Projects profession.
It is well known and documented that the wellbeing industry is booming. Consumers are spending more on their wellbeing than ever before, a trend that is set to keep on growing. And yet rates of loneliness, isolation, depression, anxiety & overwhelm are still on the rise. We have created a market that is now so complicated that going through your wellbeing routine can end up feeling more like something you need to tick off your daily to do list rather than going through the motions in any meaningful way.
When I step out of the detail, as any good Project Manager should, I cannot help but come back to the principles that I learnt all those years ago working in the care home. That all the advice out there can be simplified into 3 core elements – learning to balance your physical, psychological & emotional needs. That ultimately this is the wellbeing end goal.
And luckily for us, there are thousands of ways to achieve this, many of which are free
- Physical stimulation can be as simple as going for a walk, taking 10 minutes to stretch at your desk or taking the stairs instead of the lift. You could join a sports team or yoga studio, or embark on a physical challenge like building up to running a 10km run.
- Mental stimulation could involve breathing exercises, adding up the price of your shopping as you go around the supermarket, or sitting down with a sudoku on your commute home. It could involve getting out in nature or journaling.
- Emotional regulation can involve practices such as meditation, doing breathing exercises or reading a good book. You could try hanging out with friends or speaking to a mentor, coach or councillor. The means are multiple, but the end goal is the same – we need to find ways to express and balance our physical, psychological & emotional needs.
Today, in a saturated market, we have never had more information at our finger tips suggesting ways that we can look after ourselves. And yet ironically, this has created information overwhelm, and we can often feel left with complex or contradictory advice that feels like an impossible tasks to fit into our weekly activities. Especially for us busy Project Managers where by default we can turn looking after ourselves into a yet another task to be completed by simply going through the motions.
We need to get back to basics and remember that at the heart of it all, looking after ourselves is all about learning to listen to our bodies, minds & emotions. Improving wellbeing should be about taking small incremental steps that add up to us feeling good in ourselves. It is about balancing our physical, psychological & emotional needs.
And remember, this principle is the same for all human beings. If you are feeling stressed out by work, the likelihood is that others in your project team are too. Let’s normalise sharing how we are looking after ourselves with our teams. And let’s normalise asking our teams what they are doing to look after themselves too. Let’s normalise thinking about wellbeing in ways that simplify rather than confuse.
What have you done to look after your physical, psychological & emotional needs this week?