A Meaningful Definition
In schools, we talk endlessly about wellbeing — yet few of us mean quite the same thing. For some, it’s yoga and fruit bowls; for others, it’s workload management or emotional resilience. The problem is not lack of care, but lack of shared definition. Without clarity, wellbeing risks becoming a set of gestures rather than a meaningful practice.
So before we can talk sensibly about wellbeing — or its deeper companion, fulfilment — we must first ask: what does it mean to be well?
Wellness Is Not the Absence of Struggle
Modern culture has flattened wellness into an aesthetic: candles, free tea / coffee, inspirational slogans. But true wellness isn’t about feeling good all the time or constructing a refuge from difficulty. Life — and especially life in education — cannot be free of tension or fatigue. Work can be fulfilling and still frustrating; our relationships can be loving and still draining.
To be well, in the truest sense, is to move through the inevitable struggles of life with awareness, coherence and purpose. Struggle is not the interruption of the work; it is the work.
Wellness as Wholeness
Duysal Askun (2023) describes wellness as “organisational oneness” — a system functioning in coherence rather than competition. She uses the image of a healthy heart that does not hoard oxygen from the lungs but contributes to the vitality of the whole. This concept of ‘organisational oneness’ is a useful one. For example it is possible to apply the same principle to schools: wellness flourishes when connection, communication, and shared purpose flow freely between people and teams.
This sense of coherence can also be extended beyond the organisation itself to the whole person. Just as a school is made up of interdependent parts, so too is an individual’s life. Each of us moves within what might be called our life domains — work, health, family, community, and finance. These domains are not separate compartments but a living system, each influencing the others. Fulfilment in one domain can nourish the rest, just as strain in one can deplete the whole.
Recognising wellness as the integration of these domains allows us to see that struggle is not a sign of failure but a natural feature of the system. There will always be seasons when one domain demands more energy or another feels under strain. The task is not to seek perfect balance but to remain mindful of how these domains interact — to cultivate awareness of the connections, tensions, and exchanges between them. When we understand and tend to this ecology consciously, our overall wellness strengthens.
Wellness, then, is not a personal luxury we chase after hours; it is a collective and systemic condition that arises when our relationships, roles, and values — both within ourselves and within our organisations — align in purpose and coherence
The Ecology of our Life Domains
When we talk about ‘wellness’, the focus is often on the work environment – but of course, our lives consist of far more than just our work. Human life unfolds across interconnected domains: work, health, family, community and finance. None of these exists in isolation. A teacher carrying financial anxiety brings that weight into the classroom. A leader sacrificing rest for performance risks losing clarity and compassion.
Wellness, then, is not about perfect balance — a static equilibrium that no one ever achieves. It’s about harmony — a living rhythm in which we remain aware of the connections and trade-offs between the domains. Sometimes work leads; sometimes family or health must take the front seat. The task is to stay mindful enough to adjust, not to freeze.
Maggie Farrar (2014) describes mindfulness as the art of “responding rather than reacting.” That mindset allows leaders and teachers alike to notice when one domain begins to dominate or drain another and to restore coherence through small, compassionate recalibrations.
This principle sits at the heart of what I have elsewhere described as intentionality in leadership — the discipline of remaining grounded and purposeful even in times of pressure. To lead with intentionality is to make decisions that are evidence-informed rather than reactive, reflective rather than impulsive. During moments of challenge, intentional leaders resist the pull of emotion-driven responses and instead seek coherence — between values and action, purpose and process, self and system. It is this steady intentional presence that enables schools to remain well, even when the environment around them is turbulent.
Struggle as an Element of Wellness
When seen through this lens, struggle becomes a sign of vitality. Parents, teachers, and leaders alike face the friction between love and labour, commitment and fatigue. To deny that struggle is to deny life itself.
Accepting that we need to be intentional in our behaviours, accepting the inevitable challenge and struggle of our work, gives us workplace agency — the capacity to act meaningfully even amid challenge. A teacher who experiments within a rigid curriculum, a headteacher who meets conflict with curiosity rather than defensiveness — both demonstrate wellness in motion. They are not escaping struggle, but transforming it into growth.
A Working Definition
Taking these perspectives together, we might define wellness as:
“Wellness is coherence between what we feel, believe and do — the mindful capacity to live and work with purpose, even in struggle.”
This definition makes space for exhaustion, frustration, and doubt — the real terrain of professional life. A person can be tired and still well if they remain aligned with purpose and connected to others. A school can be under pressure and still support staff wellness if it acts with integrity, trust and compassion.
Wellness Across the Life Domains
Work: Our primary arena of contribution. When work aligns with values and fairness, it energises all other domains. When it becomes misaligned, it drains them.
Health: Not merely the absence of illness, but a relationship with the body marked by compassion and attention. Leaders who model emotional literacy teach wellness by example.
Family: The foundation of belonging. Supporting family life for staff — through flexibility, empathy and trust — is an investment in organisational stability.
Community: Humans thrive through connection to something larger than themselves. In schools, the strength of relationships between staff, pupils and families determines the resilience of all.
Finance: The often-ignored domain. Financial stress corrodes every other aspect of life. Supportive work environments are moral as well as practical acts of leadership.
Across all five, the principle is the same: coherence, not perfection.
The Leader’s Role in Cultivating Wellness
Leaders sit at the intersection of these domains. They influence not just their own coherence but that of the entire organisation. Farrar (2014) calls this leading from stillness — pausing long enough to notice before acting, making decisions from alignment rather than anxiety.
Askun’s (2023) “organisational oneness” provides a helpful metaphor: a school is a living body. When one part — say, workload, communication, or financial security — becomes inflamed, the wellness of the whole is affected. The task of leadership is not to eliminate stress but to maintain the connective tissue: trust, feedback, and meaning.
Wellness, Wellbeing, and Fulfilment
These ideas form a hierarchy:
- Wellness is coherence across the life domains.
- Wellbeing is the felt experience that coherence creates — a sense of safety and vitality.
- Fulfilment is the meaning drawn from sustained, purposeful activity.
- Workplace fulfilment is these dynamics scaled to the organisational level: a culture where people’s work aligns with shared purpose, relationships are authentic, and growth is mutual.
Without wellness, wellbeing is fragile and fulfilment remains out of reach.
Living the Definition
To live well is not to be calm, but to be connected. It might mean leaving work early for a family moment, pausing a meeting to acknowledge emotion, or designing flexible systems that honour complexity. Each act knits coherence back into the fabric of life.
Leaders who model their own imperfection and vulnerability — who admit struggle without shame — transform wellness from rhetoric into reality. Wellness is not a destination; it is a way of travelling.
Conclusion
Wellness is not luxury, nor ease. It is the capacity to remain whole in the midst of life’s inevitable demands, challenges and struggles — to stay coherent, connected and intentional in how we behave and interact with others. When we understand this about wellness, then wellbeing stops being a slogan and becomes a structure; fulfilment stops being a reward and becomes a way of being.
(Askun, 2023; King, 2023; Farrar, 2014)
The Infinite Headteacher 