I’ve had many a client (and I’ve been there myself) who has said to me that they know they could get what they wanted if they put their mind to it. The problem was they didn’t know what that was.  I believe this is a side effect of modern life. We have so many options, so many choices. Additionally, when we consider them, many of them may seem right, appealing and perfectly acceptable. But acceptable and right isn’t enough.

Work out what you want

I recently sat down with a friend who wanted to downsize. Her plan was to move out of the city to a little place in the country where she could get a dog. She had started to set up her work to be more online and was looking at her finances in detail. She was also hoping to set herself up with a decent pension pot by this move.

She was determined that this was what she wanted for herself. She had thought it through very logically and sensibly. However, after a while talking about about the idea, she stopped. Embarrassed, she admitted she wasn’t feeling excited at all. I asked her if she wanted to explore this. Perhaps she was scared? After all, it would be a big change of lifestyle. She would be leaving friends behind, the glamour of her city meetings and her network. No, she said, being able to own my own house outright and have a dog is more important. Then she stopped and, tears welling up in her eyes, said “it just feels so small. Have I worked all my life for this, my own house and my dog? I know I want them, but once upon a time I wanted so much more.”

“I wanted to be a writer.” The sentence hung in the air. I could hear the both of us breathing. She was thinking. I was trying desperately not to jump in and say the obvious.

“But there’s no reason I can’t be is there…?” she asked.

From that moment, her map changed, it was a different map, more exciting, involving joining a writing meetup, reconnecting with old contacts in the literary arena and setting herself a writing plan. A book idea she had kept hidden for years bubbled to the surface and suddenly her move to the country to set herself for old age had become a move to the country to hopefully create a new career as a writer. Now she smiled.

Online therapy to work out what you want

Your destination should be exciting. It should feel like an adventure. If you’re coming to therapy to get away from something, to deal with uncomfortable feelings, then this is ok. However, know that therapy also has the power to improve your life, not just bring it back to normal.

The Playful Bit

If you’ve seen the film Sliding Doors you’ll remember that Gwyneth Paltro has a moment where she misses the train…and an alternative reality where she doesn’t. From that point onwards her life diverges in two very different ways. Imagine this is your sliding door moment. What could your different paths be?

You can contact me here, or book your first online therapy session with me here.

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• Parents who come home and moan about their workplace all evening but do nothing to get a new job or take action to make things better
• Those who spend too many hours working, or on their phone
• Not looking after their physical health by eating rubbish food and taking no exercise
• Losing their temper with children because they take no time out for themselves to calm down and lower their own stress and emotional arousal
• Smoking when they know it’s a bad habit they wouldn’t want their children to take up

How can we role model good mental health habits?

One useful thing that we can do for the generation/s below us, whatever our age, is to try and role model good mental health habits. When we sit in that therapy room it can be both empowering, and a little scary, to realise that everything we do impacts those around us. This is especially so if we have children or are working with younger people. Taking responsibilty for ourselves can empower others too.

What powerful things have we learned in our own lives can we share with younger people?  One way to illustrate this is by telling stories, offering advice or starting a discussion. Alternatively, we could just model these things through our own behaviour.

Examples that will positively impact our own mental health and help young people learn to do the same might be:

Setting Boundaries

These could include being firm about deadlines, when you are and are not working, things you will and will not do in your role, and what you will talk about. Explanations are the key here. Setting a hard deadline of Tuesday for a piece of work will have much more impact if you explain why it needs to be done by then – if someone else is waiting for the piece for instance. Likewise, explaining that you don’t work on weekends so that you keep that time free to wind down will help them to gain the confidence that it’s okay to value your own time and energy.

Taking time to wind down

I often hear my therapy clients tell me they know they “should be” taking exercise, meditating, walking or doing any one of a number of powerful things we all know are helpful in calming anxiety and stress levels. They often report feeling guilty and not having time. However, these things, deceptively simple as they are, are the key to managing our anger and irritability.

Why not show those around you that you care enough for them to look after yourself, and put yourself in a good place for them? They will grow up with the knowledge that looking after themsleves is okay, and that they too can take some control over their own feelings and emotions.

Being kind

Gossip is an underestimated factor in mental health. This includes both gossiping about others, as well as worrying if others are talking about you. Setting a no gossip tone helps people feel safer and more comfortable.

If someone else is struggling, a conversation about how we can all be kind to them, even thinking in practical terms, helps everyone emerge feeling much happier.

Finally, don’t forget about being kind to yourself. This includes taking time out for self-care, as well as refusing to let that inner critic take over.

Looking after yourself

You don’t have to nag about eating greens and drinking water. If young people see you eating rubbish, it’s not unlikely that they will take that as the norm. Set the bar higher, ask them how they look after themselves, and start the conversations that show them that health should be a priority. Get to bed at a decent hour, or see a therapist about your insomnia, and let them see how important sleep is.

If you’re having a hard time cutting down your smoking, talk to them about it. Let them see that stopping struggle can be a struggle…but in the end it is worth it. What story does that tell them about overcoming hard challenges? You never know, one day they may be thinking, “if mum/dad can stop smoking, then I can do this.”

Get off the phone

If we are on the phone, our attention is turned away to some virtual person or website. It is not with the people we are with. Apart from showing respect, this models good manners and highlights that you don’t need to be glued to your phone to get on. No phone rules at the diner table are a great place to start with this, as well as when you’re all sat down watching TV together.

Learn from them

Older people are not the experts in everything. I learn so much from young people, from how Bitcoin works, to why they are turning off the news for their mental health. Listening and learning from them reminds them that they too have the ability to influence others, and how powerful is that?

My one hour seminar on creating 7 habits for your mental health is ideal for young people. Please contact me here or book in a chat to discuss this for your organisation.

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While some people may have a strong vision of where they want their life to go, many of us can find ourselves rather hazier about the details. We know we want change. We’re ready and willing to welcome that in, but we just can’t figure out what that means.  Additionally, we may be so nervous about making the wrong changes, that we get stuck, doing nothing at all, and end up feeling frustrated with ourselves for not taking action.

This is often the stage when people come to me for psychotherapy, thinking that something is wrong with them, that something internal is holding them back.

Think small

Sometimes, we can get so caught up in the big vision that we forget about the little things that are going to make our future work for us.  Our life isn’t all big causes and swapping changes. There may not even be a strong sense of purpose. What we can be sure of is that life is made up of many small moments that will add together to create our feelings about life, and ultimately, determined how satisfied we are with it.

Before you can create a big vision for the future, here are three approaches that may help to give both food for thought and clarity.

What matters to me?

Let’s try a little exercise here by taking five jobs you’ve had in the past, plus your current role. You can go right back to Saturday jobs and paper rounds if you like; just try to get some variety in there.

Take a separate piece of paper for each job. Just note down, for each of them, what comes to your mind about them – it can be anything from having to use negotiating skills to the fact that you hated climbing 5 flights of stairs to use the loo, to being able to wear sneakers into work.  Now take some coloured pens and go through, underlining things which are similar or the same in each job. They may not be found in every job, but even if they are in two, mark them.

Now, take a look at what you’ve underlined. The very fact that you’ve written them down means that they are important to you in some way – after all, we don’t notice things that don’t mean anything to us. The question is why are they important? So, three of your jobs had a dress down Friday. Did you like that, or hate it?

Look at the language you are using and how you really feel about what you’ve written. I once did a similar exercise with a group. Two of them had written down working from home, but when questioned, one said this had connotations of being lonely, the other said it was calm and peaceful.  So, if you do this exercise with someone else, be sure to really reflect on your own meanings, not be guided by theirs.

How can I play with this?

Rather than put too much pressure on yourself to come up with the big design for the rest of your life, think about approaching it more playfully. What have you always wanted to try but never got around to? What questions would you ask someone doing a role you’ve fantasised about? What would it be like to give it all up and write that novel you’ve been planning in your head for the last five years?

The theory of Possible Selves suggests that there are multiple possibilities for us out there –  you can write that novel, but equally, you could go for that promotion or go back to University part time. We don’t choose because it’s frightening to commit, but what if you could just play with the ideas? For instance you could take two weeks off to write two chapters and see how cope with working from home all day and having to reach a certain word count.  What if you spoke to the person who is doing that job right now, or even asked to shadow them for a day? What if you did an evening course and see how it feels? At the end of your experiment you may decide you can’t stand the isolation of writing from home, you couldn’t last the course and, surprisingly, you really like the idea of a new challenge at work.

Any change, even small ones like these, will inevitably give us fuel to help us make better decisions and clues as to what’s going to work for us. Them it’s up to us to take some real action. If that’s where you are stuck though, why don’t you…

Look at your worst possible self

Of course, we have that other possible self. The self we will be if we don’t change. If you need impetus then looking at how your life will be if you stay in that unhappy marriage/put up with that job with the two hour commute/put off dating…or whatever less than perfect circumstances you are putting up with. Really dig into how it’s going to feel in five or ten years’ time if you haven’t changed anything. How frustrated will you be feeling? Use this Possible You to provoke you to do something – anything – to start change happening.

If you’d like to explore making life changes – big or small – please contact me here, or book a free chat here.

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