Founder & CEO of Pavelka, Jessie Pavelka, created The Four Elements as the guiding for philosophy for true wellbeing: comfort, health and happiness.

The Four Elements are: Eat, Sweat, Think and Connect.

The understanding and definition of comfort, health and happiness is for each individual (that’s you!) to own.

So Just What Are The Four Elements?

Jessie created the holistic wellbeing principle of The Four Elements as ‘a lifestyle for a lifetime’.

Not as any kind of diet plan, workout regime or day-counting finishing line. Instead, ‘Eat Sweat Think Connect’ is what you live each day.

It’s about having your own understanding of how Eat, Sweat, Think and Connect can be lived in a way that works for YOU.

It’s about your relationship with your whole self, others and the world around you.

It’s for your true wellbeing: your comfort, health and happiness.

The Power of Everyday Wellbeing

The Four Elements allow you to use them as you want: they are your daily, foundational wellbeing guide.

• They keep you on track to feeling healthy, comfortable and happy.
• They are also your guide to what we call ‘lighting up with wellbeing’!
• Looking at how you Eat, Sweat, Think and Connect each day lets you be the person that you like to be.
• We see first-hand that it helps people to rise taller, feel better and people see that ‘something good is going on’ with that person.

That’s the power of small, everyday wellbeing supporting you in positive living.

How Do The Four Elements Work?

With Eat, Sweat, Think, Connect as your guide, it is YOU that make The Four Elements work for your whole wellbeing.

Jessie talks about the power of living within each 24 hours. Yes, that can and should include planning ahead! But you can only live RIGHT NOW, in each day at a time.

It’s as simple as:

• Starting each and every day considering: ‘how will I live The Four Elements today?’ and looking at what intentions you will set, what choices you will make and actions you will take that day in each Element.
• Ending each day with awareness, by looking back and seeing what happened. Did you take healthy actions for each Element? What were they and what happened?

That gives you your foundational wellbeing as a robust baseline for holistic health, comfort and happiness.

So let’s look more into what each Element means for you.

The EAT Element

The Eat Element is about your relationship with food.

It’s not about dieting, calorie counting or being restrictive!

In our modern lives, food can become so convenient, and it can also become loaded with powerful pulls such as salt, sugar and fat.

This can change something that can nourish, heal and build health, into something that can cause long term damage and negative health.

A busy and stressful day can impact the food choices that we make; not only for that day but the days ahead.

To get a healthy relationship with food, to fuel yourself to feel good, to be excited and inspired to cook, we see the Eat Element supporting you to:

• Always plan your food shopping and meals ahead
• Gain from the simple tool of having healthy snacks within reach
• Feel in control of your daily choices
• Be aware of cravings
• Fuel yourself for movement and exercise
• Stay excited by new ingredients and cuisines
• Enjoy the connection of sharing mealtimes and occasions

The SWEAT Element

The Sweat Element is about YOUR choices with exercise. It’s not about comparing ourselves to what we see on social media, and it’s absolutely not about counting calories in and calories out.

The Sweat Element is about enjoying the gift of movement, about feeling what it does for our mind, body and soul.

If you want to go on a journey of fitness or body transformation, then that’s great, but it’s YOUR journey.

Importantly, it’s about the same thing we talk about all the time: small, sustainable steps and enjoying living within each 24 hours:

• It’s about being realistic with any goals, it’s about being confident in your body, and loving what you have.
• It’s not about being guilty if you don’t feel motivated one day.
• What it is about is seeing the Sweat Element as part of the other Elements: as a partner to the Eat Element, when a good exercise helps you make healthy food choices.
• It’s about the Sweat Element being your pathway to calm and mental strength in the Think Element.
• It’s the Connect Element as you feel like you can connect to yourself, to a community or to something greater than you as feel the high of physical movement.

And it’s all your choice to make and to own!

The THINK Element

In the Think Element, we do talk about the power of just sitting with your breath.

But it’s more holistically about finding the time, the space and the way that works for you to find both your inner calm and your mental power.

The Think Element is about your relationship with time and space: the time that you give just for your own thoughts, and the awareness of the space you live in each day.

In 24 hours, how much of it do you especially set aside just to sit with your thoughts? Time to scan and assess your feelings, your mood, your daily life:

• Do you live well in the day, to sleep well at night?
• Do you feel as though you are keeping your own POWER?
• What would it take for you to feel calm, confident and with control over your mental health?
• Have you made any kind of plan, schedule or calendar for the wellbeing of future you?

These are the questions within the Think Element that bring you healthy and sustainable mental wellbeing.

The CONNECT Element

As the name says, the Connect Element, brings everything together.

The Connect Element includes:

• The connection to yourself: are you taking care of yourself and feeling like you are owning your journey? What do you do just for YOU each day?
• Connection to others: Those around you, people you love. Are you part of a group or community of others? The Connect Element involves your relationship with other people. It’s relationships with others that has made you the person you are today, and the Connect Element means being aware of who you interact with, who gives or takes your energy, who lifts you up and who is a force of good in your life. It’s also about the time and energy that you give others. To you take time to say how you feel? Do you help to lift others up and support their wellbeing?
• Connection to something greater: your definition of greater. Do you feel connected spiritually, or to nature, or to something that gives you a greater life purpose?

Each Element is key to good wellbeing. The Connect Element is what brings all areas of life together and centres your life experience into something that makes sense to you.

All The Elements Working Together

The power of The Four Elements is how they each support each other.

As they are a guide, it helps to break down things into The Four Elements.

We see people lighting up with wellbeing as each Element works together.

Thought and action given to one Element dominoes healthily onto the other Elements.

See the ‘swirl’ icon of The Four Elements? That’s not by accident!

Live all of The Four Elements each day and just feel what it does for your whole wellbeing.

A Lifestyle For a Lifetime

Why don’t we have a 30-day diet plan, or a weight-loss program about losing KG, or an instruction to meditate for 99 days continually?

Because we see that it’s the small, sustainable steps that truly change lives.

Good wellbeing isn’t about a finishing line, because the risk is that old habits, vices and weaknesses become tempting once you cross a line.

Instead, we see people finding their own success by living what Jessie calls a ‘lifestyle for a lifetime’.

It has to work for you – not just for a number of days – for your real life!

We know that real life presents challenges, and has both ups and downs.

That’s why it’s not about counting days, counting calories or suddenly making big changes that shock the system.

The Four Elements are the ‘lifestyle for a lifetime’ that you can depend on, always there for you to live with, each day.