We’ll be capping off the Wheel of Zing in this final chapter of our series. If you’ve been keeping up so far, you’ll know what our wheel is by now, but if you missed out don’t worry, you can find all the previous articles in the series here! Here’s a quick recap: our Wheel of Zing is split into 8 segments with two animals each, which represent the character strengths that every individual can build, and use in different ways. Our wheel enables you to identify and keep track of these strengths in order to help you live a more balanced life. Health and Knowledge are the last two segments of the wheel to be covered, and hopefully by the end of this article you’ll feel like you’ve learned a little more about them and how you can keep them working in harmony and balance with the other elements of your life!
Health
It’s pretty much impossible to understate the importance of keeping fit and healthy both mentally and physically! Whether it’s keeping track of how well you’re eating, or being sure to take a step back and be mindful, there are loads of ways you can record your health habits on our wheel. The two animals making up this section of the wheel are the Energetic Jaguar and the Mindful Bunny.
Our Energetic Jaguar represents the physical end of the health spectrum. It puts 100% commitment and energy into everything it does, and is filled with positive energy and a laser sharp focus! To be able to maintain its focus and positive energy, it has to stay on the right track- eating a balanced and nutritious diet and keeping fit with a range of stimulating activities from team sports to jogging. This is a two way street too- studies have shown that keeping your body healthy and active can have huge benefits for your mental health too, and remaining active works as a kind of therapy for many people!
Conversely, the Mindful Bunny is the ideal in terms of mental health. It knows that the mind and body are deeply intertwined and you can’t keep one healthy without the other. Whether things are tough or you feel on top of the world, it’s important to take a step back and appreciate the little things- you can do this in a number of ways, whether it’s taking a daily walk, or a meditation session now and again. Taking this time out to gain perspective on things can work wonders and keep you from burning out when it feels like you have too much on your plate.
Knowledge
Knowledge is a difficult thing to define, but it’s definitely not just ‘how much you know!’ Knowledge is a mindset or an attitude that embraces learning opportunities wherever they appear, and strives to use what one learns in a way that’s helpful for the individual and everyone around them. The persevering beaver and the wise owl come together on this final segment of the Wheel of Zing, each representing a different aspect of knowledge.
The Wise Owl personifies the spirit of learning wherever one goes and on any occasion. Every minute of every day there’s an opportunity to expand your mind and develop your knowledge on things, and you’re probably often doing it without even realising. It’s important to ask questions and let your curiosity guide you- don’t be discouraged by not knowing something, instead make an effort to learn more and dive deeper into what interests you! You never know when something you’ve learned could turn into an interesting idea or a piece of excellent advice to give to somebody else.
The Persevering Beaver represents the value of hard work and determination to reach your goals and put the things you’ve learned into a practical context. The Beaver takes pride in its work and is always pushing onto the next task, never becoming discouraged by failure and remaining focused. Each stage of a project is given as much attention as the last and even the tiniest details are given focus. If you’ve read our recent article on people who rose from challenging circumstances, you’ll know that perseverance is an incredibly important skill to have, as many of the world’s most successful people struggled through multiple failures before reaching their goals. The important thing, however, is that they never gave up and continued to learn even during the toughest of times.
With these last two sections, we’ve now come to the end of our series detailing the character strengths that make up our Wheel of Zing. We hope that you’ll come away from the series not only with a deeper understanding of the traits we’ve discussed, but also feeling encouraged to hone your abilities, figure out your own strengths and weaknesses and apply our wheel to your everyday life! At the end of the day. The Wheel of Zing is a tool to help you feel better equipped to deal with the challenges and obstacles you face in everyday life, and feel more in tune with your own mind, body and spirit. Let’s get to work!