Determine what brings you joy in
life. This is about identifying what you enjoy and
being OK with it. Be honest. Do you like to sit at home and read a book
while drinking a cup of hot tea? Do you
like to travel internationally and party with the locals until the early
morning hours? Is there is nothing in
the world that warms your heart more than hearing your children laugh? Once you stake a claim to what brings you
joy, figure out how to make that a more frequent part of your life
experience. This may mean shifting
priorities in terms of time management and finances, but the benefits in terms
of your emotional well-being will be worth it.
Don’t get caught up in other
people’s vortex of negativity. While we like to focus on the power of
positive thinking, it is important to remember the corollary. There is power in negativity. It is nice to believe your positivity can
overcome the negative attitude of others.
In reality, that is only true when the negative person is willing to
meet you half-way. Trying to bring
sunshine into the lives of those who are determined to remain bummed out can be
a futile effort. Let me be clear. There is a difference between the occasional
therapeutic vent and a constant doom and gloom perspective. Some people are perpetually negative and even
mean-spirited. Spending time in that
environment is not without repercussions on your emotional health. A negative perspective has the ability to
bring down even the most Pollyanna among us. Particularly when you are trying to get your
own mind right, it is beneficial to scale back the self-pitying folks in your
world. Don’t be dragged into their
downward spiral.
Stop doing the things you hate
doing. There are dreaded items on everyone’s to-do
list. Sometimes the best thing to remove
the dread is to relocate the items to someone else’s list. The most important part of any to-do list is
that the activities get done, not who completes them. Taking into account cost and feasibility, some
tasks need to be outsourced. It could
be as small as buying the birthday cupcakes from bakery instead of making them or
as large as having someone cater Thanksgiving dinner. Some things are still being done by you
simply because it has become expected. It
may be time to modify the expectations of the people in your life. Admit you were wrong in thinking how much fun
it would be to tend the lawn when you bought the house. Hire someone else to do it. While many solutions involve a fee, in the end
you may come out ahead from the perspective of time better spent on other
activities. You may also avoid the
financial burdens associated with the coping mechanisms you currently employ to
deal with the stress of yet another thing to accomplish. For the benefit of your emotional well-being it
may be worth the investment.
Don’t always be available.
This comes down to valuing your own time. Other people respect your time when you teach
them it is to be respected. Some of us
fall into the trap of saying yes just because we can’t think of a “good” reason
to say no. It can be an honor to be
asked to participate in a project or to attend a function. However, “no” can still be an appropriate
response. Once you have established
yourself as the safety valve, other people learn to wait you out when a task
arises. Whether it is agreeing to chair
a committee at your child’s school or to pick up extra call as a physician, don’t
feel like it always has to be your duty.
You may end up harboring bitterness towards others simply because they choose
to exercise the same right of refusal you have. Just because there is a space in your schedule
does not mean it has to be filled with other people’s priorities. Time is precious and using it wisely is a key
to emotional health.
Be grateful.
How well we deal with most situations in life is a matter of
perspective. Approaching life with an
attitude of gratitude helps us to handle its difficulties as well as its
blessings. Recently, I heard a sermon about
gratitude which brought up two important points I’d like to share. First, comparison
deactivates the desire to appreciate.
It is very easy to be unappreciative of good things in your life if you are
constantly measuring them against what others have. Second, gratitude
begins where entitlement ends. Thinking
something is owed to you tends to make it feel less worthy of thanks. One way to maintain a grateful spirit is to
regularly count your blessings. Whether
it is every day, every week, or even just once a month, writing down at least
one thing for which you are grateful automatically puts you in a better head
space. Also, knowing you are going to put
it in writing causes you to be more conscious of things for which to be
grateful. Try it and see if there is an
effect on your emotional well-being.
Initially,
some of these tips may seem like a license to be selfish. However, consider how you would feel if the
same advice was being given to someone you love instead of to yourself. Remember the first step in emotional health
is loving yourself as much as anyone else.
