Tag: Life lessons

Pick Your Battles

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Think of a time you let something slide, only for it to eat away at you later. Tell us how you’d fix it today.

Working in mental health I see daily the impact of letting something slide and not dealing with it. The reason are many, varied and often come from a place of wanting the hurt to stop. When feelings aren’t dealt with in a healthy way—even the really difficult ones—they will become a bigger and more powerful problem.

For me—I pick my battles. I make a quick assessment in my mind how I think the issue is going to impact on me. If I can’t get the issue out of my head, I make a mental plan to discuss it with the other person involved at the next convenient time. I make a time with them and tell them how I felt about the situation that developed. They are my feelings—no one can argue with them. I explain what I heard from what they said, usually ending of with the statement “I don’t think that is how you meant it to come across.” I find that this gives the other person an opportunity to re-frame the situation from their point of view and we can usually find the middle ground.

If the situation came and they stated that they did mean to come across how I interpreted it—I would ask why and work on moving forward from there. Communicating is the quickest way to end problems as it allows us to get to the core of the issue. Without addressing the conflict or concern we can jump to many conclusions but they may not be right ones and often only complicate the situation. From my perspective addressing issues when they arise helps develop trust as the other person realises that I want to work with them and we can form a united front. They don’t have to worry about upsetting me as they realise I will let them know if I am upset so we can fix the problem.

There are some battles that I decide when making my mental plan aren’t worth spending oxygen on. Yes, they upset me briefly for petty reasons so I decided to deal with it myself and move on using distraction techniques—doing something I enjoy to get my mind off it. At home I find a simple “stop” to the other person is enough to change the behaviour. I am also happy to debrief a situation with my colleagues and gain support when necessary. Prioritise yourself and seek professional help if necessary. Nothing is too big to be addressed. You just do it like you would eat an elephant—”bite by bite.”

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/set-it-to-rights/

Networking

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Are you good at what you do? What would you like to be better at?

I am good at what I do because I work hard at it. I am always looking for new ways to improve myself—both at work and in my personal life. My theory is when you stop growing—you stop living. So what is next you ask? As I hope to publish my book by the end of this year—2015 is about improving my networking skills—self-promotion. I have learnt that networking no longer means talking to everyone in the room—this makes it easier. Please enjoy my networking plan in a poem.

New experience to gather knowledge

Express interest in the other person

Time to bond with others

Working the room—who are you drawn to

Opportunity to ask questions

Relax and smile

Know your purpose and don’t be distracted

Include your elevator pitch

Note areas for later follow-up

Greet all with enthusiasm

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/i-have-confidence-in-me/

Unique

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Write a post about anything you’d like — in the style of your favorite blogger. (Be sure to link to them!)

Back in 1980 my 6th form English teachers wrote on my high school reference, Max “has a unique personality.” I was so proud.  The statement showed he understood me and wasn’t trying to make me fit a mould. It was this reference that 6 weeks later, as an 18-year-old helped get me a traineeship in psychiatric nursing. 35 years later I still work in mental health. It suits my unique personality. All those years ago, if I had copied others because that was the normal thing to do—I wouldn’t have found my calling.

Finding your own personality, believing and following  your own style is important in developing your own confidence. It is this confidence that allows you to achieve your goals. Imitation is observing and replicating another’s  behaviour—something I am not interested in doing on any level—even for fun. There are many other bloggers who think similar to myself and whose blogs I enjoy however, having a different style of writing changes the feel of the post and in my opinion isn’t being true to either style.

I am all for learning and adding new forms of writing to my blog—my latest addition being poetry. But in my own unique voice. Being true to myself is a personal value of mine which leaves no reason to copy others. Believe in yourself and develop your voice. Copying others will keep you not being true to you.

Be unique. The world need more uniqueness—not more imitators.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/imitationflattery/

Dreaming In Action

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You’re having a nightmare, and have to choose between three doors. Pick one, and tell us about what you find on the other side.

I don’t usually remember my dreams. I am sure I have them as part of my natural sleep cycle, but they don’t wake or disturb me. Occasionally if some thing on my mind—even on my subconscious mind—it will cause me to awake from my sleep through a dream. When this happens something—needs to be done about the issue. No problem is waking me twice.

During my dreaming process the answer to what needs to be done is clear. I don’t need three doors—I only need one. The practical one with the action to complete the task. If I can’t decide on a solution I will deliberately sleep on it. Suddenly, in the morning or during the night the answer will come. To help explain how dreams work I have included a video—it puts a little clarity around the mystery of dreaming.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/just-a-dream/

Boundaries

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What question do you hate to be asked? Why?

I don’t mind what questions people ask me. I have strong boundaries so if I don’t think the person has a right or reason to know the answer I will tell them I am not answering. If I think it is appropriate I will give them a reason but most of the time I don’t. My boundaries—my decisions. No correspondence will be entered into.

Our boundaries are imaginary lines that tell others what behaviours, attitudes and values are acceptable and not acceptable to us. They tell others how close they can come. Think of your boundaries as the fences to your life. Fences have gates that allow certain people to pass and stop others.They ensure your safety because you choose who gets close and whom you keep at a distance.

You get to choose your own boundaries—for your behaviour as well as others. If you don’t like someone’s behaviours—you get to choose your response to their behaviours. Your response can be very effective in changing or stopping the other person’s behaviours.

Healthy boundaries are important for healthy relationships. People not taught effective boundaries—live their lives in chaos—with regular unwanted invasions from others. Learn to work with your personal boundaries as they can help you mange uncomfortable situations and tricky questions.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/plead-the-fifth/

Self-Worth

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“Think global, act local.” Write a post connecting a global issue to a personal one.

I don’t know if eating disorders are classified as a global issue but I believe they are—statistics from 2002 state 70 million people world-wide are living with one so the number would be much greater today.

Knowing these facts are one thing, but what can be done at a personal level to help protect ourselves or our children from developing a dangerous eating disorder that has the potential to kill them. The answer is increasing low self-worth to a healthy level. Self worth is defined as “the opinion you have of your self and the value you place on yourself.”

Consider your current level of self-worth—do you believe in yourself and your abilities or is your self worth low and a struggle?

Work on improving your self-worth by focusing on the following 3 areas:

  1. Listen to your self talk – ensure you tell yourself positive statements. When a negative statement comes to mind—at least turn it into a neutral statement—even if you can’t  go all the way and make it a positive one.
  2. Give yourself permission to do one fun thing or one nurturing thing a day—because you deserve it.
  3. Set a mini goal each day that works towards your longer term goals.

So lets help to spread the growth of positivity through the world, by beginning at home. Let’s focus on supporting increased self-worth in everyone we come in contact with. Ensure that if we can’t do anything to help, we don’t do anything to make the situation worth. Self worth is improved one small step at a time—it won’t happen overnight.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/think-global-act-local/

Life Changing

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Write about anything you’d like, but make sure the post includes this sentence:

“I thought we’d never come back from that one.”

It was 10.27 am on 28th December, 1989. Suddenly I was woken from my night duty slumber by my house shaking violently. I didn’t know what was happening, although the realisation quickly hit—Newcastle had been hit by an 5.6 magnitude earthquake—I thought we’d never come back from that one.

But Newcastle and I both have. See more detail in my earlier post here.

The following week changed my life forever. Not only did my beloved city look like a war zone but, I got engaged—it definitely was a new decade and new life for me. On one hand there was the destruction including my house and on the other hand their was the excitement of what a new life had to offer.

The lessons I learnt working in mental health in Newcastle during this tragic time have never left me—13 people died and most of the city was effected. I learnt anything can happen to anyone at anytime. It’s how you handle it that makes the long-term difference. I know with support I can and will get through anything and when I need to I follow St Francis of Assis’s advice.

St Francis of Assisi quote

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/use-it-or-lose-it/

Clone Myself – Never

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If you could clone yourself, how would you split up your responsibilities?

My life is fairly balanced now—I don’t want a clone. I have spent fifty years trusting my own decisions. I am not about to give over any of my responsibility to a duplicated version of myself. Yes, there are parts of my life I do not like—commuting to work—however, changing this, changes my whole life. I wouldn’t even give this job to my clone as what I do on the train makes up who I am—writing, reading and sleeping.

If I am running short of time to do the things I want—I realise it is time to reassess and prioritse what is important to me. I believe you can have time to do anything if it is important enough to you. I wrote a third of my book on my daily commute. Although now, editing doesn’t work as well on the train.

Now I am looking at ways to make sure I get enough exercise in each week. I haven’t come up with a definitive plan yet but handing this responsibility over to a clone is not going to get it done the best way for me.

The other problem, of course is cloning is an identical copy of my DNA—not of everything I do. My clone would be the age of my daughter unless I was cloned at birth, but would live its own life—like Dolly the sheep—cloned in 1997. For now I will focus on rearranging my time to get what I need done and leave the scientists to worry about the cloning.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/clone-wars/

Tomorrow Is Another Day

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Take a quote from your favorite movie — there’s the title of your post. Now, write!

As a child in early primary school I can remember going to the movies to see Gone With The Wind. It is a movie that changed my life.

I loved it.

I left the movie theatre that day thinking,  I as a girl, growing up in the 1970’s could do anything. Scarlett O’Hara was my hero. What I saw as a child was a woman who, if she wanted something, went out and got it. She was a tough, resilient survivor and I needed to know that was possible. I, of course missed all of her relationship difficulties, which are another part of the movie, but I was too young to understand.

The concluding scene of the movie and the title of this blog post has lived with me everyday since—”tomorrow is another day.” Whenever things get tough—I like Scarlett—remind myself “I can’t think about that now, I’ve got to think about it tomorrow, after all tomorrow is another day.” I usually find by giving myself some space, by sleeping on my problem—the next day I have an answer. My problem may still be as big but at least I have made a plan to get through it. When problems are really tough, I go back to an earlier blog post and ask St Francis of Assissi for advice.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/silver-screen/