Five Days to a Better You – Day 5

This week has been about enhancing self-awareness and understanding. In this part of the world, we talk about how someone “gets on”. Getting to know and understand how you get on, what is behind this, what your thoughts and feelings are and what’s going on in your body, are how you can begin to identify any difficulties or problem areas and build in changes to find a better, more productive way to get on. You can only try your best and this is good enough! 

 Actions: Day 5 – Putting it All Together

• Start small – doing one thing makes a difference 
• Being a little kinder and more compassionate with yourself is important 
• Do not beat yourself (and/or others!) up about things that do not go as planned 
• Stop thinking that everyone else has it sorted and you somehow are way behind where you should be 
• We are all a work in progress and the process is the fun part and where life happens!

Recap Days 1-4 Actions:

Day 4: Healthy Habits

• Build regular exercise into your life, try something you enjoy, sometimes you may not feel like it but remind yourself that you will feel better afterwards
• Ensure you get adequate sleep, if you have trouble sleeping, seek advice about how to promote better sleep – there are lots of things you can do
• Eat and drink in a healthy, balanced way
• Avoid unhealthy habits such as excessive alcohol, smoking and drugs – some people feel these things help manage stress and mood but they actually negatively affect the mind and body
• Building healthy habits takes perseverance, so don’t give up and before you know it these will be natural for you

Day 3: Emotions

When you experience difficult moments and times leading to feelings that are hard to handle:

• Remember, this is all part of what everyone experiences, remind yourself it won’t last, you can get through this
• Think about what is behind the emotion and why it has arisen
• Problem solve where possible, bring actions that will help
• Don’t be too hard on yourself
• Take time out by doing something nice that you enjoy or distracting yourself from the situation
• Do things that help on an ongoing and regular basis – this will help keep you more balanced and less reactive to stressors

Day 2: Challenge negative thoughts

• Is this thought a fact?
• What meaning am I giving this situation and why this?
• What evidence is there that this is true?
• Is there another way of looking at it?
• What would I say to a friend in this situation?
• What is a more balanced/helpful way of looking at it?

Day 1: Get to know yourself

• What was I thinking?
• How did I feel?
• What was going on in my body?
• What did I do?
• Was this helpful/unhelpful?

NB:

• Can I see this in a different way/what would be a more realistic and helpful thought?
• What could I do that would be more helpful/change the outcome?