Build your Foundations
Part 4 in our series teaching you to improve your mental health and learn to thrive.
Let’s do some armchair travel today…
Instead of being at home, we’re off to London to see the Shard.
This 310 metre-tall building is iconic. Rising above the London skyline, it is a feat of engineering and beauty. A trip to the top takes you high above the rooftops and into the clouds.
Of course, we only see the part of the Shard ABOVE the ground. Below, are deep, strong foundations. Without these, the building would not be able to stand proud; able to withstand adverse weather.
Consider YOUR mental health to be like a tall tower. Just as the Shard needs strong foundations to stand tall and strong; so does your mental health. When the storms blow – when ‘life happens’ – you need to be confident that your foundations are strong and deep.
For most people, it’s pretty easy to feel good when things are going well. If the sun shines, you enjoy your job, you get on with your partner, your children behave, you spend your time doing things you enjoy: it’s likely you’ll feel good. Foundations don’t matter so much when everything’s calm.
But when life ‘gets tough’; when you’re thrown a curveball or a challenge: that’s when you need to know that you are strong, robust, that you can cope with anything that life throws at you… that you can fall back on your foundations.
Your foundations – the ‘underground brickwork’ that your mental health/wellbeing is built upon, are just beliefs. That’s it: your foundations are just a series of beliefs you hold about life. You weren’t born with these beliefs, these are beliefs you have formed during your life to date, based on the experiences you have had, and the way you have viewed and processed them.
If all that seems a little Zen, think about it for a minute… think about a situation in life that you feel confident about. Go on, think about one. Got one? I’ll bet you rarely worry about this type of situation? You rarely feel anxious about this sort of experience? You probably don’t lose sleep over it, never get stressed about it, and only ever think about it in a powerful and positive way? Right?
Imagine you are used to public speaking, you are confident about it, and you have a presentation to do tomorrow… how do you think you would be feeling about it right now? You’d be feeling calm and relaxed, not worried, not anxious, not stressed. You’d be thinking – ‘yeah, I got this’.
Now imagine instead you are not used to public speaking, and you have a presentation to give tomorrow… you’d probably be stressed and anxious, maybe brooding about it, you probably won’t sleep tonight, you might even be dreading it.
Two entirely different experiences, ENTIRELY created by the beliefs you have around your skill-set about public speaking.
Powerful beliefs create powerful feelings. Truth is, you NEVER create anxiety about a situation you feel powerful and confident about. The more situations you feel powerful and confident about, the deeper your foundations, the more you will improve your mental health and the less stressed, anxious, depressed etc you’ll be.
Think back to Monday’s post about the OAPS and their pot-plants… just by taking control, putting in effort, and watching their plants grow, the OAPS felt more powerful. In essence, their beliefs started to change… they stopped thinking ‘what’s the point’ and started thinking ‘I can change things, life could be better’ – they felt more powerful.
We call this your Sense of Power and Control over your Experiences, or SPACE, for short. The more powerful, confident beliefs you hold about life, the stronger your sense of power and control, the more stable your mental health is.
And the whole thing is built on beliefs. Not facts, not reality, just beliefs.
What’s a belief? It’s just a thought you keep thinking. That’s all. Not something fixed or hard-wired, just a thought you keep thinking.
You have a choice: you can choose to develop strong psychological foundations.
Do you recognise any of the unhelpful beliefs below?
✴️ I have always felt like this so I always will
✴️ I’m not worth it
✴️ I can’t do it
✴️ I didn’t get that job so I am a useless person
✴️ I shouted at my children so I’m a bad parent
✴️ I always crumble under pressure
✴️ My mum has depression so it’s inevitable that I will too
✴️ I can’t do anything to change my perspective
Can you see how these beliefs come from a position of powerlessness?
Becoming aware of your thoughts and beliefs is the first step towards changing them.
Time to get out your notebook and spend some time noting some of YOUR limiting beliefs – try to find ten. What effect do you think these beliefs will be having on your life? Remember, it’s perfectly normal to have them, we guarantee you’re not the only person to have had that thought!
Don’t worry – we know this is a lot to take in, and for many people change is scary or uncomfortable. If you want some encouragement, visit our YouTube channel to see videos of people JUST LIKE YOU who changed their lives using The Thrive Programme.
Coming up on Friday, we’ll be exploring some of your limiting beliefs so you can ‘get out of your own way’ and improve your mental health.
#thrivingathome #improveyourmentalhealth
If you’ve missed anything, have a read of our full Thriving at Home series here.