If you’ve been following along as I attempt to build a comprehensive 5 year plan, you’ll know that I started piecing together the plan by writing out my overall life goals, with a plan to then break each goal down into sub-goals and smaller sub-goals. Are those called sub-sub-goals? Tasks? Mini-goals? I don’t know. Give me a break, I’m still figuring this stuff out.

Anyway, my first stab at this was all about debt, and getting out of it. You’ll be happy to know that since I last posted, I’ve generally been pretty good about staying on target – I’ve cut back on social spending, stopped buying so much food, and I’m set up to start making more money in the near future. All of these are good things, and actually affect some of my other major life goals, like going on pilgrimage, seeing the world, and eventually having the freedom to do more writing, sing in a band, and who knows, perhaps even have my own home. We’ll see. It’s going to be a slow and steady process – at least 5 years, lol. (See what I did there?)

I’ve been holding off on writing this post for a couple of weeks now, mostly because I had some kind of harebrained idea that if I just took a little more time to think about it, I’d magically come up with all of my health-related subgoals and how to achieve them. Since the point of constructing a 5 year plan is to help you effectively sketch out your goals and start mapping out how to achieve them, procrastination didn’t get me anywhere but two weeks late on posting. That being the case, I’m just going to start throwing out ideas, and possibly have more than two blog posts related to the goal of health. It’s not like there are solid rules here, so let’s get going!

One of the things that’s had me stumped is that there are a few different things going on in my head when I think about my health. Health can be physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual, so beauty and femininity and lifestyle issues all kind of fall into the “health” category for me. It’s a LOT to digest. Here are some of the things I’ve been considering, in no particular order. Many of them overlap, so bear with me, here:

• Legitimate health concerns, based on family history (Hypothyroidism, Anxiety, Obesity, Macular Degeneration, Cancer, and High Blood Pressure, for instance)
• Legitimate health concerns, based on current physical/mental symptoms (Hypothyroidism, Anxiety, Obesity, Back Pain, Eating Issues, Concentration Issues)
• Other health concerns, not based on family history or personal history, but rather just general fear (Alzheimer’s, Dementia, Type II Diabetes, Cancer, Fertility Issues, Autism (potential future children))
• Beauty / Perception of Femininity, which includes elective procedures based solely on vanity (braces, Lasik surgery, laser hair removal) plus other pretty regular stuff, like hair styling, mani/pedis, facials, waxing, makeup application, and of course, my weight.
• Living a chemical-free lifestyle (household products and health & beauty products)
• Being in great physical shape, then maintaining that to age gracefully
• Obtaining a greater range of motion
• Stress-relief
• Mental wellbeing
• Sleep issues that affect my daily routine (mostly not being able to wake up before 10, no matter how early I go to bed)
• Reproductive health
• Aging concerns (mostly vanity-related, but also related to mobility and weight)
• Sexuality

That’s a lot of stuff to think about, and I’m having trouble finding a good way to break it all down into bite-sized chunks. Most of it seriously overlaps in multiple ways, as well. For instance, my sleep issues and procrastination are intertwined, and cause major stress on a daily basis. Both of those most likely affect my concentration, and definitely affect my eating issues. Those, in turn, affect my weight, which affects my mobility and perceived beauty, leading to more stress/mental issues/aging concerns, PLUS negatively impacting my health and leading to Diabetes, heart issues, impaired thyroid function (which is a two-way street, since it’s possibly the reason I’ve got the sleep issues and anxiety to begin with)…and so on.

It’s way too much to nail down in one blog post, but since I’ve been holding back on finishing this one up for so long, I’m just gonna go ahead and post it, then move forward with maybe revising the way I’m thinking about all of the different layers of health. Maybe I should think head to toe, inside out, and ignore diseases while looking to repair the core issues first. Whatever that means. Have patience with me, folks! And in the mean time, let me know if you’re working on your own 5 year plan for health and wellbeing, and how you’ve tackled it. I’d LOVE to know what other people are doing in this realm.