GREENFIELD — Women from all across Hancock County gathered for Greenfield Area Chamber of Commerce’s Women In Business event Friday to discuss multiple topics including a healthy work-life balance at Ninestar Connect’s main location.
The Women in Business event has been happening for seven years. Retta Livengood, president of the Greenfield Area of Chamber of Commerce, said that this event is aimed to help celebrate journeys of women — professionally and personally.
“We wanted to celebrate those accomplishments and achievements and offer an opportunity to learn from other women, no matter what their path,” Livengood said.
Sponsored by Hancock Health, the day featured Purdue Extension Hancock County educator Mandy Gray, panelists of local business women and Janelle Wyatt from Hancock Health.
Gray, who specializes in health and wellness, presented Purdue Extension’s newly released program called CREW, Compassion & Resilience Education at Work. In the presentation, Gray talked about the importance of having a work-life balance and having fulfillment in one’s dimensions of wellness.
Some dimensions of wellness include physical, intellectual, emotional and more. By providing a self-assessment with the presentation, it allowed the women to view each dimension of a wellness wheel and rank each dimension on how they felt, then showing how their wheel looked.
Some women said their wheels looked lopsided or wonky, focusing more on other dimensions than others.
“When we talk about work-life balance, it may mean different things to different people,” said Gray during the presentation. “A lot of people don’t take the time to dig through the surface of that to figure out where their imbalances really are.”
Another section of the presentation talked about SMART goals, which stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timely. Gray explained that using SMART goals allows one to define every single area of a goal, which Gray said can help set up someone for success.
With SMART goals, this set up allows someone to specifically point out what is wanted, set measurements along the way to show progress, make sure the goal is achievable or realistic, that it is relevant or connected to the concern, and that the goal can be obtained in an appropriate amount of time.
Another part of the Friday morning consisted of chair yoga with Janelle Wyatt, health coach with Hancock Health. Wyatt introduced chair yoga and breathing techniques such as box breathing, which is something someone can do at the office to help calm the nervous system and decrease stress levels.
After yoga and breathing exercises, a panel of four local business women sat and answered questions that included Deb Cherry with Changing Footprints, Amy Hughes with A Focused Touch Day Spa, Lynda Kosh with Meals on Wheels of Hancock County and Sarah Riggs with Union Savings and Loan Association.
Livengood asked the four women multiple questions about work-life balances and any tips they would give to other business women that need advice or guidance.
Hughes shared that by participating in groups throughout Greenfield and networking events such as Women In Business, she started to see the same people.
“When you start to meet these people, and you start to realize you have like-minded passions and like-minded interests, it really helps you form connections,” Hughes said.
In hosting this event, Livengood said that she hoped guests left with some tools for managing a health work-life balance.
“We always think it is a benefit to our community when those of like minds gather,” Livengood said. “Many of the women in that room are today’s community leaders and some will be tomorrow’s leaders.”
