I’ll show you ways to cope if life becomes a bit too much
AT THE start of a new year it can feel like a fresh start and we’re often filled with a renewed sense of hope and optimism about our goals for the future. However, as January progresses, our energy and enthusiasm can wane as real life sets back in and we lose track of what we want to achieve.
Maybe you’ve joined the gym but aren’t going as often as you’d like. Perhaps your healthy eating plan has been derailed by the pressures of providing quick and easy meals for your busy family. Maybe you want to take your career to the next level but don’t know how you’re going to find the time to do your job applications and interview preparations.
It’s easy to become overwhelmed. When this happens, it can be hard to know where to target our efforts and we might end up doing little bits here and there but not seeing the results we want.
Often, this leads to us giving up on our goals prematurely, leaving us feeling like failures.
Over the next few weeks I will be writing about effective ways to manage when we feel overwhelmed and giving you my tips for staying motivated and making tangible progress towards your targets. The areas I’ll be focussing on are:
■ MINDFULNESS: I’ll be exploring how paying attention to what is happening within us (our thoughts, feelings and urges) and around us in the present moment can be a powerful antidote to feeling overwhelmed, by training our minds to focus on the here and now rather than getting caught up in the past or future.
■ CREATING habits for success: I’ll share with you steps for creating positive habits that will increase your motivation, improve your lifestyle and set you on the path to success.
■ MANAGING unhelpful thoughts and emotions: I’ll provide you with the skills you need to manage unhelpful thoughts and feelings before they derail your progress.
■ SELF-COMPASSION: I’ll tell you more about the art of selfcompassion and how it can help you along the way to creating the life you want.
By giving you my tips, my aim is to help you re-focus, stay on track and reclaim the life you want for yourself, so be sure to come back next week!
Dr Ellie Harper is a counselling psychologist