You can’t open a webpage, read a newspaper or magazine without finding some news piece or latest research about physical health. Whether it’s a new way to increase fitness, boost your immune system or a healthy exercise and eating plan, no one would dispute there are certain things to do and not to do in order to optimise our physical health.
Yet when it comes to mental health, not only are the articles few and far between but those that do exist seem to say the same things over and over again. Positive thinking seems to sum up the current knowledge and understanding of our mental health.
Mainstream understanding of ways of improving our mental health is still in its infancy, and focusses on healing and curing what is usually called mental illness rather than mental health. Yet mental health is much more than the absence of mental illness. It is no different than our physical health so just as some people are fitter, stronger, slimmer, more muscular, and can run faster or have more stamina than other people – the same is true of mental health. Some people have greater inner or mental resolve than others, and this has a huge effect on all areas of their lives. Just as we can improve our physical fitness and health we can also improve our mental health.
Mental health consists of a variety or concepts including emotional resilience, emotional intelligence, inner strength, confidence, ability to bounce back from problems, will power and much more.
There’s a direct link between our mental health and our success in other areas of life, such as relationships, finances, even our physical health and wellbeing. It’s clear that those with more confidence, rather than greater skill are often more successful than others. Having the willpower to follow through on tasks as well as take measured risks and the inner strength that these require will clearly lead to more success than the person who lacks these abilities. The ability to handle the circumstances that we all face on a daily basis enables us to rise above our situation and circumstances and to take the kind of actions we need to.
We pay attention to our physical health. If we get sick we consider it appropriate to go to the doctor, yet mental health isn’t given the same importance. Not only do we seek out coaches or therapists only when we experience problems, few people actively seek them out to help improve their mental health. Only a rare and usually highly successful person, who invests the time and funds in a coach to assist them to grow emotionally, reaps the rewards in greater success in all areas of their lives.
Take Personal Responsibility.
When we stop blaming other people for our circumstances for our unhappiness, and start making happiness a choice and our own responsibility, we can become true masters of our destiny.
Increase Self-Awareness.
This means to deeply analyse yourself, your responses, your reactions, both emotional reactions as well as the actions you take and words you say. Journaling is a great way to do this. Keep a journal and ask yourself the deep and sometimes scary questions about why you do and feel the things you do. This knowledge is the first step to making changes.
Meditate daily.
Many scientific studies show the benefits of regular meditation including both mental and emotional health as well as physiological benefits. If you don’t meditate regularly then this is a must to improve your mental health.
Educate Yourself.
Just as you would train your physical body to improve your physical health and fitness you need to train your mind to improve your mental health. Go on workshops and courses that will help you develop emotionally. Neuro-linguistic programming or NLP is a great place to start with as it has a long history of being highly effective. Learning is essential for improving your mental health.
Get A Coach.
Again – just as you’d get a personal trainer or go to a gym to improve your physical health, a coach is ideal for improving your mental health. Coaching is much more than just setting and achieving goals. You can get coaching just to improve your emotional and mental health.
Take Sensible Risks.
Risk-taking forces you to stretch your emotional muscles. You need to overcome fear and uncertainty as well as stretching yourself intellectually as you need to plan and weigh things up in order to know what risks you should take. The most successful people are those who have not only taken lots of risks and but have been comfortable failing many times.
Go Deeper Than Just ‘Positive Thinking’.
If positive thinking was all you needed then we’d all be happy millionaires by now. Clearly, after 100 years of the ‘Think Positive’ movement there’s more to it than this. So be willing to let go of this overly simplistic viewpoint. It has its place but there is more than just this to your mental health and success. Just as you can’t fix a broken car by smiling at it, you can’t improve the health of your mind by merely thinking positively.
Become Conscious Of Your Thoughts.
Most people have no idea what they are really thinking or why. They act and speak as if thoughts are beamed into their mind from some external force: “I just couldn’t help it… it’s just the way I feel…” But thought isn’t something that just magically happens, thoughts are something you create. Your thinking processes, the programming of your mind, creates your thoughts. So if you want to change your thoughts you need to change your thinking processes. This is where a good coach will come in. These are experts, trained in techniques that will change the programming of your mind so that the thoughts you think regularly are better, happier and will direct you to success rather than failure.
Clearly it’s time we started paying conscious attention to our mental and emotional health and took deliberate action to improve it. This is the next great phase of personal development.
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