Self Help - a step towards growth

Life is full of surprises and challenges. Sometimes it feels like our mental wellbeing may even be suffering. When faced with illness or dealing with difficulties, you sometimes need to choose whether to seek professional help, try to fix the problem yourself, or combine those two options.

The numerous benefits of seeking professional help need to be weighed against the cost of such help.  In some situations it may be more effective to deal with some issues yourself. By learning techniques that will assist you in solving painful issues you will be empowered to handle similar challenges in the future.

The biggest mental roadblock to overcome is to stop just thinking about the problem and to actually taking action to resolve it. Sometimes your preoccupation with a problematic issue or situation can make any the problem appear much bigger than it really is.

• The first step should be trying to understand the problem.
• Figure out what role you play in maintaining this problem saturated situation, without defending it.
• Be honest with yourself.
• Can you identify the emotions you feel when thinking about the problem?
• Anxiety, stress and panic cloud your judgement and complicate issues even further.
• The next step might be to gather as much information about the problematic subject as you possibly can lay your hands on.
• The appropriate knowledge will empower you to handle the problem much more effectively in the future.

  Once you understand the problem, you will have knowledge about what exactly you need to deal with. It always helps to try to split the problem into smaller, manageable parts. Dealing with each part separately will seem less daunting than trying to tackle the whole overwhelming problem all at once. It might be worth your while to get some external advice on dissecting the main problem and on setting goals for each smaller part.

Goals should be measurable and add value to the problem-solving process. Find ways to measure your progress so that you will always be able to go and check where you came from and whether you are still on the right toward your goals.

Remember to celebrate your small successes.

Other suggestions:

·         Read about people who had to deal with the problematic situations and who ended up winners.

·         Find out about the different methods that could help you handle the problem.

·         Talk to someone you respect and trust.

·         Keep a diary of you progress towards solutions.

Your plan should be realistic enough to keep you on track, but at the same time flexible enough to accommodate changes that may occur in your life and in your understanding of the problem. Your goals may change a little along the way and you will also figure out which methods work for you and which don’t. You can change your plan to accommodate the things you learn on your journey towards your healing, so that your plan will grow along with you.

You might need to change some habits and old ways of doing things since this could have contributed to the situation in the past. Change is never easy, even when those changes are good for you.

Don’t focus on the one or two failures along the way, but rather celebrate each goal you attain and each difficulty you overcome.

When all is said, it is important never to be to proud to ask for professional help and guidance.  

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Wynand & Barbara Louw, Founders of ITN.

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