The EPM Way of Prioritizing and Supporting Wellness

In today’s world, a lot of people just aren’t feeling great. We have more anxiety and depression, more stress. We are getting less sleep, not taking care of our physical well being, and people are struggling.

There’s a lot going on in our world, and it brings up a lot of negativity. As leaders, how do we get everybody to feel good again? We can’t solve the social unrest and turmoil in our nation overnight, and we don’t have many new answers about COVID-19 except to just keep on keeping on with best practices to keep each other well.

But we can help take steps to empower others to feel happy and successful in their jobs, take control of their lives, and look towards a brighter tomorrow. And there are steps we can take right now to address the needs of those in our organization and give our troops resources to build habits and routines for overall wellness.

In our organization, we have spent a lot of time making both physical and mental/emotional wellbeing a priority. We have had our leaders come to the table and share from a place of authenticity and vulnerability—not only the philosophies and successes they have developed but also the choices, challenges and their journey to success that helped them get to where they are today.

We have extreme compassion for the adjustments that the folks in our organization have had to make in their lives, and our leadership has a philosophy that we can’t expect 100% from our team members until we are ready to give 110%. So instead of giving tips and suggestions in an objective way, we feel it’s so much more powerful to dig deep and get real honest about our personal journeys. Instead of telling them what we think they need to sustain wellness, we tell them what we needed while at the beginning of our own journeys, and share the expectations and commitments we set for ourselves and share the steps we took to get to where we are.

That takes some serious vulnerability, honesty, and trust, and hopefully, that begins a reciprocal connection between our whole team. Motivation comes from many places, and if we are strong enough not to shy away from facing the difficult things that are going on in our lives, we can paint a very clear picture of the journey forward. From there, we can offer resources and strategies that are accessible to people who might need to take those first steps forward.

The personal growth cycle is never over. We have to be cognizant of the fact that there are going to be folks who are reluctant to jump in feet first, there are going to be ups and downs and our wellness is something we need to check-in with and consistently reassess and course correct. 

The personal growth cycle is just that. VERY PERSONAL. It’s really an individual process, and we encourage others to begin with what they feel comfortable with 

As they say- wisdom is knowing others, enlightenment is knowing yourself. While we still love to bust each other’s chops and not take everything so seriously. We try to shake it up enough to make sure we are all moving forward together— and together means being in touch with how sharing our personal strengths and lessons learned can help our fellow man. By supporting each other, we all can be on an individual path to personal success and forward momentum.