s at the Top of the Mountain?What

MENTAL HEALTH What’s at the Top of the Mountain?

Let me paint the picture. You’re feeling down, eyes beginning to close after watching heaven knows how many Tiktoks/Netflix episodes, and you suddenly become very aware of what you’ve been doing for the past three hours. You’ve sat on your bed, wasting time and casually ignoring the SMHW notifications taunting you from your desk. But, despite every alarm bell, you just don’t care. It’s lockdown, you’ve lost all motivation, all stamina and all sense of purpose.

So, what do you do? Google your problems, hoping to find some great tip that will turn everything around.

Been there. Done that.

The thing is, all of these mental-health sites, in attempt to provide the best, most accurate advice, end up sounding pretty damn similar. Eat healthily, exercise daily, get enough sleep — we’ve heard it all before. Now, I don’t know anyone who would deny that any of these things help. However, I do know many people who would rather ignore this advice than follow it through (and understandably so!)

Name your baby steps

You’ve casually ignored the SMHW notifications taunting you from your desk

What many of these websites fail to understand, is that most people going through a mental rough patch are well aware of the logical way to get out of it. The problem, therefore, is not what to do, but how to do it.

If you’ve been down for several weeks, frequent exercise, a healthy diet and a regular sleep schedule are all goals that may seem a million miles away. You’re just not bothered. This is because the first thing that comes to mind when we think about these aims are the extremes: run 10k every day, cut out sugar completely and delete all social media in order to regain focus on that growing pile of work. It’s not realistic. bothered to go again. You’ll maybe last a few days sugar-free, until someone offers a treat that you just can’t resist. You’ll delete all social media only to realise that you no longer have any connection to the outside world and need to find out who’s been messaging you. All this lands you right back where you started: in bed, even more down on yourself than before.

Sound familiar? If so, I have two words for you: baby steps. You don’t need to run a marathon, or go on some strict diet cleanse, or cram in all the work that you’re behind on in the space of one day. Just aim for the small things. Tiny changes in your day-to-day life (tiny!) can have a greater impact than you may realise. As CEO coach Sabina Nawaz noted in a Harvard Business Review, “the way to achieve big is to start small –through micro habits.”

First, find a starting point. This can be as small as deciding to get better. Next, name your baby steps. Getting out of your pyjamas in the morning, drinking more water throughout the day, or leaving your house for a short walk, are all things that can better your mental state. Slowly, you are able to build up stamina and, before you know it, the mountain that looked so hard to climb at first doesn’t look so scary anymore.

So, what’s at the top of the mountain?

I was once told something that completely altered my outlook on mental health. We should not aim for, or expect, a constant state of happiness. Happiness belongs to those special moments where your emotions have exceeded normal levels of contentment. It is one end of a spectrum, with sadness being on the opposing end, not a norm. What we are trying to reach (and maintain) is a state of contentment, of peace and satisfaction. All you should aim to feel is that you are enough.