Bounce's 5 Tips to Wellbeing, as seen by Dominic

By Dominic Wilson - 2 Feb 2017

I personally can relate to all of Bounce’s 5 Tips to Wellbeing in more ways than one…

Make a Difference: I want to make a difference; that's why I joined the Christchurch Youth Council (CYC) and Bounce. Joining those groups has taught me a lesson, and that lesson is that I don’t have to cure cancer or stop world hunger to make a difference. Making a difference could be anything. It doesn't have to be big: you could just be helping someone with their homework or helping with some jobs around the house. Although CYC and Bounce give me a platform to make a difference, I know that I don’t have to be out with CYC or Bounce to make a difference. I could go out and make a difference in just one person's day, and that would mean I succeed in what I had set out to do.

Keep Doing What You Love: I love many things: books, movies, Netflix. But I won’t focus on those – I’ll focus on CYC, Bounce, and helping others. I personally have been given amazing opportunities being able to be a part of Bounce and CYC. I have been able to do what I love to do: help others in more ways than one. With CYC, we want youth to get their voices heard, and we become advocates for the youth of Christchurch. We go around and get youth’s opinions on matters concerning them, we take that information, and we do stuff that they want us to do. For me, that means we are addressing the issues most important to the youth of Christchurch, which means we are getting the issues facing youth heard. Doing stuff like that is what I love: making sure other youth’s voices are heard. Bounce focuses a lot on youth wellbeing and diversity. Bounce teaches other youth that their wellbeing is important. Personally, wellbeing is very important to me as you need to care about yourself before you care about others. What happens to others who need your help if you’re not caring about your own wellbeing? Nothing! Bounce also focuses on diversity around Māori culture, #caramelspace. To me, Māori culture and language is very important as Māori people were here in New Zealand first. Their culture has surrounded us for hundreds of years, but people still think that Māori culture shouldn’t be allowed in schools or that it shouldn’t be allowed in our day to day life. That’s why I think it’s important to cherish such treasures from a culture we share New Zealand with – because how many other countries can say they have two whole cultures who represent their country?

Treat Your Body Well: I personally learned the hard way that just because you can’t sleep doesn't mean you should go on your phone. I now know that I shouldn’t be using my phone so late at night, and that I should just try to get to sleep. I didn’t know that before. I have definitely learned that nobody likes me grumpy. Exercise, oh exercise, it’s not my favourite thing in the world, I can tell you that now. But I have gotten better at liking it, and actually I have gotten better at it. Exercise is such an important thing. I myself do martial arts, but I also run a lot and do a couple of others things usually just in everyday life. Exercise is so important, as it’s what keeps you healthy. At one point, I hated exercise, and I basically refused to do it. I have now come to terms with it, but I still don’t really like it.

Connect With Others: What connecting with others means to me is that if you're at a new school, instead of going to people you already know, you go meet new people and connect with them. I believe connecting with new people can happen anywhere at any time if you let it happen. If you just stay to your two best friends and never go talk to anyone new, you may start to know them really well, but you should always be on the lookout for a new friend. I think it's always good to have one or two best friends, but you should always have lots of people that you could go and hang out with. Then you could connect with their friends and then those friends’ friends until you're sooooooo popular that your phone storage runs out from having too many contacts.

Know Yourself: You need to know yourself so that you know when you can’t handle any more work, need to go to sleep, or need to stop your fitness session. You always need know yourself so you can keep yourself in check. If I weren’t always checking in on my wellbeing, knowing myself, and realising the time I have, I probably would have signed up for everything possible at CYC and Bounce, and then I would have all of that work to do and nobody else would have a job. That is one of the skills of knowing myself I had to learn: knowing when to stop saying, “I’ll do that,” and instead say, “Sorry, I already have heaps of other things to do.” Personally, I think knowing yourself relates in some way to all of Bounce’s 5 Tips to Wellbeing.

For example:

Make a Difference: You can know yourself though Make a Difference by knowing how and when you can make a difference. Also, it’s important to know that helping just one person still makes a difference if it brightens up their day.

Keep Doing What You Love: Know Yourself works with Keep Doing What You Love because if you know yourself, you know what you love to do. You also know what you don’t love to do. I think knowing that makes a lot of difference.

Treat Your Body Well: The two fit into each other because you need to know yourself to know how to treat your body well, when you have had enough fitness training, or when you have (or haven’t) had enough sleep.

Connect With Others: These two work well together because you need to know yourself to know, “Is this person friend material?” or “Is this person going to get me in trouble in any way?” You need to know yourself to be able to ask yourself those sorts of questions.

In Conclusion: Bounce’s 5 Tips to Wellbeing all are important in everyday life and at any age. At any time, you may think, “How am I making a difference?” or maybe, “Am I doing what I love?” Maybe you're thinking if you're treating your body well or not, or you also might think, “Am I connecting with others?” or “Do I know myself?”

I know I will be able to come back to Bounce’s 5 Tips to Wellbeing and answer all of those questions.

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