Friday, November 09, 2012

Positive Steps to Wellbeing


You may know this already, but I take Littlest fairly regularly to a speech therapist locally.  Well, the reception area for his speech therapy is also shared by the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.  So the room is pretty much filled with interesting mental health related flyers and posters.

Including this poster entitled 'Positive Steps to Wellbeing'  And I have to say, every time I'm in that waiting area, my eyes are drawn to this poster.  I've stared at it over a hundred times over the last year or so that I've been taking the Littlest.  And what I've come to realise is that very slowly and over time, I've taken to following some of these steps.  And once I became aware of that fact, I couldn't get it out of my head.  I thought I'd take a minute today to share this with you.

I've tried to make the photo appear here as large as possible, but if you're still squinting at it, here are the steps they've suggested:


1. Be Kind to Yourself - Observant and long-standing blog readers will remember that this was one of my New Year's resolutions this year.  It's been hard, but I've been doing my very best!

2. Exercise Regularly - I've been enjoying this recently!  I completed the 30 Day Shred with amazing results and I feel a lot more confident and excited about exercising in order to feel healthier, fitter and trimmer.

3. Take up a hobby and/or learn a new skill - I find that blogging is pretty all-consuming hobby, but I am trying to branch out a bit and learn to do something else as well.  My plans for this step include taking a martial arts class in the New Year!

4. Have some fun and/or be creative - I love this step.  I think FUN needs to be added into every area of my life at the moment.  But I've been taking this step to heart the most lately.  I have some big plans for creativity, but you will have to wait and see on this one!

5. Help others - I've been looking into volunteering lately as helping others is something that I feel passionately about.  Soon, I shall be able to tick this one off soon.

6. Relax - It seems as though this step would be fairly easy to manage, but not so in my case.  It's something that I'm very aware of, that I'm always worrying/stressing/feeling pressure to do something all the time.  Usually involving studying/blogging/reading.  But I've been trying lately to ease some of that pressure away and just relax. 

7. Eat healthily - For me, this one goes hand in hand with the Exercise Regularly step.  I started a lower calorie 'diet' of sorts when I was doing the 30 Day Shred, and it has carried on after that month was finished.  I'm now a healthy eating convert!  Though I do still often miss all those sugary drinks I was addicted to...

8. Balance Sleep - I was doing really well with this one - Going to bed around 10-10:30 (Shut up, I'm old!) and getting up just after 7am.  I felt incredible for maybe 3 weeks of this.  And then a really good book happened, and then another.  Now I'm struggling a little bit, but I can't say that I regret a bit of sleepless nights due to a good book!

9. Connect with others - I'm really terrible at this one.  I don't connect well with most people :( But I'm trying.  A bit.  I think I need to be a braver in this respect.

10. Beware drink and drugs - Wonderfully, when it comes to my wellbeing, I've never had a problem with this. 

11. See the bigger picture - I love how I'm starting to become more aware of a bigger perspective as I grow older.  Or maybe I'm just being more open to a different perspective lately?  Either way, it's been an eye-opener.

12. Accepting: 'It is as it is' - It's a little hard to see in the photo because it's a little blurry, but I don't think I can hear enough times that 'some situations we just can't change' because it doesn't seem to sink in well. 


I don't know if this is helpful to anyone else, but I've been thinking about sharing for awhile! 

4 comments:

  1. This is a lovely post - I think we all need to be taught these things from a young age! I feel the same as you about connecting with others - it can be scary putting yourself out there - but you are such a lovely person you shouldn't worry about this at all!! :)

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  2. Great post. So many of these points are common sense and yet I seem to ignore most of them! Especially the sleep one. And the exercise one... and it is so difficult to be kind to yourself when you're juggling so much.
    I need to stop myself feeling guilty about every little thing :)

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