Be Compassionate with Yourself.

If you've followed me for a long time either on here, on any other platform, or even just know me in person, then you'll know how much I struggle with things like confidence, self doubt and imposter syndrome. I've spent a lot of time reading up and listening to things on self help and how to deal with these sorts of things but, although I had all of these solutions, I just couldn't seem to put them into practice and I had no idea why. So right at the start of 2021, I was having a really hard time (as I'm sure many people were during lockdown), I decided to pursue getting therapy. It was a hell of a wait, but over the summer of 2021 I finally had it, completed it and learned a few things about myself and how to deal with what I struggle with. I know a lot of artists and people in general struggle with the same sorts of issues, so I thought I'd write about the main points I learned that have really helped me.

I also just want to say that I realise how lucky I was to get therapy and although I did wait a long time, some people won’t even be considered for it. One thing I will say though is that although it was helpful, it didn’t really teach me anything I didn’t already know, it just made it even more clear that growth and self healing is very much an internal thing, not external and only you can control it.

Journaling

I know journaling might not be something a lot of people want to do for many reasons but I have no doubts that it will help if you’re struggling with your mental health! I find that one of my biggest issues is that my brain is just totally overloaded most of the time. I am a massive worrier, I can’t sleep because I’m thinking about all the things I need to do the next day and then the next day I’m worrying about all the things I need to do for the rest of the week. It’s a vicious cycle!

Journaling is a welcome relief from those feelings of overwhelm. It feels great to just be able to get all of your thoughts out and get at least some of them out of your head. I also find that when I am journaling it’s much easier to make sense of my thoughts and understand how to come up with solutions, manage my thoughts and know when to totally erase thoughts too.

I personally prefer not to do this in a book, journaling is a very personal thing and I think even though I have nothing to hide, thinking about someone knowing exactly how you feel can be off-putting. However, I use a website/app called Penzu so that I can do all of my journaling digitally which is really beneficial. I know no one is going to see it, it’s easy to set up and I can fill it out in 10 mins first thing in the morning, highly recommend! It can be difficult to get started with but I think the main thing to rememember is that it’s for you and only you. There’s no hard set rules or certain ways you should be writing about things, just get it out onto the page!

Live in the moment 

One of my biggest issues (and something that I'm still working on) is constantly chasing the future. Every day I always want to be better and do better and I get frustrated that I'm not where I want to be, it gets me down and I end up in a negative spiral of 'I'm not good enough > I never will be > what's the point'. I got to work for PlayStation last year creating promotional art for my favourite game in the whole world and sometimes I genuinely forget I ever did it, because I'm always chasing the next thing!

Obviously the issue there is that I don't just live in the moment and appreciate what I've achieved. I'm the happiest I've ever been in my life and achieved some of the goals I never thought I would, so something I thought would help me and might help you if you're struggling with similar thoughts is to create a sort of achievements book (I'm sure there's a better name for it!). I have a book for my goals and future plans but nothing collating everything I've done so far and that's what the achievement book should focus on. The idea is that it’s a book that is filled with images of things that you've worked on, positive comments and feedback that you've got from people and anything else that you're proud of! Then when you are having a bit of a tough time or not living in the moment you'll have this growing book of achievements to look back on and bring you back to the present, along with reminding you how much you smash what you do! I’ve said it before on here and I’ll say it again but I truly believe you should be your own biggest inspiration and I think this is another way to help you to do that.

Appreciate the little things.

Something to follow on from living in the moment is learning to appreciate the little things. Pay attention to what calms your mind a bit and the things that make you feel truly happy inside, and the chances are these really are the little things and the things you can do in your day to day. Even reading this now as I’m writing these points I know I am not doing this enough at the moment and it’s something I need to get back into!

For me, I absolutely love the days (usually weekends) where I can get up, make a cup of tea and sit and drink it on the sofa in the living room in silence, totally just in the moment. The same goes for baking, if I’ve had a stressful week or I feel like everything is getting on top of me I’ll bake. I don’t know what it is about baking, maybe it’s just that it’s something that I have to fully focus on and something I enjoy the process (and result) of, but it really does help to take my mind off things, and I really want to find more hobbies and tasks like that. I also really love it when my partner makes me a fresh cup of coffee with our coffee machine or when I give the house a good clean, they don’t need to be big expensive events, but know what helps you start your day or week right.

You might not know what these tasks are in your own life so it might just take a bit of exploring to understand what you enjoy; going for walks and just appreciating nature can be another really calming thing to do. So try to be more self aware of the little things that really make you feel good inside, even if it’s just watching your favourite film. Make time to introduce more of those things into your life regularly.

I keep seeing a post circulating on social media about how people won’t remember things like how much you worked, your salary or your reputation etc. but they will remember how you treated them, a statement that I think really resonates as you get older. It’s not all about age, but I think the more you grow and experience, the more you realise what truly matters and how important those little things are, so notice what the little things are for you and get excited about them!

Be kind to yourself.

I constantly get told I'm too hard on myself and I don't give myself much credit, which again I think relates back to always just wanting to be better. One of the best ways to deal with this though is noticing how you speak to yourself, especially when you are having a difficult time. Notice that, and then imagine if your friend was going through the same thing, would you speak to them in the same way or would you build them up and tell them how awesome they are and how they can do anything they set their mind to? Start talking to yourself how you'd speak to a friend. It might seem pointless having a positive mindset, but it’s been proven that the way you speak to yourself and the thoughts you have really do play a huge factor in your emotional state and resilience.

Another thing that helps is just being kind to yourself in general. It's easy to be hard on yourself when you've not had a productive day or week because something has been playing on your mind or because you've not been feeling well. This often then leads to frustration at yourself and another negative spiral begins which can constantly affect your productivity. However, we are all human, we have our ups and downs, our days when we need more rest or our favourite food, and sometimes this goes on for months or years, and that's okay! Be kind to yourself, give yourself a break, it'll be much easier to get back into the swing of things if you get yourself back on track rather than constantly trying to push through and be productive when you're not feeling great.

Focus on yourself and take action.

It is very, very easy these days, especially with social media to get completely lost and off track without even realising it. How many times have you looked at someone’s social media that you admire and thought “oh I wish I could do that!....I’m going to learn how to do that!” or something similar? Now there’s nothing wrong with learning new things, that’s what life is about! But you do need to ask yourself if that’s getting you closer towards your goals or completely halting you in your tracks. I’m guilty of doing this, especially recently, where I’ll write myself new goals to focus on because I feel like I need to do what someone else is doing. That’s where the problem lies though, I’m doing it because someone else is doing it and I feel like I should do it too to be ‘good enough’. Unfortunately I seem to notice this after some time has passed and I compare my original goals to what I’m currently focusing on and notice how off track I’ve got. 

This is why writing your goals down is so so important! If you have goals that you can refer back to it’s easy to catch yourself going off track. I know I talk about social media a lot when it comes to mental health but it really can be such a bad influence. Remember what you see on social media is usually the best parts of someone’s life or work. If you have a habit of comparison ask yourself “Do I really want what they have?” this includes their struggle, their lifestyle etc. and most of the time I’m pretty sure it won’t be! For example I’ve followed people on Instagram who’s house I wish I had or their success with their business, but they’ve been barbers or motivational speakers, or even artists with super realistic styles; all of which I really don’t want to do!

I hope this helps for anyone that is struggling with these things, always happy to chat further about this with people too!