Gratitude

Simple yet effective. Finish your day on a positive note and write a gratitude list. This could be three things you are grateful for, things things that made you happy, or three things or three accomplishments you can celebrate. Big or small, personal or general, try it for a week and feel the difference it makes to your emotional wellbeing, your sleep and how you feel before you end the day.

Breathing

This can be done anywhere at anytime. It’s a quick way to release stress and tension and reset yourself.

Sit if you can, with your arms in a relaxed position in your lap, or by your sides. Close your eyes, if that’s comfortable. Take a couple of deep breaths in and long, slow exhales our. Shrug your shoulders up to your ears and release. Breathe normally in and out through your nose.

Now feel into your face, unfurrow your forehead and unclench jaw. Let your face relax. Now check in with your body, see if you can spot any areas of tension and allow them to relax. Follow your breath for a minute or two more, as it is, not trying to change it, and when you’re ready, take one last deep breath and open your eyes.

Done list

We all have those days when we feel as though we haven’t accomplished much, feel lazy or haven’t completed our to do list. Time to change that!

At the end of one of those days, forget the to do list and write a done list. Note down all the things you have done that day, from brushing your teeth to completing a project and everything in between. You will quickly see that your list is fuller than you expected and feel great about what you have achieved.

Negative thoughts

Often, when something goes wrong, or we feel that we have done something we feel bad about, we have automatic negative thoughts about it. An example might be that a friend or colleague has been a little distant of late and automatically your thoughts go to ‘they don’t like me’ or ‘I have done something wrong’. Here is some information on the types of negative thoughts. I offer in depth coaching on challenging negative thoughts.

Some types of negative thoughts:

Black and white thinking: Look for shades of grey It’s important to avoid thinking about things in terms of extremes. Most things aren’t black-and-white, but somewhere in-between. Just because something isn’t completely perfect doesn’t mean that it’s a total disaster. Are you seeing in black and white?

Unreal ideal and making unfair comparisons: Another common thinking error is to make unfair comparisons between certain individuals and yourself. When you do this, you compare yourself with people who have a specific advantage in some area. Making unfair comparisons can leave you feeling inadequate. Am I making fair comparisons?

Filtering and considering the whole picture: When you filter, first you hone in on the negative aspects of your situation. Then you ignore or dismiss all the positive aspects. Am I focusing on the negative?

Personalizing. The self-blame game, find all the causes: When you personalize, you blame yourself for anything that goes wrong, even when it’s not your fault or responsibility. Am I completely to blame?

Mind-reading, don’t assume you know what others are thinking: We often think we know what other people are thinking. We assume that others are focused on our faults and weaknesses—but this is often wrong! Remember: your worst critic is probably you. Am I making assumptions?

Exaggerating, put it in perspective: When things go wrong, you might have a tendency to exaggerate the consequences and imagine that the results will be disastrous. What is the worst that can truly happen?

Over-generalizing, be specific: Over-generalizing is a lot like exaggeration. When you over-generalize, you exaggerate the frequency of negative things in your life, like mistakes, disapproval and failures. Typically you might think to yourself: I always make mistakes, or everyone thinks I’m stupid. Is it true that I always make mistakes?

Fact versus feeling, stick to the facts: Sometimes you might confuse your thoughts or feelings with reality. You might assume that your perceptions are correct. Are my thoughts facts?

Labelling, judge the situation, not the person: When you use label, you might call yourself or other people names. Instead of being specific—for example, saying “That was a silly thing to do” —you make negative generalizations about yourself or other people by saying things like “I’m ugly,” or “she’s an idiot.” Am I generalising?

Mornings

No one likes the sound of their alarm, whether it’s at 5am or 9am, it can feel like a rude awakening!

Try this simple experiment. When your alarm goes off, smile. No matter how you feel, smile to yourself. Not a wry smile, but a big old grin, or a smile of contentment. Note if it changes how you feel. Does it relax your body? Make you feel at ease, or lighter?

Set one intention for the day. This could be specific action you need to take, or an intention to to take breaks, do a task mindfully, do a two minute breathing exercise, smile before you answer calls or emailS, to speak up in a meeting or see what flowers or animals you can spot on a walk. Whatever it is, do not see it as a chore, see it as a small goal and make it something achievable. Setting an intention focuses your mind and helps puts you in control of your day, rather than your day controlling you or your actions.

Evenings

Evenings are good times for journaling. If you are not used to journaling, there doesn’t have to be any magic to it, it can be as simple as writing down any thoughts from the day, or anything that is worrying you about tomorrow. Often, writing down your worries can alleviate them, because once they are written down, you are no longer thinking about them as much, or they perhaps seem smaller than first thought. When we worry, we are often worrying about what can go wrong, or what the solutions are to the problem, and this can lead to overthinking. Writing it down can focus the mind and calm the overthinking cycle, or sometimes leave the problems for that day entirely. Keeping a journal for your worries can help you sleep and turn off your brain. The important thing when journaling any worries, is simply to note them down and not judge them.

If you find that you would like a bit more detail when writing down any worries, you can also add notes such as whether it is something that it is within your control, if it is, what can you do about it. If it is not within your control, can you see the worry as an observer, try to accept the uncertainty? Can you change your perspective about the worry? If so, how? Practicing mindfulness can also help with alleviating worries.

Self esteem

Self esteem can be fragile and difficult to build. There are some exercises that you can do to help increase your self esteem, although these are not a solution for everybody, but rather building blocks. To build on increasing self esteem you often need to look at what low self esteem is, where it may have come from and how it is being maintained, and from there, how to accept yourself and challenge negative beliefs, working with positive beliefs and adjusting your thinking towards healthy self esteem.

I offer coaching for self esteem, which will work through all of the above, but here are a few straightforward exercises which might help to change the way you see yourself, or help you focus on some positives.

• Write about the times you have overcome adversity
• List your achievements
• List 10 skills which you have
• Write about the times you have helped others
• Make a list of the things about your life you appreciate
• Note down all the times you have been given a compliment
• Do something you enjoy

There are also some tips here from Mind, the mental health charity:

• Get to know yourself. Try to learn more about yourself – for example what makes you happy and what you value in life. Some people say they find it helpful to write in a journal.
• Let yourself have feelings. It’s important to remember that you’re a human being who can experience a wide range of emotions.
• Consider what self-esteem means to you. You might realise you’re basing your sense of self-worth on things that aren’t useful or helpful for you.
• Try to challenge unkind thoughts about yourself. You might automatically put yourself down. If you find yourself doing this, it can help to ask: “Would I talk to, or think about, a friend in this way?”
• Avoid comparing yourself to others. Try to remember that what other people choose to share about their lives isn’t the full picture and comparing ourselves isn’t realistic.
• Say positive things to yourself. It might feel really strange at first, but you’ll feel more comfortable the more you do it.

Setting boundaries

Setting boundaries can be hard, especially when you are setting new boundaries with people you have known for a while. They can often be challenged when first set, because others are not used to you setting boundaries, but this is about them, not you. Setting boundaries is healthy and has a real impact on your wellbeing. Setting boundaries does not have to mean suddenly saying no to everything, and nor does it have to be done aggressively, it is simply an assertion that is reasonable and makes sure you taking care of yourself. Often with, for example, a task, a boundary is not necessarily you saying no outright, but explaining that you cannot do something at the moment. It is making sure that you set the best timetable for you, rather than being shoe horned into the timetables of others which may cause you additional stress.

• Define the boundary you want to set
• Communicate the boundary, telling others what you need
• Don’t over explain, instead simply set out why it is important to you
• Practise saying no. It could help to pause, take a breath and consider how you feel before agreeing to do something you don’t want to.
• Give it time. Being assertive can feel difficult if you’re not used to it, but it can feel liberating – and it gets easier the more you do it.
• Don’t take too much on. It’s OK to set boundaries around how much you do for other people. Over-stretching yourself to please others can drain your energy and affect your wellbeing.