Wellness Wednesday: Establishing Wellness Standards & Boundaries
When did you last consider your personal wellness standards and boundaries? If you are like most people, this is something you haven’t considered. Setting them is critical to ensuring you live a balanced, fulfilling life rooted in your faith and wellness.
What Are Wellness Standards?
Standards are the personal behaviors and practices you commit to. They define how you engage with yourself and others. These can range from how you manage your time to how you communicate. For instance, do you always reply to missed calls within 24 hours? Do you aim for an empty inbox by the end of each day or week? Standards also extend to how you treat your body, like how much alcohol you consume, or how you prioritize your walk with Christ, like prioritizing daily time for meditating on God’s Word and prayer.
While these standards guide your actions, they can be set too high, causing stress, or too low, leading to complacency. Take time to reflect: Are your wellness standards aligned with your priorities and values? What standard do you need to raise or adjust to better serve your overall health and your relationship with God?
What Are Boundaries?
Boundaries are the invisible lines you draw to protect yourself—emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually. They determine how you let others interact with you and, more importantly, how you care for yourself. Healthy boundaries ensure that you can show up as your best self, both in life and in ministry.
For example, do you have boundaries around how you respond to criticism or blame? Perhaps you have a weekly Sabbath that you protect fiercely from any work-related tasks or distractions. Or maybe you’re still working on setting boundaries around how often the “urgent” interrupts your self-care routines.
What Wellness Standards or Boundaries Do You Need?
This week, here’s a challenge for you: identify one standard or boundary you could establish or adjust. Do you need to set firmer boundaries around your phone use so it doesn’t infringe on your time of rest? Perhaps it’s time to raise the standard of how you handle stress, ensuring you prioritize prayer, meditation on God’s Word, or exercise.
Remember, living out your calling with joy and vitality requires honoring both the standards you set for yourself and the boundaries you protect. What’s one wellness standard you can raise this week? What boundary can you strengthen to ensure you show up as your best self?