You've been part of goal-oriented conversations before. Now, join a unique community discussion centered around quality of life, health, prevention, and self-advocacy.

The concept of being a health contender is someone who strives for growth by adapting to change and utilizing self-assessment: reflect on your actions, adjust, and act on what you've learned.

There is a remarkable influence of genuine connections on perception and well-being. Community engagement affects mood and behavior, as experienced in this guided activity through the concept of a "health contender."

GIG Design is set apart by their approach - combining occupational therapy, coaching, and design. Design personalized environments and craft daily activities for vitality.

GIG Design's Tree Model is a practice using the symbolism of trees to link personal goals with meaningful action. Fostering congruence between your actions and your values is a valuable component to your healthspan.

The hidden 98% shapes relationships, priorities, and personal growth. The people you devote time and energy towards know your values.

NASA drugged spiders to understand human capabilities in space. That web-building wisdom offers insights in that you don’t just respond to what’s “there”.

Human inclination towards efficiency shapes routines and environments, and you can use both to shift focus from loss to resilience.

Choices and commitments, even when they stretch beyond the 'ideal,' can be a matter of focusing on your values rather than rigid schedules. Align tasks with your core values for a more meaningful approach to productivity.

Self-compassion boosts productivity and motivates a sense of survivorship within life's challenges. The science-backed benefits and practical steps to be self-compassionate will elevate successes.

Self-compassion's impact on lifestyle habits and attitudes can lead to positive changes. Skill-building lifestyle factors and competencies is often a matter of shifting and shaping a healthy attitude towards yourself.

There's a connection between acceptance, trust, and reduced stress levels. Shift from 'trying' to 'trusting' for improved well-being...your body is smart.

Knowing how to achieve something differs greatly from the act of doing it. The "doing" part involves embracing the practice, even when life throws you those tricky knuckleballs.

Saying things out loud makes it real in a way that simply thinking about it doesn’t. It’s even more powerful when you say things in the presence of others. Exposing a speck of doubt or uncertainty in the open air? There’s no going back.

Understanding and settling strong emotions, being open-minded, and knowing yourself will benefit your ability to bounce back from defeat (and loud buzzers) quickly. Three strengths help you to be capable and competent for responding to a situation rather than reacting to it. 

Putting a name — or at least a few words — on body-level instincts can bring benefits, especially if you’re looking to make a change of some sort. Truthfully calling out your “felt-sense” is understanding your body’s emotions and feelings.

Assess how you're doing on becoming a health contender. Consider your personal, health-related goals for this self-assessment.

Environments and things or surroundings impact what truly matters, who you are, and what kind of person you want to be. They can navigate motivation and drive consistent action.

When it comes to health, the one true and effective expert teacher is your body. Emotional regulation is a master-proven skill to building competence.

There are eight layers of environment where you can make easier movement towards a goal with less effort. In terms of sleep, controlling cues in your environments can regulate it without rules to practice.

Environments are literal, perceptible, real-life physical structures. They’re objects, smells, infrastructure, climate, and safety. Environments are also metaphorical. Eat your way to exploring this.

Environmental factors can shape the path and you can change your movement habits by changing the environment. The best way to change is to let the path quietly take over.

Time can unknowingly whiz by until reality jolts you to reassess your values and priorities. You can avoid that from happening.

Working your social and emotional skills, then applying those with deliberate connection, helps us experience meaning in life through relationships.

Both design and people are powerful influences. Awareness of what you have total control of can empower you to make deliberate choices that reflect the reality that you’re the owner of you.

When you’re feeling overwhelmed, chuck the “to-do” list and start “to-be” work. Coping by non-striving is being mindfully attentive.

Assigning meaning is comprehending an experience. Being intelligible is understanding by intellect, not by sense. Since your body is a sensory powerhouse, assigning meaning to what you feel effectively builds skills.

There's a rationale to why dogs chase tails with why bodies seek (or avoid) stimulation. When the neural circuit that moderates boredom is active, it focuses on what not to do. 

The thing about change is action is needed in a way that’s inconsistent. It’s gotta’ be different from the past… (fill in the blank.)

While admitting you're wrong may feel like failure, it’s actually recognizing your humanness. And your ability to forgive yourself.

When there’s tinkering, curiosity, and meaning-making driving action there’s self-efficacy and a sense of agency.

The more principle-driven your role in health is, the more your intelligence will be like an eager kid, excited to be 15-yards from a bear.

Your interactions aren’t random. There’s some kind of pattern in which you play some kind of role.

Existential practices sharpen adaptability skills and can help you explore the meaning in life and the meaning of life.

Sustained effort is hard because it tends to become tedious and tiresome. But when you reflect on the contextual factors impacting your effort, it can help make things less mundane.   

Unique components that give life meaning and purpose are what you need in order for you (and possibly your family, friends) to routinely function every day.

Sensing is a resource to living smarter. A lifestyle that accommodates time to observe or “sense-in” will improve your goals and roles success rate.  

Getting distracted isn’t uncommon for many of us. Every day, we are surrounded by sounds, sights, and “feels” that emotionally reward us for giving it our attention. In real life, a “squirrel” is essentially a challenge. 

The dynamics and tensions of environment style involves structures and systems - those nudge interaction tactics, rule following, expectations, and codes of behavior. You can modify, change, or create an environment style for the purpose of triggering a habit. 

At a certain point, tools can contribute to “control mania.” This mania is recognizable when the tool helps…until you “lose” control.

Change begins when you start saying things out loud. The vitality of change involves the willingness to express it. Competency takes practice.

Logic most often follows emotion. If logic alone worked, obesity, abuse, and accidents wouldn’t be happening. 

Objects can become "fillers" and pretend threats that often throw your bodies’ physiological protection strategies out of sync with your actual needs. Which is why competence starts with observing.

Consistency doesn’t help in matters of change. It’s inconsistency that’s necessary in order to create new behavior patterns.

The role imagination and kindness play in shaping your future can create what you hope for in your life and health and relationships.

For your brain to believe what your body feels — imaginary forces, illusions, and reality — explore and define what guides and inspires meaning for you and your life. 

Having a clear sense of purpose and priorities will make committing easier. You’ll understand what’s possible and why you’re acting a certain way.

Allocating sufficient time to conceptualize on paper how you receive, organize, and respond to experiences is learning about health in a way that memorization can't touch.

Every day, over and over again, you’re filtering, then prioritizing. You can replenish that system with mental and cognitive recovery.

Maps prioritize efficiencies and the capacity for handling unexpected nuances. Focus mapping is a method that does that, too.

This is about progress, not perfection. The more you act, the better you’ll feel because “it” happened.

There’s no getting around the fact that effort is mental, physical, and soulful work. Pair it up. Scale it down. Celebrate it!

Practicing noticing and naming ultimately helps you to choose to respond. When filters focus on being a problem-solver that meets challenges with resilience and creativity, that’s what you’ll be.

Three months into this newsletter adventure I started gathering data of the top 5 all of you contended with the most. Of the 50-some notes I’ve sent over the past year, which one is most impactful — for you?

With consideration of your health goals, the notion of friction is important to understand. There’s always resistance between your goals and achievements.

Of all the places we inhabit each day, home is the hub of resources that you (mostly) get to choose as forms of help, care, comfort. Advocate and invest in your actions and feelings.

You’re neurologically predisposed to do things that instantly gratify you. Humans naturally hunt and seek out pleasure. That is why environments are crucial resources.

Reducing distractions at home that suck up mental energy offer you traction towards optimal mental health. Resources that are meaningful to you are good for you. 

Cues stimulate you to do what you actually want to do. They’re pleasurable and can help you create a habit cadence, align with what you value, and demand little to no mental effort.

When life gets tough, seeking purpose can help you persevere. By reframing challenges as opportunities to make meaning, you can create a space that encourages learning and transformation.

Your support and presence have shaped GIG Design and this community into what it is today. And for that, I am deeply thankful.

Liberation has a way of disrupting the status quo or following the herd of ____ (fill in your own blank.) While calendars serve as excellent and useful systems for planning, erasers or delete keys are also helpful.