F is for Flow!

Today's post is all about flow activities. But what do we mean by the term 'Flow'?

'Flow' happens when we are so absorbed in an activity that we lose ourselves and our sense of time. You are 'in the zone'; fully immersed in a feeling of focus, energy, enjoyment and involvement in the activity at hand.

Flow links closely to Intrinsic Motivation, which we talked about here. They are linked because without intrinsic motivation, it becomes almost impossible to achieve flow. They are both specific to you as an individual, so knowing your interests is a great help when looking for activities to help you find flow and intrinsic motivation.

I personally find writing, gaming and cycling to be great flow activities because they are engaging to me, but that doesn't mean that everyone will find those activities engaging or enjoyable. Knowing what you enjoy and what brings you satisfaction will help you find your flow.

Flow activities are perfect for when we feel negatively about things, if we are having a bad day or something bad has happened, because it gives us a sense of escape from those negative emotions. 

This is because you are fully focused on the task at hand, which helps to slow the tide of negative emotions in our mind. You might not necessarily experience positive emotions either while engaged in a flow activity, because you are focusing on the practical aspects of the task at hand, for example if you are climbing a mountain, you aren't thinking about how you feel, you are just focused on taking each step and reaching the top.

When we complete flow activities, we usually feel a surge of positive emotions. We feel a sense of achievement for completing our activity, we feel happy because we enjoyed that activity, and we feel motivated to increase our abilities. We are encouraged to stick with difficult tasks and see them through to the end. This increase in positive emotions can help to balance out any negative ones that we have.

Exercises and activities to try:

Hide and seek! -  Kid's games are the greatest example of flow activities; you are focused on the game and your goal is clear - to win! Grab a few friends or siblings and have a big game of hide and seek in your house, your garden, or in the park.  It may feel silly at the start, but it is so much fun, and helps demonstrate how it feels to be engaged in a flow activity, because you are focused on finding your friends and winning the game, not on your thoughts and feelings! Alternatively, if you feel like too much of an adult for hide and seek, have a Nerf gun war instead! 

Challenge yourself! - One of the key things to achieving flow is having realistic goals for the activity. Things like playing football, mountain climbing and video games have clear goals, but others, like drawing, running or reading do not. If your chosen flow activity lacks goals, then have a go at assigning yourself some challenges! This gives you something to focus on and helps you find your Flow!

Do you enjoy painting? Challenge yourself to paint something new once a week. Maybe you enjoy swimming, so you could set yourself a goal lap time. The key is to set realistic goals that challenge you, but that are ultimately achievable. If goals are too easy, you become bored, and if they are too hard, you become anxious, so keep this in mind when setting your goals. If you find your goals to be too easy or difficult at first, don't give up, just adjust them until they are right for you!

I is for Intrinsic Motivation!

We all have the desire to feel that we are in control of our lives, that we are improving ourselves, and that we have a purpose in the world. 

Finding the hook that motivates you in life can feel difficult. You sometimes aren't sure what you want from life, and struggle to find the drive to move forward.

When we think of motivation, we often limit our thinking to the extrinsic motivators: the rewards and punishments that we get. At school, many people try hard in exams to satisfy their parents, because they get rewarded for doing well, and get punished for doing badly. In work, we usually do our job because of the financial reward.

There is another form of motivation that we rarely consider: intrinsic motivation. 

This is the motivation that comes from within, which drives us to do things not for other people, or for rewards or to avoid punishment, but we do it for ourselves, to make us feel good about ourselves and because we genuinely want to get better at something.

That isn't to say that extrinsic motivation isn't useful, there are many situations where it is effective and necessary, but having intrinsic motivation drives us much further when it comes to creative thinking, problem solving and self improvement. When we have intrinsic motivation to do something, we are more persistent, enthusiastic, driven, excited and confident, because the task actually means something to us, and isn't just a means to an end.

Examples of activities that can help build our intrinsic motivation include fishing, reading, playing an instrument, drawing, blogging, playing sports, gaming and writing. We don't get any external reward or punishment for doing them, we do these things for ourselves because we find them enjoyable and exciting, and have a desire to improve our abilities while doing them.

Different people are passionate about different things, so below we have listed some activities for you to try to help find the right intrinsic motivation activity for you!

Exercises and activities to try:

List your passions - Have a go at writing a list of all the things that you like in life, that you are interested in, that you have a passion for. Listing everything that you are passionate and seeing it on a page can help you see links between the things you are passionate about, and may help generate ideas for an activity to try. 

Maybe some of the things you like are photography, make up, fashion, writing, and being creative. You could start writing a personal fashion blog! Or you might be into drawing, writing and reading comics. You could have a go at writing and illustrating your own comic! These are simple examples, but by doing this activity yourself you may discover a theme in your interest that you didn't realise before, and this could lead you to find the right activity to build your motivation!

Pursue new opportunities -  Sometimes we don't actually know that we are passionate about something until we try it for the first time, or sometimes we have something that we would love to try and we just feel a bit scared to try. Pushing ourselves to try new things is the best possible way to build our motivation, all it takes is a little step outside our comfort zone!

Have a look at your local arts centre or college and see if they have any courses or activities that might interest you, or look for some free online short courses to try. See if there are any local clubs or community groups near you that you could take part in. Going out and trying something new, even just once, will help to build that motivation and make us more willing to try other things!

L is for Learning!

Learning new things and broadening our skills is one of the greatest ways to build our mental health, because doing tasks that stretch our abilities can help us develop thinking and activities that will help us cope in tougher times.

Learning is always full of risks. When we try something new, there is the chance that we will 'get it' right away, or we might not. To learn something new, we have to be prepared to mess up or to miss the mark at first. If you are scared of failure this can stop you from trying new things. If you see failure as a weakness in yourself, then your self esteem will crash if you mess up.

Changing our perception of learning is key to getting past that fear. 

We need to accept that failure is a necessary part of learning, not a negative consequence! If we are ready and expect that failure is a part of learning, then we will be less likely to turn back after the first failure. Learning from failures is just as important as being rewarded for successes.

If you don't 'get it' first time round, you have a choice whether to give up or to go again. Choosing to keep going in the face of failure is one of the greatest ways to build resilience and perseverance. If you can try again when you fail and stick at something to get better, then you will find it easier to recognise and enjoy your improvements, and these things are vital skills for building your mental health.

Exercises and activities to build mental health through learning:

A simple activity to show how much failure can be useful us is to think back to a time when we personally failed at something, and think of what you learned from that experience. 
Say for example you took your driving test and failed first time. If you failed, you get feedback on why you failed, and this teaches you to avoid those mistakes when you take the test again, and as a result you may end up being a more careful driver than if you had passed first time, as you are aware of those mistakes and you are more careful not to make them again as a result.

Another exercise to help put learning hurdles into perspective is to draw 5 hurdles on a page, with a finish line at the end. Write a goal at the finish line: something that you would like to achieve, that is realistic but needs some attention to get to. Write down the hurdles or barriers that could prevent you from reaching that goal (these could be outside circumstances, practical issues or your own internal barriers). Spend some time thinking about actions to use to overcome each hurdle, and write these down.

This sort of exercise can help build problem solving abilities and actions that we can use when encountering barriers to learning, and help us to overcome those hurdles rather than give up at the first problem!

We hope you found this post helpful and informative, as always please follow us on Facebook for more information about our events! Thanks for reading!

LIFEMAPS: an introduction

Mental wellbeing is so important!

YouthAction has recognised the need for new approaches to developing young people's mental health, and has developed a new mental health model entitled LIFEMAPS to address this need.

LIFEMAPS clearly demonstrates how youth work approaches can build the mental health of young people. It clearly states that mental wellbeing is not uncovered or discovered, it is built through actions, skills and attitudes, and fostered through positive relationships. 

LIFEMAPS is your map for the journey to positive mental wellbeing!

LIFEMAPS is an acronym for 8 interlinked concepts that describe a full approach to developing positive mental health;

Learning - Accepting that failure is a necessary part of learning rather than a negative consequence, which enables us to find the courage try new things, build resilience and approach challenges without the fear of failure.

Intrinsic Motivation - Finding activities that we really enjoy and are interested in, and have an internal motivation to pursue because they brings us a sense of personal reward and pride, and contribute positively to our mental wellbeing.

Flow - Finding activities that fully immerse and engross us, causing us to lose ourselves in the moment, which can give us a break from negative emotions and build positive feelings of achievement in their place.

Emotions - Balancing out the negative emotions with positive ones; not by forcing positivity, but by being open to new experiences, people and ideas to help us build a wider range of positive emotions like joy, inspiration, hope, awe and serenity.

Mindfulness - Promoting a positive outlook by taking time to notice small, everyday moments that bring us pleasure in order to bring balance to our minds and counteract the negative moments.

Accomplishments - Building self esteem through accomplishing personal goals, and realising that life isn't about winning or losing, but more about learning and growing, and that small milestones pave the way to big successes.

Purpose - Finding a sense of meaning in the world outside yourself by finding ways to help others, through small acts of kindness to your friends and family, volunteering or joining a cause you are passionate about.

Social Connections - Building our sense of belonging and community by building strong connections with others through work, school, family and friends. This satisfies our desire to be valued, cherished and listened to, which is critical to mental health.

These 8 elements are interlinked and we can find many activities that will satisfy several of these elements, for example learning to play a musical instrument will satisfy Learning, Intrinsic Motivation, Flow and Accomplishments. Asking an old friend to meet for coffee and catch up would satisfy Emotions, Purpose and Social Connections. Going for a walk in the park and stopping to smell the flowers satisfies Emotions and Mindfulness.

Lifemaps is easily tailored to any individual, as some people may have plenty of Social Connections but no sense of Purpose, and others might have a lot of Intrinsic Motivation but struggle with Learning. All it takes is a knowledge of yourself and the areas of your life you want to work on, and then finding activities and behaviours you can practice to help build those elements.

Starting this Wednesday, we will be writing a weekly post exploring each element in more detail and suggest activities that you can try to help satisfy the needs of each element. We really hope you find them helpful!

Please follow us on Facebook to keep up to date with our posts and upcoming events, and see you on Wednesday for ways to improve your mental wellbeing through Learning!

Hello!

Hi everyone! Welcome to the Lifemaps blog, where I will be writing about the Lifemaps initiative, and exploring the steps that young people can take to help build mental wellbeing.

I'm Amy, the Media Coordinator for the Lifemaps project, and I have been fighting depression and anxiety for 8 years now, so I know a fair bit about the difficulties of dealing with poor mental health. I am happy to say that I am doing very well these days, and the positive behaviours and activities that are central to the Lifemaps model have been instrumental to my recovery.

I'll be the one writing the blog posts over the next few months, and will be keeping you all up to date on our Facebook and Instagram, where I will be posting positive photo messages every Monday as part of our Monday Motivators series, sharing articles about mental health, sharing information on our events, and posting video productions exploring Lifemaps from our training sessions and youth led events.  I am really passionate about this project and think it can go a long way to help those struggling with their mental wellbeing.

Please share this blog with anyone who you think would benefit from some exercises to improve mental wellbeing, and if you have any questions please feel free to contact me through this blog, by messaging the Lifemaps Facebook page, or dropping me an email at amy@publicachievement.com.