Occupational wellness is important. Having a job that feels satisfying is important for overall wellness. Keeping work and the rest of your life balanced is a must.
What is occupational wellness? It’s an important part of the wellness wheel wedge-environmental wellness. All three sections of your environment must work together in order for you to have a fulfilling life. Those include occupational wellness, or your work life, your home life and relationships, and your social life.
Occupational wellness definition
Occupational wellness is balancing your job or career in order to satisfy your needs. Of course, an important need for occupational wellness is making enough money to live, but that’s not all. If that’s your main goal, then great, your paycheck will meet your need. But sometimes we also need to enjoy or work or feel satisfied with the work we are doing. It’s an important part of the wellness wheel on our fitness journey.
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Some people need to help others in order to feel satisfied. Some people need to produce quality work to feel satisfied. Some people need good work relationships. Look at your occupation and think about how it makes you feel.
If you don’t feel meaning in going to work, whether it’s for the paycheck, the relationships, the work itself, you may need a change. Another way to have occupational wellness is to change your perspective. If you hate working at a convenience store, you can change that mindset without changing jobs.
Work health
As a convenience store clerk, you can provide great customer service and you have an opportunity to help all of your customers start their day on a high note. You can be the sunshine in people’s lives. Sometimes dealing with the public is hard, but remember that everyone carries a load we don’t know about, so letting negativity roll off your back is best for them but especially you.
We all have to deal with a naysayer every now and then. Don’t let it get to you. It’s about the person being rude, not about you. Find meaning in what you do in spite of those around you. The work you do does make a difference, not matter what your job is.
Having a goal of showering every customer with kindness in spite of how they may act will give you the best life possible in that job. Making sure your change comes out correctly, stocking shelves to look great, and help people reach products. All of those things are important and meaningful. If you can’t shift your attitude to think so, it might be time to find another line of work.
Building relationships with others at your job is also up to you. Getting along with other workers makes you a valuable commodity to employers. Someone who is pleasant to work with makes everyone’s job better.
Once you feel satisfied with the work you do and are building good relationships at work, it’s time to think about the work-life balance.
Importance of work-life balance
If you value work time more than family time, it’s time to take a look at your priorities. If you bring all your emotional baggage from work home and let it make your home life miserable, that’s not going to improve your environmental wellness either. So, remember to balance home and work and let them improve each other.

Work life balance examples
Ever since I was a kid in elementary school, I always wanted to have a job to make money and feel important. I grew up with a single mom on welfare. My dad abandoned my brother and me and my mom when she was 7 months pregnant with my baby brother and our life was hard!
Anything I wanted, I had to buy myself. I bought my own bikes by putting them on layaway and delivering papers until I had enough money to buy them. I did the same with stereos, clothes, and even cars.
My first job was delivering papers and mowing lawns. As I got older, I worked for the school in a job for low-income kids to earn money and learn job skills. I got to learn great skills and work ethic that helped me succeed in jobs later.
I worked several jobs through college. One time in particular, I got fired from a college job for goofing off. That taught me a valuable lesson. Once I graduated and got married, I looked for a permanent job in my area of study. I found a great job and put my whole heart into it.
I tried to do my very best. I look back at it and see that my family life suffered because I didn’t’ balance work and family. There were times when my wife and daughter needed me and I just focused on work and wasn’t there for them.
I let that job consume me. My wife has a home daycare and one day our air conditioner condensation was backing up into the house and flooding it with water. My wife had 7 kids to take care of and two of them were babies. But instead of being 10 minutes late to work and blowing the much out of that pipe, I walked out the door to be on time.
My wife had to load two babies into a stroller and push it outside dragging 5 toddlers with her to blow out that pipe and when you do it, you have to go inside and outside multiple times. She had to do that while watching 7 kids, two who couldn’t even walk. It took her hours. Why didn’t I just call work and fix the pipe?

I felt I was trying to be a good husband by providing for my family and making my job a priority, but I didn’t balance it. I look back and wish I could do things differently. I put everything I had into that job and I got fired anyway. I had been there 10 years and my boss did something illegal that I knew about.
So suddenly, I had stolen vending machine change (that we had already found at a client’s house) and made too many mistakes on paperwork. Getting fired from that job broke my self-esteem.
I missed out on so much with my family for that job, but that job didn’t care about me. Family is always there for you. Jobs come and go. I have changed jobs a few times since then, but I would never want to change family or loved ones.
I have learned to put more focus on being with my family and try to balance my work time and my home time better. Of course, you have to work and do a good job to be successful at it. But you can also stop and unplug a pipe once in a while and help your wife.
Just remember that both are important, but nothing is more important than your loved ones.
Now for a joke, Which days are the strongest? Saturday and Sunday. The rest are weekdays. Ha ha ha!
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