Lifestyle

How to Get the Tools You Need to Live a Happy Healthy Life

Published

2 years ago

January 18, 2025

Living a happy healthy life isn’t as easy as many will have you believe. Social media is often filled with quick fixes, expensive supplements, and highlight reels to convince you that all it takes is [enter product or service for sale here]. The reality is that you need tools for that life — like a nutritious diet, sufficient sleep, stress management, and positive social connections. And many people don’t have the slightest idea how to get those tools. Here are the critical steps:

Know What You Need

First, because both happiness and health are specific to the individual, the most important ability you need is self-awareness. If you can’t see yourself clearly, it will be almost impossible to improve yourself. So, take a good hard look at yourself and factor in your strengths and weaknesses. Ask yourself what you’re capable of and what you need to get there.

For example, some people may be in good physical shape and simply need to hire a personal trainer to help take their fitness to the next level. Others need a full panel of tests at a local clinic to figure out what health issues they may need to address. In cases of abuse or addiction, you might need weekly therapy, or you may benefit from inpatient treatment for substance abuse. You’ll have to evaluate your specific situation and go from there.

Ask for Help

If life is really bad and has been for some time, and you feel like you just can’t pull yourself out of a downward spiral, you most likely need to ask someone for help. Even in the case of an average life change, it could help to have an outside opinion in the form of a therapist, a friend, or a family member you trust. Many people struggle to ask for help, so this step may be especially challenging for you.

Remind yourself that truly everyone needs help at some time in their lives, whether they realize it or not. It’s also helpful to remember that many people enjoy helping others and even sign up as volunteers or go into service jobs for that reason. If you have trouble asking someone you know for help, look into local resources like counseling or social services, which can be inexpensive or even free. Those spaces will be able to help you get the additional tools you need.

Make Sure You Have a Safe Space to Live

Speaking of spaces, it’s hard to access the tools you need for a happy healthy life if you don’t have a safe space to live. Where are you supposed to sleep? Where can you store your nutritious food? These are real concerns for a lot of people, and if you’re one of them, you need to take it seriously. Look around you. Are you living in a safe environment that invites you to thrive and become your best self? If the answer is no, it’s time for a change.

Obviously, it’s not typically easy to just pick up and leave your current residence, but, again, if you answered “no” to the question above, you’ll need to take the leap. If you can afford it, get your own place, so you have more of a sense of control over your own life and choices. If not, reach out to your resources, like social services, and find out about safe, affordable housing. Also, if you have a friend or family member you trust, you may be able to stay with them.

Find Rewarding Work

Another crucial step toward accessing the essential tools for a good life is finding work you enjoy. It’s not enough to make money; plenty of people are miserable at high-paying jobs. Your goal should be to find the intersection between what you’re good at (what skills you have) and what you love. Then, work with your resources to figure out what kind of work you can do that will pay you a living wage or more.

When you find rewarding work, you can look forward to showing up to do your job every day. Most people spend more time at work each week than they do doing anything else, except maybe sleeping. It’s important you feel good about your work. Then, you won’t end up numbing your misery with drugs, alcohol, food, or too much screen time. Instead, you’ll be more encouraged to eat well, get enough sleep, and exercise, so you can keep showing up.

Engage in Community

Finally, in addition to those resources you find and utilize, you’ll also want to find and engage in community. This may begin with a program like Alcoholics Anonymous or a support group for grief or eating habits, but it can evolve into book clubs, walking groups, and more. Try to give as much as you get in these community spaces, whether it’s at your local farmer’s market or at a soup kitchen.

The more socially engaged you are, the better you feel, and the more likely you are to keep up your self-care. Community provides this feeling of giving back like few other avenues do because you are in an almost constant state of giving and receiving. When you want to be part of something, you can join a group or festival and socialize. At the same time, when you feel up to contributing, you can lend a hand and make a difference. Many times, you can do both at the same time.

The tools you need for a happy healthy life are basic. You require good food, sleep, exercise, and people. But as basic as they are, many people need a lot of help to get to where they can access those tools. The most important part of this entire process, toward getting happy and healthy, is acknowledging that you are worthy of those tools and that life. From there, you can start doing the work to get them.

Lifestyle

Why Toba Ogunremi Believes High-Performing Teams Start with Belonging, Not Pressure

Published

1 day ago

July 23, 2026

Michelle Langton

Most teams don’t fall apart all at once. It happens slowly, missed conversations, quiet disengagement, people doing what’s required but nothing more.

Toba Ogunremi has spent years working inside care environments where that kind of shift is easy to miss until it starts affecting everything. Leading operations at Samorem Care in the UK, he has seen how systems can appear stable on the surface while teams underneath struggle to stay connected to their work.

One experience early in his career changed how he looks at leadership entirely.

He had taken over a team that wasn’t in crisis, but it wasn’t working well either. The people receiving care were safe, but they weren’t thriving. The same was true for the staff. There was no urgency, no energy, just routine.

The usual solution would have been to tighten control by setting new targets, increasing supervision, and creating performance plans. He didn’t do any of that.

“I started with conversations,” he says. “Real ones. Not rushed, not formal.”

One by one, he spoke to each team member. What came out wasn’t frustration with the job itself, but something quieter and harder to spot.

“They weren’t disengaged because they didn’t care,” he explains. “They were disengaged because they felt unseen.”

No one had asked what they thought. No one had taken the time to understand how they were coping. Over time, that absence had turned into distance. That moment stayed with him. It shaped how he leads today.

His approach is simple, but not always easy to apply: people perform better when they feel they belong.

He believes high performance usually comes when people feel like they genuinely belong and know that what they do actually matters.

In healthcare, where pressure is constant and expectations are high, this idea can sound secondary. The focus is often on outcomes, compliance, and efficiency. Toba doesn’t dismiss those things, but he questions what happens when they become the only focus.

Even when all the processes are in place, if the people delivering the care feel disconnected, it eventually reflects in the quality of the work.

At Samorem Care, this thinking shows up in small but consistent ways. Recruitment is not just about experience. It’s about how someone responds to people, how they handle pressure, and how they communicate. Once they are in, the focus shifts to keeping teams stable and supported, rather than constantly rotating staff or reacting only when something goes wrong. He also pays attention to how leaders show up day to day.

According to him, leadership is not just about giving direction; it’s about being present enough to understand what your team actually needs.

That presence matters more in care than in most industries. The work is demanding, often emotional, and not always recognised for what it takes. When teams feel stretched or overlooked, it affects how they interact with the people they support.

For Toba, resilience is less about constant pressure and more about creating a work environment where people can do their jobs well without burning out. In his view, strong teams are not just coping; they are supported enough to stay clear-headed and consistent in their work.

His background outside healthcare still shapes how he leads. Having worked in sales and communications, he understands how important it is to read people and build trust. In healthcare, though, the impact is far more direct, as decisions affect someone’s everyday life, not just an outcome on paper.

That shift makes leadership more personal. Teams need more than instructions; they need stability, clarity, and a sense that they are understood. What defines Toba Ogunremi’s approach is its simplicity. He focuses on being consistent, listening carefully, and addressing issues early rather than reacting late.

In the end, his belief is straightforward: teams perform better not because they are pushed harder, but because they feel valued and part of something that works.