Anti-depressants - Are they really so evil?

They get a lot of bad press, those little pills, yet time and time again I see people make remarkable recoveries with the help of them. So I thought I would write a little blog entry on the upside of taking them. But the little blog entry became a bigger blog entry so I posted the whole thing on the main site - Anti depressants 2.

Please come back here to post your comments.
Glyn

The Miracle Question - part 2

Well there I was talking about the miracle question when a friend and colleague added something very interesting; kind of a sub-division of the miracle question.
She said that she had followed her own motivational mantra for much of her life and to be fair, this lady is very successful, which was this: "If you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always got." Amazing in its simplicity. Don't you think?
Within the field of coaching for growth and improvement or therapies for overcoming stress, anxiety and depression, it is not unusual for us to look for unhealthy behaviours or thought processes that might be at the centre of the difficulty. We then try to facilitate a change.
So, if you have practised a behaviour that locks in stress, change it. If you don't then you will get what you have always got - stress.
Anything you need to change now so that you might get something different? Give it some thought.

The Miracle Question

Whatever it is that we need to do in life we first need to be motivated. Whether it be to de-clutter a room, make a difficult phone call or put in the effort required to overcome depression, putting in the work can sometimes seem like a Herculean task.
When Rick and I are working with our clients we give them a series of seven questions aimed at motivating them to put in the required work; these seven questions are called Well Formed Outcomes. Well Formed Outcomes can be used anywhere but might be a little cumbersome for everyday use so for me I take one of them out and about and use whenever needed. This I call my 'miracle question'. So what is it? When faced with a task that I just can't seem to jump into I ask myself, 'is the outcome worth the effort'?
If the kids want to go to the park to play football but the couch is very comfortable, I ask myself the miracle question and immediately see them having a great deal of fun kicking the ball around, getting fitter, being happier.
If I have calls to make, I ask the question and see the work that I might earn as a result or the help the call might offer people.
Is the outcome worth the effort? One word of warning; use carefully. It motivates indiscriminately.

What decides your mood?

Sounds like a big question. Strangely though, it isn't. Your mood is dependant entirely on what DVD you are playing at the time. For a bit more on the minds DVDs you will have to go to the main website to find out what we mean, so follow this link and come straight back Core Skills 1

Great. But now some of you will be arguing that your mood is affected by what is happening in your life, some will argue that dysfunctional assumptions are partly to blame and some will make a case for thinking errors. And you would all be right. But life events and the rest are what contribute to what DVDs we play. The DVD is the what we see above the water like in our pretty iceberg picture. The rest is what we wouldn't normally see unless we went diving.

So, if we want to change our mood, we need to change our DVD. To do this, we might need to do a little diving. The tools are all on the main website http://www.mindhealthdevelopment.co.uk/ or you could buy Rick's book from the site too. Or you could keep your mood as it is.

Simple steps to great goal setting.

Goal Setting.

Goal setting is an important tool for those who both want to achieve more and recognise those same achievements. The recognition of having things to aim for in all the important areas of our lives gives us a greatly enhanced sense of control over our lives.
Goals can also be linked to Positive DVDs. As we set a goal we can view it as a future Positive DVD and enjoy the anticipation of it coming about.

The Mind Health Development methodology caters for goal setting in a very simple way by identifying the four areas of our lives upon which we can choose to focus. They are:

Personal
Professional
Social
Family

It is easy to see how some of these might overlap, so when setting your goals, simply put them into the one you feel it fits the best. For example you might aim to get fitter and make the plan more measurable by saying that you will run 2 miles in 15 minutes. This would easily fit into Personal goals. But if you are planning to do a fun run for a local charity with your friends from the pub it would also fit into Social. I might choose to break this goal up by saying under Personal I will have run 2 miles, three times under 15 minutes before the day of the race and will complete the race in less than 15 minutes also.
Goals are more manageable when they are measurable, hence the above example. It might be nice to say that you want to lose weight but this seems a little woolly. So set a target that can be easily identified when it is achieved such as losing 7 lbs by a set date.
At Mind Health Development we would also suggest that the goals you set are achievable so you are set for success not failure. This doesn’t mean that they can’t be a little lofty, but if they are quite far reaching break them down into smaller steps so even if the end goal seems elusive you will experience multiple successes along the way.
The last bit of advice is just to go ahead and set them and enjoy achieving them.
Good luck.

Boosting Self Esteem

Positive self esteem strategies
In Rick’s book – The Promised Land, he writes, ‘into every life a little rain must fall’ and this can lead to us feeling less than confident and watching our self esteem diminish minute by minute, hour by hour, and day by day.. Your self esteem and mine for that matter is linked to the way we see ourselves and how we interact with the wider world and having poor self esteem can be seriously debilitating, leading to psychological distress and under achievement.Your poor self esteem can be overcome however if you can accept the role your own thoughts play in locking the negativity in place and work to change them.
If we go back to the opening statement in this article we can begin to overcome low self esteem by simply accepting that in everyone's life there will be good days and bad days, happy moments and sad ones and that all of these experiences are mostly unavoidable and necessary when living life to the full.

How to guide.
Positive Listing.
Take time to write down all of the things that you are good at or have achieved in your life so far. Do you check on an elderly neighbour or relative? Are you good with children or great at cooking? Is your garden a bright spot in the neighbourhood or do you compliment people on their good points?
This list could go on forever so I’ll stop there and give you time to make your own long list. If you are reticent to write stuff down then you must challenge this and give the exercise plenty of time. Add to it each day for a week and then review it as often as you can, adding to it continually as you see fit. This is another reason why keeping a journal is a good as you should record them in this and review them each and every day.
Proper Selfishness.
It was Charles Handy who first coined the above phrase. Put simply it is having time to engage in your own pleasure giving activities. If you find it difficult to accept that you should have enjoyable time to yourself then ask why. Are other people more important than you? The answer is no! Now plan something pleasurable for yourself. If you need more convincing, consider the surgeon who is about to operate on you. Would you rather he had just worked for twelve hours without a break or anything to eat or drink, or would you rather he had enjoyed a stress free day with a good meal and friendly conversation before he scrubs up? The fact is the surgeon would be better able to help you if he had helped himself. Put this analogy to good use.
Reviewing Failure.
It is necessary to accept that we will not always succeed or win first time and how we view this when it happens is key to maintaining good levels of confidence and self esteem. If we do fail at something we might do well to consider if eventual success here is going to feed into our self esteem before we continue. If it is, then it would be wise to learn from our mistakes and carry on. If we honestly think that we could be spending the time more productively elsewhere then we should not hesitate in moving onto this instead. The danger is in moving onto the new project and creating justifications for this. See the article on Cognitive Dissonance on the main website.

Social Circle.

Consider for a moment who are the people that you spend most of your time with. Think of your friends, your family and your work colleagues. Now ask yourself which of these people you consistently enjoy the company of. Which of these irritate you? Which of these freely engage in criticism of you and others? Which of these leave you feeling less of value after spending time with them than you felt before? Now consider the opposite. Which of these folks that you are close to bring enjoyment to you when you are together? Which of them compliments you with no agenda of their own? Which of these people are happy for you to be the centre of attention and for you to hold court once in a while? It shouldn’t be difficult after doing this exercise to recognise who you should be spending the most time with and you should be expending your valuable time and effort upon.

Self Referential Behaviour.

Begin to examine the way you talk to others about yourself and how you talk to yourself. This can be most enlightening. First of all try to notice each and every time you use words like ‘I’ and ‘me’, or ‘mine’. This only helps you to lock in the focus you have on yourself and the attention and time you spend making yourself your own centre of attention. Try to aim this focus elsewhere and communicate without the need for these self references.
Then look at how you talk to yourself. Do you criticise yourself in a way that you wouldn’t accept from others or make insulting remarks that you would never say to anyone else? It is important to begin eliminating this by noticing it as it happens and changing this internal dialogue.


Use this article as a guide to measuring your own self esteem and adopting the right changes to boost the same.

The way forward

As you can see by the new banner title, we at The Promised Land have rebranded our company.
Hopefully this will give new friends and clients a clearer picture of who we are and what we do from the get go.
Our website is changing too. From today you will be able to find us at www.mindhealthdevelopment.co.uk and www.mindhealthdevelopment.com. Should you go to our old address, you will be immediately re-directed.
The process of change however, won't be rushed and we will still be the same team with the same values doing the same work.
Our new logo is entering the final phase and we have shortlisted three. If you would like a say on the final decision then email and request to see them. Your input will be much appreciated.
Have a great day.