Health - Interventions to Flourish

The source of the word health comes from old English word haelth or hal. One of my favorite definitions is "a flourishing condition." When families, communities, and organizations flourishing, they are considered healthy.

Interestingly enough, over the course of time, the definition of health has come to mean managing disease. Subsequently, to have financial health, professional health, physical health, mental health, social health, ethical health, social health, or ... health, the focus has over time shifted to disease management. Health, as it was originally intended, back in the 12th century in England was much, much more positive.

What if we changed our focus? What if we approached health in all aspects of our life to help us grow and prosper? These questions I have been pondering a very long time.

It still amazes me (I'm an RN) to know that we spend more time and money using some type of prescription, generally medication as the primary intervention for returning people to health. This same approach is used to return business back to health, only the prescription is a popular or trendy "formula" that has been prescribed and applied. I am not saying that medications and formulas don't work. They certainly do. That being said, they are not the only interventions to help people and business to be healthier. In fact, sometimes they actually can harm if they are not evaluated and modified appropriately.

What if we considered interventions for individual and organization that were more cost effective and has a lot less side effects? Shifting the focus to interventions that help people develop positive attitudes, habits and behaviors is showing startling results. For example, the more we hone our communication effectiveness, the more we can reduce misunderstanding, mis- diagnoses and mistreatment. Improving our strategic thinking will help us achieve a weight, a style, a product or service that can sustain and even help individuals, communities and businesses to flourish. These are just the tip of the "emotional intelligence" iceberg.

The interventions that start with internal focus will help enhance and/or minimize the external interventions. Remember, health is all about developing "flourishing conditions." What interventions will help you to flourish?