I Don’t Follow Rules, I Follow My Values (Health, Happiness, & Service)

Hey everyone… Welcome to The Wellness Bucket!

If you’re new here, I’m so happy and grateful you decided to stop by.

If you’re already a part of the family, sweet!

You’re awesome!

I hope you’re all feeling healthy, happy, and serving others every chance you get. In fact, that’s exactly how we’re going to roll here going forward.

Health, Happiness, & Service

These are the three core areas in which The Wellness Bucket will be built upon.

Why you ask? Why not. 🙂

I’m kidding but seriously, I’d like to take this opportunity to let you guys know why I have decided to make these three areas my prime focus for The Wellness Bucket going forward

The key theme that links each of these topics is fulfillment.

I define fulfillment as feeling and living our best while helping others along the way do the same.

This Is Our House

The community that we’ve created here at The Wellness Bucket and continue to create is ours.

This is our house and in this house, we make the rules.

I think you all know me well enough to know that I’m not a fan of rules so when I say we make the “rules“, what I’m saying is we decide what we do, how we do it, and why we do it.

No one else gets to decide that for us.

Rule #1 – There Are No Rules

I made this quite clear in a recent blog post where I wrote about what success and happiness means to me and why I’m giving business marketing the middle finger.

After writing it, I was blown away with the amount of responses, comments, and emails I received thanking me for writing it.

Many of you spoke up and expressed your dissatisfaction with the “rules” of what it takes to be successful and happy.

Everyone’s An Expert

Guess what?… You’re an expert too – and the only one that really matters.

When it comes to your health, happiness, and ability to serve others, you are the expert.

No one knows more about you then you.

You know what you want, don’t want, need, don’t need, like, and don’t like.

Rules and experts need not apply here.

We’re not guided by rules at The Wellness Bucket, but by our values.

And we don’t need experts at The Wellness Bucket because we are the experts.

More Than Just Health

I initially built The Wellness Bucket around one core area…

Health.

As The Wellness Bucket continues to evolve, I continue to evolve, and we (as a community) continue to evolve, changes will happen.

Change is good, it’s healthy, and helps us grow.

Speaking of changes, I have decided to add two more core areas to The Wellness  Bucket…

Happiness & Service.

Health, happiness, and service. It’s what we will be all about here going forward.

It’s what we will believe in and stand for.

I believe in the importance of promoting, supporting, and encouraging health, happiness, and in serving others.

It is these three core areas in which The Wellness Bucket will be built upon going forward. 

Health

“Everyday should be filled with fun and fitness – both are inextricably linked.” ~Richard Branson

Without health, not much else matters.

Freedom, fame, fortunate – without health, none of these matter without health to enjoy them.

Our health is the cornerstone for all good things.

Eating healthy natural foods, drinking plenty of water, getting enough sleep, taking your vitamins, exercising regularly, stretching, meditating – all of these and more contribute to our health.

Because health has played such a pivotal role in my life, both physically and mentally, and I know the value it brings to all those who embrace it, it will always be the #1 core area in which we will focus on here at The Wellness Bucket.

Happiness

People, places, new and different experiences.

Spending time with family, friends, or complete strangers talking, laughing, and enjoying each others company.

Visiting a new place for the first time or a place you’ve been too many times before and absolutely love it every single time.

Taking on new challenges that push you out of your comfort zone.

I don’t see happiness as things but as experiences.

Experiences that help us grow and encourage others to grow with us.

Happiness is doing more of what makes you happy.

This quote by John Lennon is one of my favorites. It perfectly articulates what I believe happiness to be.

It’s Your Ship To Sail

I understand that there’s plenty of things we do, responsibilities we have that may not be so much fun to do such as working long hours, paying bills, and deal with the curve balls that life throws at us from time to time.

While there are some things we can’t control, l suggest we focus on the things we can control and make the decision to do more of what makes us happy.

They (whoever “they” is) say happiness is a choice. I’ll agree with that.

I believe the secret to happiness though lies in the choice itself – in what you and I choose to do to begin with.

I believe THAT is what will bring us happiness.

Choosing something that doesn’t make us happy and then trying our hardest to be happy with the choice we made – I just don’t believe that can or will work.

It definitely didn’t work for me – everything from business, relationships, to where I was living. Whenever I haven’t been 100% happy with my choice, happiness has eluded me.

There’s plenty of things you and I want that we don’t have (yet), but we will.

Let’s commit to always doing what we can, where we are, with what we have.

Service

“Only a life lived in the service of others is worth living.” ~ Albert Einstein

During a recent interview I did for Compete For The Best Life Podcast, I was asked the following question…. “If I had 30 seconds to share one piece of advice with anyone that would help them pursue a better life, what would that be?”

I didn’t have to think twice to answer this question.

“It’s simple – serve others.”

There are so many ways in which to serve others.

Serving can mean helping someone move, supporting a friends podcast by leaving them an iTunes review, encouraging runners during a race, motivating volunteers during a blood drive, listening to someone when life’s thrown them a curve ball or two, smiling at a complete stranger just because.

The list goes on and on.

I often hear, “well I’d like to serve or volunteer more, I just don’t have the money or the time.”

I can serve, you can serve, we can all serve without the need for much time, money, or effort.

I mean really, how much effort does it take to smile at someone?

How much money, time, or effort does it take to call a friend who’s going through a tough time to ask how they’re doing?

Serving others means doing what you can, when you can, and how you can to make someone else’s life easier, better, happier.

Onward

Going forward – health, happiness, and service is what and how we’ll roll here at The Wellness Bucket.

It’s what I’ll write and talk about going forward.

Everything from blog posts, Motivational Monday Messages, Wellness Bucket Podcasts, guest posts, tools, resources, newsletters, courses, workshops, challenges, giveaways, everything will encompass…

Health, Happiness, & Service

This is our house, our community, our family.

These will be our guiding principles and values (not rules, we don’t like rules) going forward.

You’re awesome and I can’t thank you enough for being here.

Cheers!

Mike