You work out, right?
OK, you know physical activity is beneficial and improves your life, right?
What about your mental wellness? Do you work on it? How? How do you empower your kids to have good mental health?
During the time I was a teacher, I learned not only the importance of mental wellness, but also how intrinsically tied to all things — including overall achievement — it is.
Recently, I was interviewed by Josh Ochs’ on his Smart Social Podcast where I shared 5 ideas on how to improve mental wellness:
Listen With Your Eyes And Your Heart
When interacting, we often assume what the other thinks, wants, or needs.
While as a parent, we may remember what it was like to be 8, 14, or 21, the truth is, times have changed, and we can’t be fully in the shoes of our younger ones. In fact, there are times (more often than we may like) that we can look to our younger ones for lessons.
Kids and young adults, as annoying as it may feel, your parents, teachers, and mentors may have some wisdom to share about something now and then.
It’s important to be committed to being UNafraid to learn how to communicate with each other in a way that will allow you to UNleash the best in each other.
Sometimes, this means you have to listen with more than just your ears.
Pay attention to the way someone looks and acts. It matters. Just because someone isn’t telling how they are feeling, doesn’t mean you can’t observe it. Pay attention to your intuition. It’s usually right, or at least, right enough that you’ll be able to open a conversation up which is never a lost cause.
Instead of making assumptions, ask questions. Even if you think you know the answer, ask to give the other person the opportunity to communicate in their own way. And really listen, with your eyes and your heart. As a teacher, I had to learn very quickly that the true role of a great teacher is to learn how your students learn and to give them the tools and create the environment that facilitates their learning (not your own agenda).
The beautiful side effect of this practice is that you end up feeling more peaceful overall, because you’re no longer stuck in your own story. Instead, you’re being open and UNafraid to being vulnerable and courageous at the same time!
Teach Your Younger Ones How To Express Themselves Through Stories
This is a surprising lesson I learned while I was the head of a high school music department.
Empowering my students to tell a story increased their abilities as musicians! At first, I wasn’t sure of the correlation, but I went on to run this ‘experiment’ year after year, and the results always came out the same way.
When you are able to express yourself with your words, you experience more confidence. More confidence spills over into other areas of life. More confidence improves achievement, mood, self-image, self-esteem…
What kind of answers do you get out of your young adults when you ask them a question? Have you ever stopped to mentor them (by asking more questions) to express what they really mean?
Try it. You may be surprised at the results. Not to mention the effects it will have on your own mental wellbeing when your younger ones give you more than one word answers or shrugs.
Be UNselfish. Focus Out.
My favorite quote in the movie Klaus is, “A true selfless act always sparks another.”
This is something that I’ve lived by my entire life and I’ve made an important observation about being outward focused; it relieves a lot of mental anguish, insecurity, lack of self-confidence, practically instantly.
Instead of making everything about yourself — what you want and where you’re going — what would become possible if you placed your focus on serving others?
In doing so, you take away the pressure to ‘figure it all out’ yourself. You give yourself a chance to ‘get out of your own head’ in exchange for making a difference for others.
Another saying sums it up beautifully: ‘when in doubt, focus out.’
Focus On What You LOVE And What You’d Love To See More Of
If the saying, ‘what you focus on expands’ holds true, then this tip is a game changer.
This is something I learned from an extraordinary, UNconventional teacher educator while I was doing my teacher training at the University of Toronto. Dr. Mary Beattie was teaching us an alternative way to assess and evaluate students.
“How can you focus only on what you want?” was the problem we were to solve when it came to giving feedback on student presentations, for example.
Her solution is one that I have carried with me and applied to every area of my life.
Perhaps not so surprisingly, when you focus on what you love and what you’d love to see more of, you get more of those things! Not only that, you just feel better overall because you’re shining a light on the things that have a positive charge.
The next time you’re going to give feedback to your younger ones, I challenge you to highlight what you love and what you’d love to see more of.
Compare Less. Celebrate More
Simple right? But I’m not just talking about comparing yourself less to others.
I’ve spent my life struggling with, studying, and overcoming what I’ve come to call Comparanoia™ — the desire to be like or UNlike anyone else. I’ve even presented a TED talk on the topic.
You see, in our desire to be unique, we end up isolated ourselves. What if, instead of finding all the reasons we aren’t like others, we focused on celebrating the fact that we are just as special as everyone else?
I don’t know about you, but for me, celebration when I was growing up was meant for special occasions. As an adult, through my years working with young people, I decided to redefine celebration to include more options. In fact, now I have a whole #iCELEBRATE Matrix I’ve created that includes thousands upon thousands of combinations of ways to celebrate.
Celebration can be words of appreciation, acknowledging your own awareness, or my personal favorite Joseph McClendon III’s asstitude, where you literally shake your hips around. It’s practically impossible not to change the way you feel when you do it, and it’s always available to you!
While we can’t completely eradicate Comparanoia™ (I believe it’s just part of the human condition), we can tip the scales so that celebration becomes the major force and I speak from personal experience when I say a life filled with celebration is one that is oh so worth living!
How will you work on your mental wellness and model that behavior for your younger ones? Share your favorite techniques that work for you. I’d love to feature your ideas.
Originally published on Medium
Davide Di Giorgio is the number one international best-selling author of Being UNapologetic, a keynote and TEDx speaker, youth advocate, Comparanoia™ expert, and a speaking and confidence consultant for students, teachers, parents, influencers and celebrities. His philanthropic endeavor, Project Being UNapologetic dares to tackle bullying and build confidence and self-esteem while funding dream projects for high school performing arts students. He is currently on a Global Wellness Celebration Tour spreading a message to Compare Less, Celebrate More!
To book Davide Di Giorgio for speaking, interviews, appearances, or consulting, contact him HERE