As a student, leading a healthy balanced life is quite challenging, this is because of the many roles that we undertake which sometimes may be conflicting. Therefore, to optimize performance in both academics and other life activities, one has to find a balance in different roles that an individual plays (Bonifas, & Napoli, 2014). The balance is essential since each of the life activities affect on the other, for example when a student is not feeling well, then his/her academic performances shall decline. Thus, all aspects of life should be given due consideration and priority. The Quality of Life Self Care Wheel is helpful and a useful tool in ensuring that one lives a balanced personal and professional life. It helps one to reflect and identify how his/her life is fair (Napoli & Roe, 2011). It also aids setting of goals to work on areas of life with which one is not satisfied.
Based on the Quality of Life Self Care Wheel, most of my scores in several parts were satisfactory; however, there are few areas that I still need to work on and improve. The scores, as well as plans for intentions and actions, are as outlined. The first dimension is health and the scores for this particular dimension were 10. This clearly shows that my health activities in the past few days have been productive. Consequently, I plan to maintain the high score of health dimension at the 10 points by continuing with the health habits of exercising habitually and eating healthy foods so as to maintain my weight (Napoli & Roe, 2011). The new strategy that I also intend to use is to reduce stress levels by talking to loved ones and friends wherever stressed.
The second dimension is rest/recreation, on this, my score was 7. Therefore, to improve on my life balance, I intend to improve this score to 9. The actions that I plan to undertake to realize such an improvement include having an adequate sleep by increasing my sleeping hours from six to eight hours daily. To enhance recreation, I intend to make a 3 hours visit and walk in the park every Saturday of the week (Short, 2014). The third dimension is personal development and relationship. My score was 9, and my intention is to improve the score of this dimension to 10. The action I would take is attending more conferences as well as joining more nursing professional associations so that I can create a larger network to grow my professional relationship.
The fourth dimension is finances; I scored 6 on this and was my lowest out of the eight dimensions. Therefore, I intend to improve this score in the next few days to 9. The action to achieve this is by reducing expenditure and saving more money. I, therefore, intend to save $30 every day so that I can use the savings in future to meet my daily needs and become self-sufficient. By doing this, I will not lack money and will always feel satisfied. On the fifth dimension which is the environment, the score was 10. On this, I did well, and I only need to maintain this high score, therefore, the actions I plan for this is to increase the number of plastic water bottles to collect and submit to the 0recycle factories from 10 to 15 every week.
On career/school, the score was 10, this was satisfactory, and it means my strategies are working well. I should, therefore, maintain this high score and even improve further. The action I will need to enhance my career and school score further is to learn more new things every day and also keep motivated to learn by rewarding myself for completing my assignments before deadlines. The seventh dimension is the passion; the score for this was also 10. Therefore, I only need to maintain the high score of 10 in the days to come. The action for this is pursuing those activities which I desire and love most, spending more time with family and friends.
References
Bonifas, R. P., & Napoli, M. (2014). Mindfully increasing quality of life: A promising curriculum for MSW students. Social Work Education, 33(4), 469-484.
Napoli, M., & Roe, S. (2011). Life by personal design: Limitless Horizons. Dubuque, IA: Kendall-Hunt. Print.
Short, A. (2014). Strategies for Balancing Our Love for Work and Our Love for Life Beyond the Academy.
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