Mental Fitness Monday Launch
Welcome to Mental Fitness Mondays!
In news that will surprise absolutely no-one, physical fitness is important for your health. You don’t need me to tell you that being fit can make a huge difference to not just your lifespan, but to the quality of your life; we’ve all known this for a long time. However, it’s only more recently that mental health has gained the publicity it deserves.
Introducing Mental Fitness Mondays
The thing is, I think the message around mental health is a bit muddled. Real Clear provides coaching and learning programmes for socially minded organisations. Many of the people we work with will be like you. If you’re reading this, you probably care a lot about making the world a better place.
I think that a big way to make the world better is to improve how mentally fit we all are, which is why I’m creating a series of posts that I’m calling ‘Mental Fitness Mondays’.
Mental health…or mental ‘ill’ health?
Many people I know feel uncomfortable talking about their mental health. If we do talk about it, the conversation seems to mainly focus on what’s wrong or what could go wrong with us.
What follows next is often a conversation about coping strategies. These include great things like talking to therapists, keeping journals, and taking appropriate medication. But sometimes our coping strategies are less helpful, like overconsuming food or alcohol. Once we’ve coped with what was affecting us, many people drop their strategies, because they feel more ‘normal’ again, whatever that means!
Changing the narrative
I want to change the narrative. What if we started talking about mental fitness as well as mental health? What if, just like physical fitness, we could get mentally fitter? What if, instead of coping strategies, we normalised doing mental fitness exercises? Things that take us beyond being ‘ok’ and lifted us into to feeling good more of the time? If we could all be mentally and emotionally fitter, the whole planet could benefit. And the good news is, we can!
Over the next few months, I’ll be sharing Real Clear’s take on mental fitness, based on years of research, reading, studying and our own lived experiences. My aim is to share short, readable posts that get you thinking about your mental fitness and the exercises you could try to boost yours.
Many years ago, I chose to commit to a life-long journey of developing my mental fitness. I’d love you to join me on that journey, it could just be the boost you need!
My best wishes,
Lisa
Here’s a coaching question to get you thinking: What does good mental health mean to you? And what could you do today, to give your own mental health a boost?
