Framework Tools: Garden Soil, the Cup, and the SMART Garden Plan
🟡 Status for all three tools: developing framework. These are educational reflection and conversation aids. None has been clinically validated, none diagnoses anything, and none replaces clinical assessment or validated screening instruments. Future research is needed.
🧭 Which tool is which?
All of these are educational reflection tools. They help a person think and talk about what matters. None is a validated clinical assessment, none gives a score, and none diagnoses anything.
🪞 Five-Minute Flourishing Reflection
What it is: A short set of questions about how life feels right now
How to use it: Read it alone or with a nurse; notice one area to start with
Status: Educational, not validated
🌳 The Nine Gardens of Flourishing™
What it is: A conceptual map of nine areas of life, related to the six lifestyle medicine pillars
How to use it: Pick one garden to tend this week
Status: Conceptual model, not a recognized clinical framework
What it is: A way to think about the conditions around a person: housing, food, money, transport, support
How to use it: Gentle conversation openers; people may decline any question
Status: Developing; use your organization’s validated screening where required
☕ The Cup of Flourishing™ Assessment
What it is: A whole-life reflection: what feels full, what feels empty
How to use it: Reflect in your own words; choose what, if anything, to talk about
Status: Developing; no scores; not validated
What it is: Turning reflection into one realistic SMART goal
How to use it: Choose the smallest meaningful change that feels achievable
Status: Uses standard SMART goal-setting
What it is: A printable page: one goal, one action, when, barrier, workaround, support, review date
How to use it: Fill it in on screen or on paper; optional save on this device
Status: Available now
🌱 Living Flourishing Plan™
What it is: A fuller private, printable personal plan you can revisit as life changes
How to use it: Not available yet; use the one-page plan below in the meantime
Status: In development
Each tool is an invitation, not a test. There is no passing or failing.
🪴 1. Garden Soil Assessment
The idea: when a garden struggles, a gardener doesn’t lecture the flower. They check the soil. The Garden Soil Assessment is a way of thinking about the conditions underneath a person’s health, the things that make healthy choices easier or harder.
Soil factors a nurse might gently explore: 🏠 housing · 🥫 food security · 💵 finances · 🚌 transportation · 🏥 healthcare access · 📖 education and health literacy · 🏘️ neighborhood safety · ⚖️ discrimination · 👪 family support · 🤝 social connection · 🏭 work conditions · 🫶 caregiving demands · 📱 digital access · 🌍 cultural context · 🌳 environment · 🌙 opportunity to sleep · 🎒 overall stress burden
💬 Sample conversation openers: “Is there anything at home that makes following this plan hard?” · “How do you usually get to appointments?” · “In the past month, have you worried about having enough food?” · “Who helps you when things get hard?”
Where a setting requires social-needs screening, use the validated instrument your organization has adopted. The Garden Soil Assessment is a way to think and talk, not a substitute. People may decline any question.
☕ 2. The Cup of Flourishing™ Assessment
The idea: a reflective framework that helps a person look at their whole life at once and notice what feels full and what feels empty. It connects to The Cup of Flourishing™, co-authored by Chief Flourishing Chef Robin Jeep and Nathanael Elijah Smith, MSN, APRN, FNP-C, DipACLM.
Reflection areas: 🥗 nourishment · 🚶 movement · 🌙 sleep · 🌬️ stress · 🤝 relationships · 🧭 purpose · 🏘️ community · 🌳 environment · 🕊️ compassion, meaning, or spirituality
How it might be used: a person reflects on each area in their own words, notices where their cup feels fuller or emptier, and chooses what, if anything, they’d like to talk about. There are no scores, no “passing,” and no wrong answers.
The Cup of Flourishing™ Assessment is a developing reflective framework intended to support conversation about whole-person well-being. It is not a diagnostic tool, has not been validated, and does not replace clinical assessment. Possible future work includes expert review, content validity, patient acceptability, feasibility, and psychometric testing.
🎯 3. The SMART Garden Plan
The idea: turn reflection into one realistic action, using SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-sensitive) as taught in lifestyle medicine.
👀 NOTICE → ✋ CHOOSE → 📝 PLAN → 🤝 CONNECT → 🚀 ACT → 🪞 REFLECT → 🔄 ADAPT
Never fifteen goals at once. Just one question: “What is the smallest meaningful change that feels achievable?” For example:
- 🚶 Walk outside for five minutes after lunch, three days this week.
- 📞 Call one friend by Sunday.
- 🫘 Add beans to one meal this week.
- 🌙 Move bedtime 15 minutes earlier on weeknights.
- 🏘️ Attend one community class this month.
- 🚌 Ask the clinic about transportation help before the next visit.
- 📅 Schedule one overdue appointment.
🌱 If it doesn’t happen, that’s information, not failure. Reflect, adapt, and try a smaller step. Goals involving medications, new exercise with a health condition, or diet changes for a medical condition belong in conversation with the person’s clinician.
🪴 Soil asks what surrounds the person. ☕ The Cup asks how their life feels from the inside. 🎯 The SMART Garden Plan asks what one step fits.
The goal is not a perfect garden. The goal is a living one.
📝 4. My one-page flourishing plan
One goal. One small action. That’s the whole plan. Fill it in here or print it blank and use a pen. 🌱 Bring it to your next visit if you’d like your nurse to help.
🌱 If it doesn’t happen, that’s information, not failure: choose a smaller step and try again. Goals about medicines, new exercise with a health condition, or diet changes for a medical condition belong in a conversation with your clinician. This is an educational reflection tool, not a validated clinical assessment.
🧭 Where to next?
ℹ️ Written by Flourishing Nurse Ninja Nathanael Elijah Smith, FNP-C, DipACLM, with artificial intelligence–assisted drafting. The Cup of Flourishing™ is co-authored with Chef Robin Jeep. All tools on this page are educational reflection tools, not validated clinical assessments; no scoring validity or outcomes are claimed. Independent external review: not yet completed. Last updated: October 14, 2026.
“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” 
