Most wellness experts advise their clients to adopt a trio of healthy lifestyle actions, namely a balanced diet, consistent exercise, and plentiful sleep. While these actions will help get and keep you on the path to wellness, if you really want to change the results in and impact of your life, try these five habits.

1. Play: Take time to shake off adulthood at least once per week whether it be a game with your kids, a bit of sport with some friends, or a few inside jokes with your significant other. Play leads to laughter and laughter frees the mind, eases the soul, and recharges the body. Smiles pay dividends so take time to make more of them.
2. Dream: The corporate world will teach you all about goal setting, but people rarely get excited about micro-achievements and tick-box wins. Take time each month to think about what you most want – for yourself, your family, even the world. You don’t need to build metrics and project plans just yet. Sometimes a simple awareness of what matters most will help guide you there. As a bonus, reviewing your dreams gives your permission to let go of outdated ones.
3. Reflect: Some people say never look back, but there is a power in knowing where you’ve been. Each quarter take time to review your life’s journey. Prior successes can be duplicated and surpassed. Mistakes and failures can be learned from. Owning your journey – both the path ahead and the road behind will give you the strength to thoughtfully commit to the next turn when the road forks. 
4. Plan: The first three steps will energize you and clarify both your past and future at the macro level. This preparation will make your yearly plan much easier to craft. Each December devote a day or two to scoping exactly what you’d like to accomplish over the next twelve months. Think of this as the practical flight plan enables your dream of taking to the sky.
5. Give: In the end, money doesn’t matter. Neither do titles, possessions, or ticks on the scoreboards of our own design. What matters is impact. You can and should make yours every day, by giving what you can. It doesn’t have to be a big thing and it doesn’t have to be monetary. Sometimes just offering a stranger a friendly wave or smile can give them pause and prompt them to play, dream, reflect and maybe even plan something better for themselves.

The irony of changing your life is that often the best way to do it is to focus your attention on others.

“We teach best what we most need to learn.” – Richard Bach

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