I am so excited to have Blessing as today’s guest blogger from Working Mom Journal. If you don’t already know this fabulous blogger and working mom you are in for a treat today as she discusses boosting your well being by improving your well doing. For those of you who do know her I’m sure you are anxious to get started!

So here we go!

*****************************************************************************************************************

Want to Boost your Well-Being? Improve your Well-Doing.

I struggled on what to write for my first guest post. I enjoy writing about working mothers and I wasn’t sure what the entire audience was for this post. But after three days of musing over it, I decided to write about what every mother wants, which is an improved lifestyle and an enriching well being. When striving to improve our lives, we’re quick to buy into programs that promise to help us make money, lose weight, or strengthen our marriage.We think mostly about ourselves and what we can do to secure financial gains, mostly.

At the end of 2011, I started thinking not about my resolutions but about my wellbeing over my lifetime. My problem with resolutions is that I spend so much timedeveloping plans and after dedicating my time and energy to one specific plan, I eventually give up. This happenswhen they start to conflict with other aspects of my lives such as work, childcare, household duties, and church. I started asking myself questions concerning what makeslife meaningful and worthwhile.

The year 2011 was a year of “books” for me, I studied successful women and what makes their lives worthwhile. I started digging into the archives of writers such as Tom Rath, Marcus Buckingham, and Sylvia Ann Hewitt who have studied women that seem to get it. All they talked about were careers, goal-setting, out-sourcing, and showing up in a man’s world. No one mentioned the natural thing that women love to do – to nurture and care.So, I started doing lots of soul-searching and kept asking myself the same question.

What can I do to stay motivated and energized other than setting goals, aiming for a promotion, traveling the world, and many other things that we all wish we could do if we had the money.

But, I finally nailed it down.

Here, I’ll explain.

I grew up in Africa, and I know much about living on less than $1 a day for a family of ten. I know a lot about drinking from unpurified water, sleeping on cold concrete floors, with no electricity for months. When I was eighteen and had no means of doing anything worthwhile, a businessman took a chance on me and provided me with an opportunity to study in America, of course my parents sold everything they had as well to make this happen. But I will never forget that young man’s gesture. And so, I always look back and wondered where I would be without this man, who cared.

I want to give back to younger kids, who believe in themselves because they remind me of who I once was. I want to give back to America, volunteer at the local YMCA, Habitat for Humanity, feed the homeless and encourage the youths to continue to make this country a place where people long to be. I think that a sense of community, a sense of giving back is what differentiates the good from the exceptional people. I think that even with limited resources each and every one of us can do something for those in need with our time.

I hope that you are getting my point. I am not writing to pitch any charity organization to you instead I am imploring you to commit to something around your community, no matter how small.

My husband and I have decided to help young kids who are struggling with Math and Science in our community. We started tutoring some of our neighbors’ kids (today actually) and boy did we feel good. And no, this is not the first time we are volunteering but this is the first time we are doing it intentionally.

Our wellbeing is connected to other people. How often do you wake up with the intent of helping your neighbor, co-worker, friend or stranger? Studies have shown that every hour spent in helping other people relieves us of stress, and enables us to become better. I know there are so many ways to improve your well being – financial, career, social, and physical, but a commitment to the communitymakes you feel stronger, more energetic, and more motivated. When we do things for others, we see how we can make a difference, and this gives us confidence in our own ability to create change.

So as you go about your resolutions, remember the act of well-doing. It could be the change you needed to see things in a different way, to deepen your interactions with those around you. Join that “Boys and Girls Club”, offer to watch the kids at Sunday school, volunteer to bake those cookies at the library show. Do something that matters, and this my friends is the real resolution that could change your life for good.

Blessing Oshin is a full-time working mother. She works as a project engineer during the day, and chases her two-year old in the evenings and on weekends. She blogs at Working Mom Journal (workingmomjournal.com) when she is not busy catching up on some much needed sleep.