Change lasts when we have clarity

What I find fantastic as I discover more about my mental health is the power of clarity. When we decide to make a change, we benefit from ensuring we’re clear on the desired outcome and then testing how it will help us live the life we want. Many set goals for personal change, such as losing weight, engaging in some activity, or volunteering without pausing and wondering about the purpose and value of making a change to help live the life we want.

I concluded that living a good life to its full potential requires defining what a good life looks like. Mental health is a major want for me, having been riddled with anxiety and worry about being good enough for most of my life. A day without my mind running and racing and fear driving my behaviour is a golden day. I’m having many more of these days since I began focusing on and practicing mental fitness.

But to be clear, I still have bad days. I’m learning more and more about the value of living well even when feeling unwell. I’m also learning the power of cleaning my closet of regrets and worry. All I can control is what I choose to do next. I can’t change the past. I can only live for today, and what I do today helps create a better tomorrow.

When you create a mental fitness plan, there are many opportunities to make changes.

This memo aims to help you learn from my mistake. During the last year, I set mental fitness goals without thinking about their value and why I was pursuing them.

For example, I enjoy journalling first thing in the morning. Because COVID seems no longer an excuse for not doing anything, I was super busy travelling this summer. I like my routine and space in my condo to journal with my dog Link. I slipped doing my daily journalling during August. I felt guilty, but the guilt didn’t help me go back to journalling; it only made me feel bad.

What hit me is journalling is a scheduled task. It helps me create positive emotions and feel better. But I didn’t take the time to name clearly how journaling helps me create the life I want. I realized that my outcome of journaling is how it helps frame the kind of day I want. It’s a platform to define what I want and am prepared to do first thing in the morning to help ensure I live the best day possible.

I noticed that when I didn’t journal and reflect, I wasn’t as organized, settled, or clear on what would happen each day. I was just reacting to the day. The result was getting on a few mental treadmills of worry I perhaps didn’t have to get on if I had taken time in the morning to think about what challenges I had coming in the day and my options for coping with them.

Change can be challenging

Making any change requires intention and clarity on what you want to change, why, and how. I tell my clients that thinking about change is harder than doing something that supports mental fitness. Mental fitness aims to create habits that promote mental health and create the desired emotions to live the life you want. To move forward, explore whether any of the following anchors may be holding you back from making changes to create better mental health.

Three reasons many find it hard to make a behavioural change:

• They live in a comfort zone and resist change. They don’t like change and get stuck in their day-to-day routines. Even if they don’t like the routines and they feel like they’re living with a rock in their shoe, it’s safer than trying to do something different.
• They look for the path of least resistance. They want change to be simple, immediate, and easy. There are no shortcuts or magic bullets for creating good mental health. Creating a mental fitness plan requires learning and practicing habits with clarity of the benefits. My journaling slip helped me anchor why journaling is super helpful. It got me back on track because I’m clear on its purpose and value for helping me live the best life possible.
• They have developed learned helplessness. They believe their life is what it is, and there’s no way to change it. After 30-plus years of working with mental health clients, I know we can teach people how to move from learned helplessness to learned optimism that can positively impact their emotional well-being. It begins with accepting that there are no shortcuts and requires clarity and practice. For example, the daily practice of gratitude can help people notice more of what’s good in their life than constantly focusing on what’s not working the way they want.

Once you’re clear you want to change and know what anchors have been holding you back, the next step is to focus on who you want to become. This may seem a big question, but it doesn’t need to be. Who do you want to become in your life? A loving partner? Self-acceptance of who you are?

Only you know what parts of your life may be in place and what parts are holding you back. My mental health has been a barrier to fulfilling my potential. Learning how to better deal with ADHD and anxiety has drastically improved my quality of life. I have accepted there is no perfection and no end line to maintaining my quality of life. I’m now clear that my mental fitness plan and practices are critical.

I want to continue to change and learn how to live my best life. To do that, I need to be clear each day on what I’m doing to promote my mental health so it doesn’t feel like work; it feels like an opportunity. Mental fitness is about accountability, learning, and living a life filled with more positive than negative emotions.

Everything in this memo depends on one simple concept: you must want to change and move toward the person you want to be. Only you can decide that, and if you don’t know how to do it, engage in help-seeking behaviours and get support to get on the right track. Nothing will change in your long-term mental health outlook without a commitment and clarity on what you will do.?

Dr. Bill's Monthly News

Healthy conflict can be good for your organization: In this article Dr. Bill provides insights on how leaders can support and encourage positive discourse within the workplace.

Taking 10,000 steps a day benefits your emotional well-being: Dr. bill speaks to the interconnectedness of mind and body, as well as how individuals can take simple steps to support their emotional well-being.