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Set Things Right For Your Next Decade of Wellness & Wellbeing

Updated: Dec 30, 2025

It’s a few days to the new year. Take this opportunity to put things in order.


What shift would you make now?


A shift that won’t let you merely drift into a healthy life. An intentional shift that won’t let you steer into into exhaustion, cluttered calendars, reactive choices, and “I’ll get to it, … later.”


Setting things right for your next decade doesn’t mean living like a monk or a highly dedicated health enthusiast. It means deciding which things truly matter and immediately giving them space to take root.


Just like the saying goes in corporate, “Culture eats Strategy for Breakfast”, similarly, the urgent will always consume the important. The urgent is a whirlwind that consistently acts on you, whether you like it or not. The important will only happen when you proactively act on it (with intent).




Priorities

We face the big four in our daily lives with everything we do. Consciously or unconsciously we are making decisions at micro seconds. It is urgent? Is it important and non-negotiable? Is this distracting me? Am I wasting time?


Let’s heighten the intentionality of designing our next decade by prioritising our decisions, both micro and macro ones, with the big four:


Is it … :

  • Urgent - in your face, demands your attention, gets louder (more fiery) when you delay it. (Missed deadline, client’s demand, violation)

  • Important - they are the non-negotiable (big rocks we don’t want to move), but has no momentum until we proactively do something. (Sleep, exercise, family dinner, chat with son, date night, prayers)

  • Distracting - the smallest to the largest things that steals, captures, attracts and signals us to pay attention to it while we get distracted-derailed from the Urgent and Important. (Social media scrolling, multi-tasking and multi-focusing, interruptions)

  • Wasting - the activities we do that have now become low value, mindless and just makes us dull. That it becomes difficult to re-engage our gears to start getting energy back to fighting the Urgent and setting right the Important. (Doom scrolling, episode binging, channel surfing, prolonged activity that draws lower marginal returns)


Most people already know they should sleep more, move more, unplug more, eat better, and build deeper relationships.


So it is not a lack of knowledge or information, rather, it is the lack of prioritising what’s important for your next decade.




First Things First

I worked with a senior leader in her early 40s.

Always on. Always available. Always “nearly” burned out.

Backaches, stiff muscles, muscle atrophying.


Her words:

“I keep waiting for a quieter season. It never comes.”


We started small, nothing dramatic:

  • 2 evenings per week with phones off after 8pm (we aimed for three evenings but due to workload we kept it to one weekday and weekend evening)

  • 3 brisk walks per week, 20–25 minutes (up from bed, out for a walk or just after dinner)

  • one intentional meal each day eaten sitting down (not at desk or in front of the telly, and not for cravings)

  • a weekly check-in conversation with her spouse about her shifts

  • Sunday afternoon planning, 15 minutes only (deciding on the Important big rocks that were non-negotiable for the week ahead)

  • Check-in with me once every two weeks to discuss fitness plans and life transition coaching (later moved to once a month once she got a hold on things)


Six months later:

  • her sleep stabilised

  • migraines reduced

  • she described herself as “calmer and more present”

  • and her team said she was easier to follow


Nothing radical.

Just putting the right things back in their rightful place.




Reflection

Here are five questions worth pondering over:


  1. What restores me and why is it currently optional?

Sleep. Prayer. Quiet. Nature. Good conversation. Time with daughter or spouse.

Optional for how long?


  1. What is draining me repeatedly that I keep tolerating?

Not everything can be changed but some things can be redesigned.


  1. What rhythms give my future self a fighting chance?

Simple routines beat heroic bursts.


  1. Where am I living constantly on the edge?

Calendars, finances, emotions life works better with margin.


  1. Who do I need around me for the journey?

Loneliness is a silent health risk. Strong relational ties literally extend life.



Some recent research as you ponder those questions above:

  • A large U.S. longitudinal study found that chronic time pressure is strongly associated with higher stress, poor diet quality, and lower physical activity independent of income or job demands (Gunasinghe et al., 2024). Translation: when life constantly feels rushed, health gets quietly downgraded.


  • A 2022 Lancet review found that building simple routines (regular wake times, meals, and movement patterns) significantly reduces anxiety and improves mood stability across age groups (Firth et al., 2022).


  • And a Stanford study showed that people who intentionally schedule recovery time — not just work — report higher engagement and better performance long-term (Perlow & Porter, 2020).



Ordering life with wisdom

“Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” (Ps. 90:12)

Repeatedly, wisdom connects with ordering life intentionally. Modelling a life that is counter-culture to help ring-fence 'culture creep'. Here is an example to model to counter-cultural creep:

  • Withdrew to pray, for quiet time, reflect.

  • Rest - do nothing, really rest.

  • Respond to what's important and not to every demand.

This is not avoidance, procrastination or laziness. It's clarity. It's recharge.

When we put the right things in their rightful place, life becomes less frantic and more faithful.



You don’t need to overhaul your life overnight. Start with one or two things that genuinely anchor you and protect them (non-negotiable, big rocks on calendar) like you protect meetings, deadlines, and bills.


Your next decade won’t be shaped by what you wish for but by what you consistently make room for.

Set things right, gently, intentionally, start now.



References



 
 
 

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