Mental Fitness…where did it all begin?
A brief history of Real Clear’s Mental Fitness Journey
A brief history of Real Clear’s Mental Fitness Journey
Welcome to the second Mental Fitness Monday! Today I want to share with you a bit of my story and how Real Clear’s take on mental fitness came about. I hope you’ll find this interesting, and it whets your appetite for the posts that follow.
When I was 19, I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety by my GP. I’ll talk more about this in other posts, but for now I can say that it was a very dark time for me with a long recovery period.
From adversity comes learning…
While I’d never want to go back to feeling as low as I did, I’m so glad I had the experience because of what it taught me. As part of my recovery, I educated myself about mental health; and since then I’ve studied coaching, psychology, neuroscience, emotional intelligence and more.
My mental health recovered (with some significant blips…more on them another time) and I trained to be a coach around a decade later.
Spotting the patterns
Fast forward to today, (scarily 30 years later!) and I still love to read and learn. What I notice now though, are the patterns. I recognise more readily how one bit of learning fits in with another.
A few years ago, I started to map out some of the key skills that came up again and again in my studies. Things that we could learn and develop, that weren’t just the luck of the draw. I decided to call these collected skills ‘mental fitness components’. What I really meant was ‘mental and emotional fitness’ but that was a bit of a mouthful!
Great minds think alike
And you know what? What often happens is that when one person has a good idea, others are also having similar. I started noticing occasional mentions of mental fitness on social media. I became aware of other well-known writers on the subject. I even went on a training course to become a qualified mental fitness coach, which I loved.
All those doubts
I can doubt myself, and my thoughts at the time were “Everyone else’s ideas will be better than mine.” My take on mental fitness isn’t about being tough like some other programmes are, it’s about being the best we can. Since 2019 Real Clear have run mental fitness training and coaching programmes for hundreds of people, sharing our unique take on this subject. The support and encouragement from people I’ve worked with has given me the courage to share these posts. I know I’ve changed lives, and my hope is that as this blog continues, I will help you as well.
In the next post I’ll share with you the four key areas that we focus on in Real Clear’s mental fitness programmes. I wonder which one will be your strongest skillset so far.
Here’s a coaching question to get you thinking: What’s something you’ve learnt from a time when you haven’t felt good?
