This week, we want to focus on positivity and creating positive habits. But first let's discuss some points to get you there.
Connect...
Be Active...
Take Notice...
Keep Learning...
Give...
These are the 5 ways to wellbeing advised by NEF. We are going to be exploring all of these within this post.
To summarise their points:
They advise to connect with the people around you.
Be active by going for a walk or run etc.
Take notice of the things around you.
Keep learning by trying something new.
Give by doing something nice for someone to brighten up their day too.
A smile goes a long way đ
Now getting into our section of this blog post. Let's look at positive goal setting, helping us gain a better outlook on life and make us feel better by focusing on what we have achieved!
Goals.... How do we make one that works? that's realistic? If you are like me, making goals that are just way too out there and so unrealistic that you can't achieve it or in the time frame you have given, then you need this. Most of us want to reach our goals in the shortest time frame possible, but it's always way too big of a goal for that time, so you need to either break it down to smaller goals or give yourself more time.
Let's break down how to make a goal with an example. As it is Mental Health Awareness week, I am going to focus on a topic related to this (although this method applies to any topic you choose).
SMART, Whats that?? I'm sure some of you may recall from high school etc. This is the way to create an effective goal that you can achieve! Let's look at this closer...
S - specific
M - measurable
A - achievable
R - realistic
T - time bound
Specific - it is a common mistake to make a really broad goal. For Example, I want to work on my Mental Health. Okay, but what specifically? that could mean a many number of things and then you won't end up achieving what you really want to!
Measurable - How are you going to measure or track your progress? There are a number of different ways that can work for many people. We are providing you with one later on in the post.
Achievable - Is it something you can achieve? It should be enough to make you feel challenged but defined enough that you can achieve it still.
Realistic - Can you realistically achieve this goal? is it within reach? Most of us end up making a goal that's unrealistic and way too far fetched, but that's why we have the SMART checklist.
Time Bound - Now goals need a time frame. If you don't have one, then you can easily do the whole "I'll start it later" and then later never comes. So give a Time scale that's not only specific but realistic.
Here's an example of an effective SMART goal.
I want to be able to focus more on the positives in my day to day life by writing a diary at the end of the day reflecting on events, every day for one week.
Now this is specific (talking about what I want), How I am going to do it, When I want to achieve it by and How frequently too. Now this goal is slightly different to the usual, as it is one that you can keep adapting and doing forever really!
Now This is where SMART goals can change. Using short, medium and long term goals can help you break down what you ultimately want to achieve.
Now Short Term goals can be for within a couple days or a week, that will be the stepping stones to your long term goal!
Medium Term goals are the in between, so they can be weeks or even months. Where you make a bigger goal that has a longer time frame.
Finally, Long term goals. Now this can be your ultimate goal or a big goal you want to achieve in around 6 months, a year or even a few years. This is usually what all your smaller goals lead up to, which is why you need to put a lot of thought into how you will get there.
Now I'm not saying that when you say you are going to achieve this in a week, that you will for definite! Things happen, set-backs etc. and that's completely okay! The aim is to not let that stop you from achieving what you want to! There are no rules to say that you can't change the time frames because I don't know about you but life doesn't follow a strict schedule and especially not mental health.
What we have done for you is make a daily and weekly reflection journal. A way to write down your successes or positives for the day/week and then reflect on the barriers you encountered and come up with solutions to these, so when you compare at the end of each week to the last, you will hopefully start to see more positive things being documented.
These are just simple PDFs you can download below and I hope they help you! Let me know how you get on and please leave a like and comment.
Let's smash this positivity goal together, we can beat this đ€©đȘ
Stay Fresh and Happy! đ
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