Well Man: Top 9 keys to the kingdom!

1 Key to being a Well Man – emotional intelligence
The top priority for all men should be embracing emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand, use, and manage your own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathise with others, overcome challenges, and defuse conflict. Emotional intelligence should be taught to adolescents at school rather than who ruled England in the 1400s. Connecting to your emotions is vital, having an awareness of how you are expressing them is as important. Reacting to other people’s comments and judgements can be moderated if you are happy and content in your own skin. Dealing with everyday stress and being aware of what issues this may create is part of wisdom. In the end you are in control of your actions, decisions and consequences. Trying to control other people’s lives is a sign of insecurity, just look after #1.

2 Key to being a Well Man – daily embrace fun
Each day embrace fun and have a laugh. Being serious 24/7 adds stress to your life and who wants that feeling? YouTube provides comedy relief, set up a library for easy access to your favourite comedian. Become an observer of life, laughter is found in the mundane. Sharing a laugh multiplies the joy. Even just smiling releases the happy chemicals into your system. To embrace the “Well Man” life will require a serve of daily laughter and a lighter concern for what you think really matters. In the end we are on the planet for a blink compared to nature, finding a little happiness and having a laugh should be our focus. There is abundant time to be serious about living.

3 Key to being a Well Man – accepting responsibility
Responsibility does lie in your hands, excluding natural disasters, unforeseen life events and wrong place wrong time events. You can give yourself the best chance to live a full life by simply being responsible for what you are eating, whether you are getting enough sleep, getting out in the sunshine and or if you exercise. Talking to thousands of men has given me a procrastination radar, the conversation starts off like this “I’m gunna….,” which means the action is never going to happen! Act, do not promise to change, just get going, start with small steps and build a better life. Flick the switch to positive, small treats as a reward along the way is okay however, the goal is to embed positive behaviours and habits that you can sustain for the rest of your life. Check out the free Well Man app for delicious nutritional, easy to make meals and exercising routines. Also, on the app is sleeping routines and over fifty other topics.

4 Key to being a Well Man – accountability to self
Being accountable sounds easy, until your life spirals in a downward direction. Pointing the finger and trying to blame others for your poor outcomes gives you momentary relief but in the end the buck does stop with you and your decisions reflect the outcomes. One lesson that was passed down to me from a wise soul early in my life was that life has its ups and downs, being accountable for your life reduces the wavelength of the highs and lows. Accountability to yourself is realising that your every action has a risk followed by a consequence. Having the wisdom to evaluate most of your actions will save you from negative consequences. Learning to reflect and activating your brain cells sounds easy however, it can be difficult if emotional stresses are involved. Before reacting to emotional distress always verbalise the mantra “I need to time to process this issue.” The other way is to count to ten before diving in. Our lives are full of various relationships whether it is family, friends or work colleagues, all can play a major role in your own stress factor. The way you react is the key.

5 Key to being a Well Man – getting physical
This involves moving, factor into your life physical exercise and your body will reward you big time. Australian men over the past decade have put on a few kilograms, this affects how your bodies cope with movement, flexibility, strength and even can have a detrimental effect on your mental ability to deal with life’s stress. Get walking, jog, swim, cycle or work out in a gym. Check out the Men’s Life Promotion Survival Handbook on the website www.wellman.org.au for the 7 Day Challenge to kick start the change. As always start small and build up the frequency and difficulty of your exercise routine, no excuses, if it is raining get an umbrella, walk in your lunchtime, just get going, you will feel so much better for changing your lifestyle.

6 Key to being a Well Man – mind your thoughts
Minding your thoughts does not mean placing your hands over your ears and disregarding the self-mind talk. It involves what thoughts are you consciously holding on to and whether they have any relevance to what is going on in your life.

It is easy to swim in the sea of negativity, just turn on the news on a regular basis. Imagine if all media was based on truth, hope and facts, what a wonderful world to live in. If you continually watch people dying by force your empathy dissolves. You will spiral into fear and of course your mind will want to judge and be right about everything. The “Well Man” can have a handle on what is going on in the world, he will be able to show empathy and compassion because of the positive mantras in place. Watching a negative news clip on a continuous loop is not the way to achieve a balanced mental state.

Introducing positive mantras, being grateful for what you have, will go a long way to cancelling all the negativity in our society. Choose your friends who have similar positive core values will make the journey easier.

7 Key to being a Well Man – giving back for your life
A wise “Well Man” will always look for opportunities to give back to family, friends, and community. This may involve volunteering for the local fire service or sporting club, joining a service club like Rotary or Lions, or simply keeping your neighbourhood free of rubbish.
Volunteering is food for the soul, it makes you feel better about yourself and your actions. Simple acts of kindness can change people’s lives forever. Be the one who assists the elderly, check in on your neighbours, it is very simple to do and can make a major difference in another person’s life.

8 Key to being a Well Man – writing your own script
Yes, you are the writer of own life’s script. The decisions that you make, the people who you chose to be your friends and your life choices are yours and yours only. Bleating about how tough life is and woe is me, is not a positive path to travel.
Making positive decisions about what you want out of life will attract better outcomes, as previously mentioned you are the captain of your destiny, what you think, how you react and where you want to go is in your hands. Visualise what you want in life, write out an action plan of how you are going to get there in a specified amount of time. Set goals along the way, celebrate each positive forward movement. Search for likeminded souls on the same path, seek wisdom from your elders, find a mentor who can assist you in reaching your goals. Positive attracts positive, writing your own script is one of the joys in life, now is the time to start.

9 Key to being a Well Man – be your best
Everything you do in life should be your absolute best effort, you need to fully invest 100%. Successful people have one thing in common, they put in all that they can into every project. You are never going to achieve total success, giving it your best try creates contentment with whatever outcomes achieved. Learn from your mistakes, life skills are learnt firsthand, adjust the process for the best outcome.
The final key to being a Well Man is vital to building a “can do” mind set. That in the end, gives you the best chance to taste success in whatever field you choose.

The bottom line
Rome was not built in a day, take your time, slowly embed positive behaviours into your life. Small wellbeing changes provide major life gains. It is up to you to make the first step.
To end this blog, I would like to share “Tony’s” story. Tony attended one of the “Well Man” workshops. He was shy and kept quiet for most of the talk. At the end I sat next to him and enquired how he was going. Tony confessed and said his life was in a spiral, firstly a relationship breakdown, secondly, he was unable to see his kids and finally he was self-medicating with alcohol to ease the pain. Tony’s mind was clouded, however, seeking help was possible. As he talked, you could see that he was already formulating a plan of action, with a few suggestions Tony had a codesigned referral plan in place. He heeded the suggestion of not self-medicating and within a month he had access to his kids and a way forward. The moral to this story is that men must take responsibility for their lives and be accountable for seeking help early if any symptoms arise.