I am a mental health worker & well-being doodler – promoting CBT based tips and self-care motivation with my @tidyminddoodles. I hope these 4 well-being doodles pick you up when you are feeling down.
For uplifting messages to keep you going check out my YouTube Channel Tidy Mind Doodles and my instagram wellbeing account @tidyminddoodles.
No. 1 – Feeling Like It Is Too Much?
When something feels too overwhelming we put it off.
When we put off lots of tasks it can pile up – we feel stressed – we have thoughts such as “I can’t can’t cope”.
We don’t know where to start – so we don’t start at all.
We leave it and try and forget about it. This makes us feel worse. Our confidence in our ability to tackle a job, makes us dread or feel anxious about things we used to be able to do, or wish we could do.
Even thinking about THAT BIG THING can cause anxiety or stress.
So rather than looking at it as One Big Task –
Break
It
Down.
Plan a 5 minutes task that chips away at that bigger task.
It is better to plan in 5 or 10 minutes a day rather than nothing at all – by the end of the day – the end of the week – the end of the month – you are going to start to feel more in control.
No.2 – Notice Your Victories – Especially The Little Ones
Notice the little victories each day.
You may not be where you want to be – but are you further along the way than you were?
Noticing the small achievements is what keeps us going – remember that the things you have now — you may have once wished for.
Goals are great for giving us something to focus on to keep us moving forwards.
BUT we can become blinkered and only reward ourselves or feel good when we achieve our FINAL GOAL.
The problem with this, is that we don’t acknowledge our improvements or development along the way; and can be easily discouraged when we feel far away from our goal.
This is one of the reasons why so many people give up on their goals.
AND – when we do achieve our goals we tend to minimize our success – we brush it off as not being that important really and we quickly move on to the next goal without enjoying the moment.
Take the Time to say Well done to yourself – press pause on the Life remote and notice your achievements so far!
No.3 – Be O.k With Imperfection
Everything you do now you once found difficult, because it was new and/ or different for example there was once a time where you could not do ( or were not very good at doing the folloiwng: :
Walking, eating, reading, writing, changing from Android phone to I phone, changing banks, your job, languages, cooking, cycling, driving, running longer than 5 minutes, playing a music instrument … the list goes on.
Did that stop you from carrying on until you were capable? The only way we learnt to do those things was to Try.
Try. Fail. Learn, Repeat
As we get older we put the expectation on ourselves that we should be good at doing something straight away. And if we are not – then this means that we have somehow failed, or we are stupid.
This means we talk ourselves out of doing new, exciting, interesting activities because we don’t want to be rubbish at them.
We forget it is not about being good at something – it is about enjoying ourselves or learning something new.
You can’t be perfect at everything – so don’t let fear of not being very good stop you from doing something you would really like to do. Try new hobbies, exercises and push yourself.
Life is about having fun, learning new skills, feeling the fear of failure but doing it anyway. And anyway, getting good at something takes time and practice – in fact everything you do now without having to think about – once took a lot of effort !
No. 4 – Do 1 Nice Thing Each Day
Day to Day life can quickly be filled up with those necessary and routine tasks such as work, housework, being a carer, parent chores, money chores, life admin tasks etc etc.
At the end of the day Treat Yourself – even if it is 1 small thing a day – keep life varied and reward yourself .
This can be something you do WHILST you are doing another BORING task or something you put aside time to do, patients have made these past suggestions:
- Reading
- Having a bath,
- Walking in the garden
- Listening to a podcast/ music/radio
- Calling a friend
- Knitting
- Massaging a part of their body
- Doing a cross word
- Playing with or walking a pet
- Drawing or painting
- Sudoku
- Playing on an app – chess or Draughts or candy crush
- Doing a jig saw
- Going to a a gym class
- Watching a 5 – 10 minute YouTube video on meditation, visualization
- Following a quick yoga stretch on YouTube.
- Watch TV
- Going for a Drive
I hope that you can take away 1 of these therapy doodle tips to thrive more in the day to day!
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