So often we hear people say 'I am fed up with how I feel and I just want to feel better'  but unfortunately, wellbeing is all too often preaching and seemingly unobtainable when viewed through the prism of feeling low.  Ben McGannan, Managing Director of Wellbeing People, talks about his experiences within the wellbeing sector, how things are changing and why Wellbeing People are rethinking wellbeing.

RETHINKING WELLBEING

Having been the MD of Wellbeing People for 18 years, I have been part of the ‘wellbeing sector’ from its early days. Indeed, 18 years ago, I remember a real sense of excitement that the future was all things ‘wellbeing’

Prevention is better than cure was the mantra and back then politicians were telling us that the future of the NHS was unsustainable unless we put prevention at the heart of the agenda. Fast forward 18 years and sadly things have got worse, prevention over cure remains a relatively elusive notion.

‘Wellbeing’ has not emerged as a sector in its own right.  There is no trade body, no collective quality standards and certainly no quantum shift that has saved our NHS. Rather, we have seen the term ‘wellbeing’ being swallowed up as a wider marketing term within all manner of things across health and wellness.

In truth, good wellbeing is seen as some sort of elusive privilege that some people are lucky enough to possess, because it’s easy for them.  The language of wellbeing has spoken to the few, not to the many, and certainly hasn’t penetrated the mainstream in terms of incredible opportunity that we have to help people to understand that their wellbeing belongs to them!

In part, we are so entrenched in a system that is based on cure that it’s easy to see why wellbeing is still so overlooked.

When we feel unwell we turn to health for the answers, we look to our GP, pharmacist, A & E, private health or whatever offers us the quickest solution to cure of our ailment.  And post pandemic, with the cost of living crises that followed, we have seen an ever increasing pressure on people, struggling with  how they feel and an ever decreasing accessibility fo the health services that we seek.

A little history of our early days...

Wellbeing People began in 2006, as the then embryonic wellbeing division of a watercooler business. At that time, we recognised the importance of hydration being a core element of our wellbeing, so we embarked on a journey with our Interactive Health Kiosk, to engage with people and give them a snapshot of their health and wellbeing.  This created those light bulb moments where people realised that they wanted to become more proactive around their own health and wellbeing journey.

Over the first decade of our sector’s growth, I imagined that we would form a trade association; advising government, galvanising our industry around quality standards and the sharing of best practice, as indeed I had witnessed over two decades within the watercooler sector.

What happened was altogether different.  We saw a proliferation of well intended sole traders and SMEs doing their best to impact on their clients, Wellbeing People included,  but always battling the real problem that wellbeing was very quickly swallowed up as a subset of health and wellbeing.

Be it health insurance, fitness, wellness, supplements, weight loss or any other product that could attach a wellbeing label to its offering, the opportunity for an effective wellbeing sector had already been lost.

So I set my goal, as I was then turning 50, to be fitter and healthier at 60, a mere ten years away on the horizon.

In the first 12 weeks I lost over a stone in weight (without dieting) and that weight has never gone back on. I learnt how to improve the quality of the food I ate, have a more balanced diet, move more, drink more water and to drink less alcohol.  (This is still a work in progress but when I look back over the last 7 years, I am amazed at how my relationship with alcohol has changed).

My journey with Recalibrate Wellbeing has indeed been life changing little by little I have upgraded my habits over the last seven years, often without even realising how far I have come, until I stop to reflect.

The key thing for me has been the fact that I decided at the beginning where I was at, and whether I wanted to get to, and used the programme to help me prioritise that journey.

Having seen the immediate benefits of the programme for myself, we set about finding a way to bring the Recalibrate Wellbeing programme to our clients.  In September 2019, we merged with Day One Wellness in the hope of bringing to a much wider audience.

2020 obviously changed plans for many people including us at Wellbeing People.  We had a really turbulent couple of years, navigating like everyone else the lockdowns and changes that faced us as a business.

Like most things, it’s an ill wind that blows no good, so we weathered the storm, digitalised the Recalibrate Wellbeing Programme and set out with our coaching team to deliver it to over 1,000 people across 30 companies, creating 174 Wellbeing Ambassadors along the way to help spread the word within those organisations.

Has it been easy?  No!  Why?

So after 18 years, my answer to that question is this: most people aren’t looking for a wellbeing solution to how they feel and in our cure based world the quickest fixes are to be found in the conventional industries of health, diet, supplements and fitness, looking for something or someone to take responsibility for our ailments.

The language of wellbeing doesn’t speak to you when you are feeling rubbish. 

The vision of people with supposedly good wellbeing doesn’t resonate when you don’t feel good within yourself. Wellbeing is all too often preaching and seemingly unobtainable when viewed through the prism of feeling low. And this is why we have decided to stop our preaching, stop advocating a recalibration of your well being and instead seek to meet people where they are actually at.

The majority of people don’t feel great, and evidently most of us feel less good than we did before the pandemic and the cost of living crisis. We struggle along, doing our best to make the most of it, although in truth, we just want to feel a bit better.

Rethinking Wellbeing -  So we have ripped up our own rule book, determined to learn from what we have witnessed over the last 18 years and decided to change our language and our approach.

We want to meet people where they are at and offer everyone the opportunity to attend our free webinars, unlocking the insights from our Recalibrate Wellbeing programme and offering a way forward with Habits for Health, from how they feel today to how they would like to feel, with a proven methodology to prioritise that journey.

No longer asking people to commit to a 12 week coached programme at a prescribed time each week, what we have developed with Habits for Health is a flexible way for people to follow the programme as they choose, when they choose and supported by the coach content being embedded within the programme.

So Recalibrate Wellbeing as it was is no more, it’s been enhanced, upgraded and overhauled, along with our new webinar series ‘Tired of feeling tired’  to what is now our new programme, Habits for Health.  We look forward to seeing thousands of people benefit from what we have learnt over the last 18 years