Don't forget the small things...

I'm learning a lot at the moment. I've been educating myself about mental health issues and specifically anxiety disorders so I can try and provide the best possible support to my son. Covid has caused a mental health crisis amongst young people like nothing ever before. And I'm obviously not the only parent facing something like this. But the journey we're on has also led to me learning a lot about myself and life in general.

CAMHS suggested I read this book 'Helping your child with fears and worries' by Cathy Creswell and Lucy Willetts. If you have a child suffering from anxiety then I think it's a pretty good place to start. I'd also recommend Young Minds as a great source of information. The situation (and the book!) made me do a lot of thinking and I came to realise that many of the things I'm learning about are relevant at work as well as at home.

One of the main things it taught me is that I have probably been focusing on achieving the end goal straight away i.e. getting my son to attend school regularly or getting him to start playing for his football team again. When this doesn't then happen (which is quite a lot of the time) you can end up feeling frustrated and sad. Really, we need to focus on small steps of progress and then celebrate these achievements at each point.

And that's when it got me thinking about work; I'm probably the same here, always focusing on the bigger picture. But actually now I will certainly be more in tune with thinking about all of the little things we need to do to get to the ultimate aim, and to recognise actually the amount of effort and graft that can sometimes take. I think it can be easy for that to get lost. So basically, don't forget the small things!

On Saturday, one of the small things happened. This is a photo of my son at his club match. No he wasn't playing or indeed even standing very close at this stage to spectate but just getting there signals massive progress. Sometimes the small things are actually the big things.