Pandemic Motivation

Self-Motivation might be the only thing we have these days, as this pandemic rages into its second calendar year and many of us have been self-isolating for ten+ months. Maybe you’re like me, and viewed the first few months of the pandemic as an exhilarating challenge – Let’s see how this goes to teach two kids and work from home! Look at all the artists doing fun craft-from-home videos! A short-lived period where my second-grader made a lesson plan for my preschooler was a big win!

Now we’re more than over it.

So let’s talk about how to keep your motivation up when there aren’t a lot of external rewards for doing the things.

1)      Make your list: Write down a reasonable amount of things you want/need to get done just today. Reasonable is the key! For me, about 8 things is reasonable – and that includes the zoom meetings, errands, even small tasks like “figure out how to renew a driver’s license in a pandemic.” It also includes the small steps in what might be a big task, like a work project. Write down the pieces that you absolutely think you can accomplish in the one day.

2)      Set yourself a reward: Our brains don’t want to work for nothing – that reward pathway is there for a reason! Make sure you have something to look forward to after you finish those tasks. It could be a fun activity, a walk, a meal or dessert, or a phone call with a friend. If there are some big or dreaded tasks on your list, make sure you plan a small reward after you complete that – maybe just a break to stretch your legs, a snack, or some music or movement.

3)      Give yourself credit: At the end of the day, whether you got everything done or not, recap to yourself and feel some gratitude for what you were able to get done. Focus on what you did well. Think ahead to tomorrow and how you might adjust your expectations of yourself. Practice some self-compassion around anything that didn’t go well – you did your best. You’ll try again tomorrow.

4)      Connect: If you don’t live with others, put some thought into how connected you feel to others. This is a really isolating time, and if you don’t have built-in interactions throughout your day, you might have to plan them out. If a phone call, text exchange, or video chat is not your favorite, put it on your list of tasks and the reward yourself when you do it! While we might be feeling resentful that we’re not able to connect with others spontaneously or the way we would prefer, we will benefit if we push through and do the connecting anyway – ideal or not.

Here are the key pieces to staying motivated during hard times:

-          Time-limited – one day at a time, one task at a time so we don’t get overwhelmed.

-          Realistic – lower your expectations to what you are capable of doing during a global pandemic, not your usual high standards.

-          Reward-oriented – don’t expect yourself to work for little or no rewards! Figure out how you like to celebrate your wins and do it more often for yourself.

-          Connected – recognizing we need that social interaction, however we can get it.

I hope you will write your own suggestions for keeping your motivation up in the comments so we can help each other out!

Recovering from Life Burnout

Many of us – I’ll venture to say working mothers in particular – are feeling burnt out in one if not many of the roles we find ourselves switching wildly between these days – parent, worker, teacher, disciplinarian, compassion figure, cook, consumer, partner, housekeeper, functional adult. I will say that I have felt “burnt out” – feeling hopeless and ineffective in dealing with my work and just over it – in every one of these roles over the past week.

We are reaching our limits within these roles more frequently because they used to serve as breaks from one another – while I was at work I didn’t have to worry about what was for dinner, and when I was planning fun and educational activities for my kids I didn’t have to also think about when I was going to fit these into my work day. Breaks (mental or physical) and feelings of purpose or motivation toward a goal are what prevent burnout – and here we are without them, and without an end in sight.

Here’s how we can recover from burnout, if we’re already there:

1) Redefine “effectiveness” – forget about being able to complete one task by a deadline and before moving on to another. If you are living in the reality of multiple overlapping and critical roles, surviving through the day without anyone dying is effective. Avoid setting expectations about all of the things you “should” be able to accomplish in a work day (or a parenting day, or a home-school day), and instead set one small, achievable goal in each of the realms you have to function that day. Plan to get outside. Plan to make it to that one important zoom meeting. Plan to take a few minutes to shower, to read, or to have a dance party in your kitchen – something that brings you joy. Plan to eat a sandwich. If you don’t reach all those small, achievable goals, THAT’S OKAY. There were probably too many of them anyway. Give yourself credit for the things you did, and let the other things go. Finish the day with gratitude about what went well.

2) Build up your Life satisfaction – Identify what things you do in a day that make you feel energized and engaged. Do more of those things. See if there are ways to define your “effectiveness” by how much you do these things, instead of how much work you get done or how much math your kid learns. If you also happen to identify some things that drag down your morale, see if you can either do less of those things or pair them with a reward or something fun like listening to a podcast or music while you file reports, or taking that meeting on your phone outside. We might not be able to quit all the things we don’t want to do, but we can maybe shift our thinking so that we don’t spend so much of our mental energy (which is limited!) on them to the point that it’s all we think about.

3) Talk about Work-Life Integration – if you’re a working parent, this is the time to talk with your manager/supervisor about how to design a more sustainable work-life integration – let’s lose this idea of “work-life balance,” as if they are ever going to be totally separate things again. We need to be able to work within our life, and live as whole humans even in our work. Now is the time, because if your workplace is not willing to be flexible now, when we are ALL needing flexibility, it is not. the. place. for. you. (I offer workplace consultation on specifically fostering the needs of working parents, so a well-placed referral can certainly be made here!) As workplaces are thinking about what productivity looks like long-term, we working parents have to be in the equation. It is also a unique time to take a look at your own work-life integration and think about what you would like it to look like as opposed to what it does look like, and see if some of the changes can be made internally (in your own thinking or prioritization), as well as making some recommendations to your employer.

I’m with you in this, working parents, and cheering you on as we all try to figure out our own balance, roles, and ways of moving forward!

Jessie Everts, PhD LMFT

photo: Jayden Brand

COVID-19

Well our world has been completely rocked by COVID-19, the coronavirus, and all of our plans for 2020 are changed in an instant. We, like so many others, are on shelter-in-place status until further notice, which I find to be comforting (as well as frustrating and difficult and all of the other things). It’s nice to have certainty that we are where we should be, at home, in solidarity and protecting the more vulnerable among us.

My family and I had started keeping at home about a week early, thinking that this was coming and with encouragement from our workplaces. This means that we join the legions of parents trying to figure out how to work from home, parent, home school, and also maintain some sense of normalcy while also keeping our children apprised of the situation. This is a delicate balance. But it is one we can manage, and I feel grateful that we have the ability to do this, and the will to do it (as long as it is TEMPORARY)!

I have also been doing all of my therapy online, via telehealth, which has its own challenges of invasion of privacy, as I can now see inside my clients’ houses and lives in a way I couldn’t before; internet connectivity; figuring out where to look and how to manage the background noise of my own home, kids, and dog. But again, we can do this, and I have felt glad and grateful that this technology exists at a time when we suddenly and completely needed it. My clients have adapted and seen that it can be helpful to have a time and a place that they know they can talk with someone about their fears and struggles – and they ALL have them. We are all, every one of us, having fears and struggles with this. It is my hope, as I’ve worked on with all of my clients, that we can all also feel the gratitude and solidarity of this hard time; that we can recognize that we are doing this for each other. That is what will keep us going.

In that vein, I hosted a short Mindful Meditation 101 virtual class on Monday night that is now available as a recording. I think that it was helpful in creating a sense of calm and peace in these times where we are so desperately searching for them. I hope that the class will be helpful to you all, too, as you look for that sense of calm and peace, that you realize you can create them yourselves, right there in your own home.

Stay home and stay well,

Jessie

Open and Willing

I’ve been working on a number of projects in a lot of different areas, but something keeps occurring to me. As we talk about just bringing mental health into the public comfort – beyond just the public consciousness, we want it to be something that is in (or on the edge of) all of our comfort zone to talk about! – we’re really talking about helping people develop openness and willingness.

We have to start by being open to the discussion, first. To just feel like mental health is something that is okay to talk about, that we are open to hearing about it from others and maybe sharing about it for ourselves. That’s it, that’s the first step! And wow, I’m seeing a lot of movement in that first step – people talking about mental health and being vulnerable to social critique in ways that are stronger and more brave than I think we’ve ever seen.

And then there needs to be a willingness – a willingness to learn, to maintain that openness, and to maybe even try to do something different. This is where we want to get to, as a society, so that we’re not just talking about mental health more, but we’re actually all partners in doing something about it – we’re all active participants in supporting mental health in our selves and in others. This might mean recognizing that I might have a problem with anxiety, or with depression, or with drinking (that’s the opening)…and being willing to try to do something about it (there’s the willingness).

I see both of these as a practice – something that we can all develop if we work at them, being open and willing. It’s not something that we’re all great at, naturally. Some of us need to make a conscious practice of cultivating feelings of openness and willingness in the face of the fear that often gets in our way of being either. How we do this is not by ignoring the fear, but it’s by recognizing the fear, and stepping past it. Keeping going, even if it follows us in. Recognizing that being open and willing is scary, and that the benefits of practicing them far outweighs what happens if we close ourselves off and sit in unwillingness. What happens then is that we stay stuck.

So, I’ve been and would encourage others to be aware of how you practice these two things in your everyday life. When can you practice being open? When can you practice willingness? How is it scary? And how do you walk with the fear?

I’ll be excited to talk more about how this goes with a group I’ll be speaking with next week for whom this is a pretty new and revolutionary challenge. I’m open to their thoughts and willing to do the hard work with them!

Jessie Everts, PhD LMFT

“Push Harder” by Mr_Malvic

Ask Anyway

We’ve been away, but for good reason – we’ve been busy! Empower Mental Health has been all around the state of Minnesota, engaging with providers on how to best address mental health! We have been talking with leaders about what struggles they are seeing and what some of the barriers to addressing them are…and there are a lot of each!

Here are some things we’ve learned. “Mental health” is a buzzterm right now, but a lot of people don’t really know what it means. When we talk about mental health, we’re talking about everything from anxiety, depression, and everyday stress, all the way to more severe things like suicidal ideation and aggressive behaviors that might come from an issue like schizophrenia or a neurocognitive disorder. Anxiety, depression, and stress are by far the most common things that people see around them, and these might be just normal feelings but also might be symptoms of a bigger issue that may require some kind of treatment.

Second, people don’t like to ask about others’ mental health because A) they think it will make the other person (or themselves) uncomfortable, or B) they don’t know what to do next. Okay! That is totally fine. Ask anyway. It absolutely might be uncomfortable to ask someone if there is something bigger going on for them than just an angry outburst or seeming isolated or withdrawn. Ask anyway. I love the “Seize the Awkward” campaign I’ve seen on commercials – it’s geared toward adolescents but does a great job of saying “it’s okay to talk about it, even if it’s awkward.” In fact, it is absolutely better to say something than nothing at all! Saying nothing makes it seem like it’s not okay to be struggling, which keeps stigma high and people quiet. And even if you don’t know what to say next, just the fact that you have asked opens the conversation. You can say “Is there anything I can do to help?” or even “I’m not sure what to say, but I’m glad you told me.” And you can always suggest that they find a professional (a therapist) to talk to – we therapists love to hear that clients come to us because someone who cares about them said they should talk to someone!

Here’s another thing you can do: write to our “Ask a Therapist” page and ask how you can support someone you care about who might be struggling with mental health. We love questions and can give you a few helpful hints about bringing it up or let you know how great a job you did trying it out!

Ask anyway! Breaking down the stigma around mental health helps us all – because we’ll all feel less scared about talking about things, and the struggles we all have will become more manageable.

Jessie Everts, PhD LMFT

Ask Anyway.

Mental Health Pyramid

My husband, an engineer, asked me, “Isn’t there something like the Food Pyramid for how to take care of your mental health?” WHAT A BRILLIANT IDEA! So, I created this.

I give you the Mental Health Pyramid!

Start at the bottom and work your way up:

Social Connection doesn’t mean that you have a ton of close friends or supportive family members. It means that you have some meaningful connections – people in your life that you can go to when you need help or support, want to talk things through, or just need to reach out. This can even be a person you know only virtually, if it is truly someone real that you can talk to about things. If you don’t have this, Step One to better mental health is to find it. If there truly isn’t someone in your immediate life that you can reach out to, this is what a therapist is for. Find someone today! And talk to the people you do have in your life – we all need a place to connect and relate.

Goals/Purpose are what give our lives meaning. It might be just deciding what the next thing you want to work on is, personally or professionally. It might be thinking about what is important to you, or where you want to be in 5-10 years (start with 1 day in the future – something you want to do tomorrow – if five years is too far in the future!). This can be a concrete plan or something really written down on paper, or it can be ideas and interests, or new things you want to try. You have to hold a sense that you are heading somewhere to stay motivated to keep going, even when things get difficult.

Mindfulness/Self-soothing Skills are the things we do to stay or get back on track in the moment. Hard things are going to happen. There are going to be times we don’t feel awesome. Practicing mindfulness skills and self-soothing can both prevent the negative emotions from taking up so much space, and also shorten the length of time we have to spend in them. Self-soothing skills are things that you do to soothe yourself, or make yourself feel better – things like taking a bath, listening to music, giving yourself a break or a treat. The best things you can do to self-soothe are those that are free and those that don’t have negative consequences down the road (i.e. smoking or drinking or overeating) – try to identify something free and healthy that you can build in to your self-soothing regimen. Mindfulness skills are things we do to stay in the present moment, to pull our minds out of ruminating about things that have already happened or things that might happen in the future. Staying in the present moment is grounding and soothing as well, and reduces many mental health symptoms all by itself (and it’s free and healthy). Check out the gallery of Mindfulness activities for a quick start.

Lifestyle is really about these things: Sleep, nutrition, exercise, living environment – the things that keep us physically healthy and also impact our mental health in really serious ways. Pay attention to where you have trouble with your sleep, your eating habits, and your exercise (or lack thereof). Think about how you’re doing with all three things every day. Even small improvements in these areas can really make you feel better quickly!

Therapy is really helpful for a lot of people and a lot of different issues. You can go see a therapist even if you’re not quite sure what is wrong or you don’t have a “problem” right now. It can be helpful just to talk to someone who is outside of your current situation and life and can give a different perspective. You can try different therapists to find the best fit, and you only have to go for as long as you want! Many therapists will give you a free first session, which is a great time to just let them know what is going on with your life and see if you feel good about the response. You can connect here to ask any questions you might have about what therapy is like or how to go about finding a therapist.

Medication (as needed) – Mental health medications are really important and necessary for a lot of people. If you have tried other things in the pyramid and they haven’t worked, or even if you’re just curious about whether a medication might help you, talk to a qualified prescriber right away. Your regular doctor can be a starting point – most physicians and nurse practitioners can prescribe basic antidepressant and anti-anxiety medications. For more complex issues, you’ll want to find a psychiatrist who has some more mental health training and be sure to find someone that you feel comfortable with, who really listens to you and has your goals and best interests in mind.

For more information or training on this graphic or any of the points above, please contact us!

Jessie Everts, PhD LMFT