When you work in mental fitness but forget your own
A reflection from Belinda Elworthy, Gotcha4Life CEO
I’ve been neglecting my mental fitness lately.
That might sound ironic, given my job is literally about inspiring and enabling others to prioritise theirs. But, like any muscle worth strengthening, mental fitness can slip if we don’t regularly give it attention.
We often talk about mental fitness as a muscle. The more we train it, through meaningful connection with others, working on our emotional adaptability, and choosing not to carry the weight of our worries on our own, the stronger it gets. It’s one of the reasons why we opened the Mental Fitness Gym, and why I have become such a fierce supporter of the gym being a space where you can train your emotional muscles any time of day or night.
But it wasn’t the Mental Fitness Gym that got me thinking about my lack of mental fitness reps.
It was a simple monthly self check-in I’ve been doing this year.
At the start of the year I decided to do a monthly Mental Fitness check-in with myself. It takes me no more than 15 minutes. It’s a reminder in my diary, and I’ve used Google Keep to flesh out what being guided by my 3 areas of focus looks like on a practical level. I’ve pinned these so they’re always at the top of my list of notes.
As someone who struggles to stay consistent when it comes to my own physical and mental health (I am very good at prioritising everything else), once a month, I’m reminded to review how I am personally tracking against my 3 areas of focus:
1) Nourishing my body and soul
2) Respecting my boundaries
3) Spreading joy to others
Rather than setting goals on new year’s eve, I fleshed out what these 3 important areas meant to me, and what prioritising them this year would actually look like from an actions perspective.
So, this year has started off in a particularly intense way, and we all know that there’s been a lot of external noise. As someone driven to help others, I can often lose focus on what really matters to me, and despite having all the knowledge and tools at my fingertips, I subconsciously decided that my mental fitness could sort itself out in the background, while I focus on getting things done.
Sometimes (rarely) this does work, but I can personally testify that it’s not a very reliable strategy long term. This small pause each month reminds me that mental fitness isn’t something to fit in when there’s time, it’s what makes everything else more sustainable.
A simple self check-in is what I needed to see the gap. Not as something to judge myself for, but as an important reminder that it can be easy to get off track, and with some dedicated focus, easy enough to get back on course.
By revisiting these 3 important areas, and connecting back in with the daily or weekly actions that prioritise them, I was able to hit the refresh button. For me this involved returning to booking my fitness classes in advance, putting the laptop away after dinner and instead connecting with my kids, and remembering the opportunity I have to make someone's day with a dash of kindness.
Mental fitness isn’t about never slipping. It’s about recognising when we have, and choosing to start afresh. The same way our physical strength fades when we stop training, our emotional muscles need regular use.
So if, like me, you’re noticing that your mental fitness has taken a back seat lately, here’s a gentle reminder: It’s never too late to pick up the weights again.
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