The Five Factors
A primer on the five factors that influence our wellness status / situation
Five factors shape our wellness situation and can be used as a framework for analyzing them.
Standards -
Our Standards are, essentially, our values and the goals we have around those values and are ultimately rooted in our actual or perceived needs. Those needs, and the stories we tell ourselves about them, create the standards that we live our lives according to about what we “must” (or “could” or “should”) be or do or have or share. They help create conscious and unconscious rules about what to pursue and avoid. Think of your Standards as the outcomes toward which we direct ourselves; they’re the “What” and “Why” of what we seek to obtain or avoid. Our Standards give us a vision of our desired destination and help to provide us with drive.
Questions to ask yourself - What needs did you seek to satisfy this week besides food, water, shelter, and sleep? What was a “must” for you? Why was it a “must?” What could you or should you have made a priority this week that you didn’t? What was more important than those “coulds and shoulds?”
States -
Our State is our psychophysiological condition or the condition of our mind and body. They’re determined by and large by the status of and our beliefs about our needs, be they physical or psychological. Think of the difference between how you feel when you’ve had a good night's sleep versus when you’re sleep-deprived. Or the difference in your disposition when you’re hungry. We even have a word for it: Hangry. The same holds for the state we’re in when we’re sedentary versus when we’re active or when we’re focusing on what we lack or what’s wrong rather than what we have or what’s right.
In the same way that our Standards provide us with direction and drive, our State supplies the fuel by which we move forward. It’s our energy, stimulation, and motivation level and helps us remain open, focused, and driven. The more our needs are met - or perceived as met - the better State we’ll be in.
Questions to ask yourself - What sensations, senses, and emotions did you feel this week? (A “sense” can be a sense of hope or hopelessness, purpose or purposelessness, meaning or meaninglessness, etc.) What situations can you identify that connect with those feelings?
Stories -
Our Stories are our beliefs and the way we narrate our lives. If your Standards provide you with direction and drive and your State fuels you, your Stories are the window through which you navigate the world and choose what routes to take to arrive where you want to go. Your stories are made up of your beliefs about yourself and the world, including where you believe you want to go, why you want to go there, and whether you can get there. Like your Standards, your stories help create conscious and unconscious rules of what to pursue and avoid and when, where, how, why, and whether or not you can do so.
Questions to ask yourself - What stories did you tell yourself about yourself, others, the world, and life this week? How did those stories affect your feelings and behaviors? What situations can you identify that connect with those stories?
Surroundings -
Your Surroundings aren’t only the environment through which you’re navigating and the elements of that environment but also those people, objects, events, and ideas that influence you along the way. It’s the road you’re on, the landscape around you, the things you’re carrying with you, the people ahead of, behind, and alongside you, and the events unfolding around you.
Questions to ask yourself - What did you surround yourself with this week? Where did you go? Who and what were you around? What did you look at, read, watch, or listen to? Why? How did they affect your feelings, thoughts, or behaviors?
Strategies -
Your Strategies are the mental and physical behaviors you engage in. They’re the navigational methods you use to get where you want to go. Think of them as the maps and the methods you use to get where you want to go. In essence, your Strategy is the ‘how” of things. It’s how you attempt to meet your needs from point A to point B.
Questions to ask yourself - How did you behave this week? How did you go about trying to meet your needs? How did you treat yourself? How did you treat others? How did you treat the spaces you occupied? How did you treat your time? Are there any repeated behaviors that you can identify from this past week? What needs were those behaviors meant to satisfy?