There are two reasons you’ll stop working on your mindset.

The first is “it worked so well I stopped doing it.” Maybe you started meditation during a particularly stressful time and used the practice to get through it. Then once out the other end you “didn’t need that stuff” to go about your day.

The second is when things hit the fan we abandon the practice because it’s not urgent. You’ve too many fires to put out that you can’t waste time sitting quietly when there’s so much to be done.

The problem with both of them is you never break free of the panic-slump cycle.

If you’re only investing in calming your mind during a crisis you’ll never build any buffer of calm to stop you getting stressed and anxious. And after a few goes of the cycle you’ll start to dismiss the practice as not worth it.

If you drop your self care when there’s an emergency you’re increasing, not decreasing your chance of making a costly mistake when your thinking to be at its clearest!

Start small, a minute a day, and dial the mindset work up and down as needed. And when you feel the need to hit the off switch, that’s the time to double down on taking care of your mental well-being.

https://thementalhealthplan.com/the-two-reasons-youll-stop-working-on-your-mindset-mental-health-and-why-both-of-them-are-a-mistake/

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Mindset Monday - How Can I Make Today Meaningful?

This week’s Mindset Monday Challenge is to spend the week seeking purpose and meaning. Normally we ask ourselves “what would make today good?” and usually we seek out pleasure or things that are immediately rewarding.

This makes sense on the surface, we want to enjoy what we’re doing with our time. The problem is if we use enjoyment as our primary guide we can find ourselves unfulfilled. Very often what will lead to fulfilment, pride and satisfaction isn’t enjoyable in the moment or immediately rewarding. They’re more rewarding long term, but you gotta put in the work and pay the price in the short term.

To help with this we’ll start with asking ourselves what’s meaningful and important. Then once we know this and the steps we should take today to accomplish this, then we can ask ourselves how to make the steps enjoyable and rewarding.

Let me know how you get on 😊

https://thementalhealthplan.com/mindset-monday-how-can-i-make-today-meaningful/

A Friendlier Way to Look at Fear & Anxiety

Here’s another way to look at fear and anxiety.

Most of the time most of us treat these emotions as something to avoid at all costs. We’ll either avoid the situations that cause them, or if they do arise we’l quickly try to abate them.

We automatically and instantly reason that fear is a sign that something is wrong. There’s a threat to our survival and we need to make both the feeling and the threat go away ASAP!

What if we took the opinion that these feelings are alerting you that you need to pay attention to new information that can benefit you, instead of something that’s threatening your ego or your survival?

Instead of “here’s an imminent threat that could kill us” the same feelings are saying “hey, this is important so we’re preparing you to focus”?

The sensations of anxiety aren’t going away as long as we’re alive. They’re our bodies natural response to anything new, or anything important. If we practice thinking of the sensations of allies we’re going to be so much better off.

https://thementalhealthplan.com/a-friendlier-way-to-look-at-fear-anxiety/

https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=18248924&appointmentType=11286512

Fully Feeling & Releasing Emotions

This practice comes from Jim Dethmer, author of Conscious Leadership.

Emotions are feelings in the body. If we don’t feel them fully they energy gets trapped, and can cause a lot of suffering for quite a long time. We either engage in a lot of numbing - food, alcohol, tv, exercise - or we constantly replay the event and the story around the emotion. Dethmer calls this drama based/thought based emotion, and it intensifies the emotion.

The first stage is to locate the sensation in the body and describe it as much as you. Ask yourself what are the bits doing in your body? Twisting, popping, bubbling, stabbing?

Step two - breathe into the emotion. Feelings alters your breathing, so if you take some gentle full deep breathes you’ll help get the flow going again.

Step three - allow, accept and appreciate the emotion. This takes work and I found this quite uncomfortable the first few times I did it! Still do at times!

Step four - match your experience with your expression. Move, breathe, vocalise the emotion. Yes, make a sound!!

Practice this next time you feel a strong emotion. Emotions only last about 90 second. Unless you repress them somehow. Then they last years!

www.thementalhealthplan.com

https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=18248924&appointmentType=11286512

Mindset Monday - The CEO of You, Inc.

This week’s Mindset Monday Challenge is to spend some time today to pretend you’re the CEO of You, Inc.

Your job is to carve out the time to determine what’s important, what you value, and what activities will maximise your life. We’re taking all areas of your life: your happiness, your health, your wealth, your relationships, your legacy.

Then it’s important to look at your schedule and start putting these things in motion.

Much like a good CEO wouldn’t accept excuses or reasons why it can’t be done, we’re going to treat ourselves with the same firm guiding hand. As we go through the week, give yourself a motivating deadline of the weekend to report back on whether you made progress in the key areas of your life.

Now there’s no need to be harsh on yourself. You’re applying productive tension to get the best out of you, so you can be proud and satisfied of the effort you’ve put in and the progress you’ve made by this time next week.

❌ The Danger of Rushing to Fix What's Wrong ❌

When we unconsciously rush to fix things - change our living situation, our jobs, our bodies, our partners - we run a couple of risks.

The first is we may not be addressing the key issue. Have we asked ourselves why we want to change, or what the change will bring about, enough to get to the root need we’re trying to satisfy?

We all like solutions, and working on them can feel like we’re improving our lives. Without getting clear on what the need is, we can be overly focused on a strategy only to find out that our underlying need isn’t met.

Our salary is a great example here. At first we’re earning enough to survive, to satisfy our need for security. Then we reach that number and it doesn’t feel enough, so we want a higher salary, possibly trying to satisfy the need for freedom, or significance. Research has found that regardless of our current salary, our goal salary is always 150% of what we’re making!

When we understand our needs, we can chose better strategies for satisfying them. The work at the start to get clear on what our needs are and if our strategies can actually help satisfy them will save us a lot of disappointment.

Made it? (Outer Success, Inner Turmoil)

Ever feel like you’ve made it but you’re not feeling as content as you think you should?

We can be materially very successful but still feel unsatisfied, unhappy or uneasy. Our brains are funny little things. We all tend to focus on concepts that are easier to grasp, like money or titles, simply because they’re easier to grasp! It’s much more work for our brain to try figure out if we’re feeling happier or more at ease. So our brains try to conserve calories by not thinking about them.

But if we truly want to maximise our success in all areas of our lives we can’t ignore our belief systems or our mindset, particularly where we feel the most resistant to work on.

Quoting Mark Manson:

The problem with the traditional masculine formula – protection, providing, procreating – is that they require men to measure their self-worth via some external, arbitrary metric.

But there need to be new internal metrics for a man’s worth as well — his honesty, his integrity, his emotional openness and ability to remain strong in the face of vulnerability.

The external game can and should be rewarding. Denying our inner needs can mean we’re first to the finish line only to find out we’ve run the wrong race.

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Clear Expectations

Some would say that you shouldn’t have expectations, as they’d lead to disappointment. Expectations themselves aren’t inherently bad. What we need is to have clarity on what those expectations are.

If we base our expectations on events or other people, we can fall into the juvenile thinking of entitlement. We disconnect from one another as the childish parts of our brain feels entitled to the other person fulfilling our wishes, almost as if that’s their only role. We can forget they're also dealing with their own unique situations, feelings and desires.

When we set expectations of ourselves, we put ourselves in a better place if we make our expectations of effort only, not just of outcome. We can’t guarantee outcome, we really have very little control over it. But our thoughts and actions, we have much more agency.

The more we can set our expectations about effort instead of outcome, the easier it is to forgive ourselves and paradoxically the more likely we are to put in the work needed to shape the ultimate outcome.

Mindset Monday - What Would You Tell Your Best Friend?

This week’s Mindset Monday is to keep asking ourselves “What Would I Tell My Best Friend?”

This is such a powerful question because it cuts through all the excuses and BS we’re prone to telling ourselves. It takes away all the reasons why we can’t do what we should do in our own best interests.

At the same time it has powerful compassion behind it. We’re not being harsh on ourselves. We’re not berating ourselves or engaged in self flagellation. We’re being direct and kind with ourselves, taking away all the distractions and giving ourselves clear, loving direction.

Try it and let me know how you get on.

Mindset Monday - Am I blaming or taking responsibility?

Hey everyone! Our Mindset Monday challenge for this week is to stop and ask yourself “am I blaming or taking responsibility?”

We things go wrong our default reaction can be to blame somebody. It can happen before we even realise it that we’ve done it.

Blaming is an immature response, it’s your ego working hard to protect itself. It keeps us focused on the problem. And when we blame out loud it puts other people on the defensive.

When we take responsibility notice that after we get over the initial embarrassment on ‘being wrong’ we feel more in control of our future actions. And by taking responsibility we open up space for others to take responsibility for their part too.

Try it this week and let me know how it works out for you!