Creating a recipe for wellbeing

Photo by Nadim Merrikh on Unsplash

GRIST’s new partnership with 5 Ways to Wellbeing provides leaders and teams with a tactical approach to improving well-being that is based on an unparalleled study conducted in the UK and Australia.

Back in 2008, the UK government decided that to prosper and flourish in the evolving environment, they needed to make the most of all their resources, both mental and material.

They engaged the centre for well-being at nef (the new economics foundation) to develop a set of evidence-based actions to improve personal well-being. The study was unparalleled. It took an independent look at the best available scientific and other evidence and considered the factors that influence an individual’s mental development and wellbeing from conception until death.

One of its key insights was the development of a wellbeing framework. They called it the 5 Ways to Wellbeing. Using evidence-based guidelines, it outlines simple behaviours that we can all incorporate into our daily lives to improve emotional and psychological wellbeing and to establish wellbeing as a key part of being healthy.

Following its success in the UK, The Royal Melbourne Hospital has tailored the campaign to an Australian audience and is encouraging all Australians to keep mind-fit, not just body-fit.

The program reviewed the most up-to-date international research to provide an evidence-based approach to improve people’s wellbeing, based on emerging literature in positive psychology.

The key protective factors that promote wellbeing were identified as:

• Connect with people around you

• Be active

• Keep learning

• Be aware (take notice)

• Help others

The concept of wellbeing comprises both feeling good and functioning well. Feelings of happiness, curiosity and engagement while experiencing positive relationships, a sense of purpose and control over your life are all important attributes of wellbeing. The aim was to establish evidence-based actions that people could take at an individual level to improve their wellbeing.

The five behaviours were chosen for their ability to change outcomes across general populations and were based on the findings of successful intervention-based approaches to behaviour change from the wellbeing and mental health promotion fields.

The program identified distinct action themes (behaviours) that:

• Have a range of approaches that could be varied to stay ‘fresh’

• Have universal appeal and impact the actions of a wide variety of people

• Target the individual, focusing on the actions that an individual has the capability to make in their own life

• Engage diverse populations with different activities to suit different people.

Each action effectively communicates a main influencer of wellbeing, offering specific behaviours or actions. For example, the idea of Connecting is based on evidence from the Foresight Challenge Reports, the 2005 British Attitude Survey and German Socio-Economic Panel Survey showing the importance of having strong social networks as a buffer against mental health issues. The data showed the positive impact that strong social networks had on life expectancy, survival from a range of conditions and mortality.

5 Ways to Wellbeing then provides simple actions that people can take to improve their connections, such as ‘remembering to take time to say hi, give a listening ear, or your presence or words to someone beyond what you might already be doing in your day.’

The focus on the easy and effective actions that people can say or do – or the micro-behaviours – has strong synergies with GRIST’s ethos and methodology. GRIST’s approach is underpinned by the focus on micro-behaviours: identified actions that people can practice incrementally to deliver performance outcomes. The actions identified in 5 Ways to Wellbeing provide a roadmap of the behaviours we need to do differently, or incorporate into our lives, to improve wellbeing outcomes. They can fit seamlessly alongside any GRIST micro-behavioural program and can be easily supported with adoption tools like YakTrak.

Just as GRIST teaches leaders to have better coaching conversations with their people, we can also teach them to talk about wellbeing. Leaders can work with team members to help diagnose which of the 5 ways they need to work on and then drill down to which behaviour individuals can focus on to improve their wellbeing.

The 5 Ways is also a worthwhile contribution that GRIST can make as good citizens. We want to encourage these kinds of positive behaviours in the community-facing organisations we work with. We want the people working in these organisations to really feel the benefit of improving their wellbeing.

Behaviour change and wellbeing work together to improve better outcomes across a range of areas. Feelings of overall happiness and purpose are strongly associated with an individual’s emotional and cognitive resources, including resilience, self-esteem, cognitive capacity and emotional intelligence. Organisations are increasingly supporting the wellbeing of their staff, recognising that an investment in the health, wellbeing and quality of relationships of their people is an investment in achieving better outcomes for all.

Contact us today to discuss how we can build 5 Ways to Wellbeing into your GRIST program.