A New Era of Wellbeing is Here - Take Shape Adventures

When we first started Take Shape Adventures, it grew faster than we ever expected. What began from a background in nutrition and fitness quickly took us into the great outdoors with our clients, where they experienced the benefits of moving your body outside the four walls of your standard gym. When we made that move, something remarkable started to happen. The personal changes we saw weren’t based on how many kilos people lost, how many steps they took, or how “good” they were with their diet. Instead, they were deeper, with people speaking about awe and feeling connected to something larger than themselves.

It was obvious that nature and adventure were doing something powerful. However, as any business owner can attest to, I didn’t have any time to stop and analyse it in those early years. Then came COVID and, at the same time, a serious injury that stripped away both my business and my personal identity as a fit, outdoorsy person. Without the company running, and without my body doing what I had always expected of it, I was left staring at a question I had always avoided: Who am I without all this?

My mental health faltered. I had to rebuild myself not through running or leading adventures, but through simply existing and being supported by nature, people, and the systems around me. And that was the turning point. I finally had the space to look deeply, not just at what adventure does, but why it works. That’s when I found positive psychology, and that’s when Take Shape Adventures took its biggest turn post-COVID. We decided we would no longer just create experiences, but actively explore the evidence and the mechanisms behind them.

What happens when we move beyond just coping?

In wellbeing, the concept of ‘bouncing back’ is used synonymously with resilience, essentially our ability to return to a state of coping after difficulty or hardship. But why are we, as a society, settling for just coping? If all we do is teach people to merely tolerate more stress, we’re reinforcing a cycle of depletion.

Systems scientist Peter Senge warned, “Today’s problems come from yesterday’s solutions.” In the case of how we deliver wellbeing in our workplaces and communities, “yesterday’s solutions” mostly include band-aid fixes for already burnt out individuals, like wellness apps, gym memberships, and one-day (or one-hour!) seminars on stress management. These only reinforce the system that produced that burnout, causing more of “today’s problems”. Instead, we need a preventative approach to wellbeing that moves from merely coping to actually regenerating. A key factor of this preventative approach is that it must see challenge as something we seek out as opportunities for growth, not something that we have to tolerate.

Here’s an example that might illustrate the point more clearly. A workplace might implement stress ‘fixes’ in an effort to reduce their employee burnout and turnover rates, and improve productivity and employee satisfaction. After holding weekly yoga classes and hosting quarterly stress-management webinars, they notice that… nothing has really improved. So they change strategy and instead start holding their meetings outdoors and creating quarterly team challenges so different departments can build bonds and achieve something exciting outside of work. Their employee satisfaction statistics start to improve.

A regenerative wellbeing system like this goes beyond helping the individual, and creates conditions where challenge, awe, and connection allow people, teams, organisations, and communities to thrive together.

Awe and challenge are the catalysts

Adventure and regenerative wellbeing offer a simple but valuable formula. First, challenge stretches us beyond our comfort zones. Second, awe reminds us we’re part of something larger. Finally, connection weaves those insights into belonging. That’s why standing on a mountain peak after a long climb or cooking food over a campfire with friends help change people more than any diet ever could. We need to stop seeing awe and challenge as fun bonuses in life and start seeing them as the first necessary steps in profound personal growth.

Going from Me to We to Us

If the goal is to create a system of regenerative wellbeing, we need to start thinking on a systems level, not an individual one. That means widening the focus from Me to We to Us, although all three interconnected layers are important.

Me is the individual layer. This is where people take on challenges not as punishment, but as an important part in their practice for thriving. Personal wellbeing requires seeking out feelings of awe daily. These can be achieved by trying a new trail, going for a cold swim, or enjoying a mindful pause to appreciate what’s around us. This level is also where we shift our language around resilience from coping to thriving.

We is the unit layer, such as families, teams, and other small groups. Here, we can create shared rituals of challenge and reflection like going for a walk together, cooking outdoors, and holding team conversations in nature. Reflection rituals like gratitude circles and awe pauses can also help bring groups together. Connection in the We layer takes all the existing benefits and multiplies our wellbeing.

Us is the systemic layer, at the level of organisations and communities. This is where we need to stop treating wellbeing as a perk or quick fix, and embed regular regenerative activities into culture. Workplaces can consider leadership retreats in nature, outdoor meetings, and challenges that spark growth instead of burnout. Schools can build physical challenge and reflection into their curriculum to teach our kids how to sustain regenerative wellbeing in their formative years.

How you can introduce regenerative wellbeing right now

This might sound too complex to tackle in your life but, as with most things in life, there are small steps you can take to start your thriving journey in an achievable way.

Shift your words. The next time you find yourself thinking or talking about wellbeing, replace coping with thriving. See challenges as opportunities for growth and notice how it changes your mindset.

Add awe to your routine. Each day, try to find at least one moment where you can build in a brief period of challenge, awe, and reflection, like noticing something beautiful in your environment, showing gratitude when someone does something kind for you, or trying something small that’s just outside your comfort zone. Sharing that moment with someone else increases the benefits.

Think bigger than you. Ask: how can my actions ripple into my family, my team, my workplace, and my community? Suggest that your social or familial groups incorporate some of the moments I just mentioned, or head out for bigger adventures together, like a family hike or a workplace retreat.

By moving through the fitness and nutrition industry, starting an outdoor adventure business, and enduring my own personal challenges during COVID, the moral of the story has become clear. Adventure has the power to change people far more than weight loss because of its emphasis on awe, challenge, and connection.

Now that I have more knowledge through the lens of positive psychology, I can see that this impact can go beyond the individual to help us create truly regenerative wellbeing systems. This is where our culture can shift from fixing the problem to preventing the problem, allowing our communities and organisations to thrive.

Why we need this is clear; coping isn’t enough anymore. What we need to do is something powerful, by introducing regenerative wellbeing as a design principle for life, work, and community. How we do it is a practical process of starting with Me, expanding to We, and rippling out to Us. And it starts, as always, with one small step outside.