Top 5 Excuses for not Managing your Wellbeing & Mental Health

Your wellbeing and mental health impact every aspect of your life. Your work, home, family, relationships and sense of self. It impacts your quality of life and even how long you live for. Everyone agrees its important. But most people don’t spend the time they should on looking after it.

We tell ourselves all the reasons why we are not spending the time we should on our wellbeing. Those reasons are believable and feel very true for us. But they are also seductive. Told often enough, they become fact and a great justification for leaving things the way they are.

Having run many wellbeing webinars, training session and individual check in’s, I can confirm that these are the top 5 excuses people give themselves for not looking after their wellbeing and mental health.

1. “I’m too busy” – The most common and most ‘acceptable’ of all the excuses. We all have an internal “fuel tank” (our energy reserves) to get us through our day. We most need to draw upon this fuel when we have a lot on our plate and are at our busiest. The irony is that the time we most need to top up our fuel tank is also the time this excuse kicks in.
2. “Maybe my issues will sort themselves out” – Confronting a wellness or mental health issue can be scary. So sometimes the default response is just to ignore it and hope it goes away. Yet we don’t think twice if it’s a physical issue. Can you imagine breaking your arm and then just ignoring it and hoping it gets better by itself???
3. “Others need help more than me” – Some people spend their entire lives putting other’s needs first. There is always someone else to help and no time left for yourself. The feeling that putting yourself first is ‘wrong’ or selfish can make it harder to do what you need to do for you.
4. “I don’t know where to start” – Sometimes the thought of trying to “fix” whatever is going on can be quite overwhelming. Where to start and who to turn to? When starting seems overwhelming, the temptation is not to start at all.
5. “This is just normal/how things are” – Human beings are amazingly resilient. We can put up with a lot. If you have lived with an issue for a long time, after a while it can seem like just a part of who you are. But it doesn’t have to be.

Do you recognise any of those excuses? If so, try the following to help get your wellbeing back on track.

1. Recognise them as excuses – Sure they seem reasonable. But the more we accept them as justifiable, the more things stay the same. Try adding the words “I am giving myself the excuse of…” in front of each of your reasons. This will make it harder to keep holding on to them.
2. Prioritise your wellbeing – Firstly, recognise the risk that by the time you finish ‘fitting everyone else’s oxygen masks first’, there may be no time left to fit your own. Secondly, build time into your day (even as little as 5 minutes twice a day) to stop and do something that boost your wellbeing – meditation, deep breathing, exercise, connecting with friends, etc.
3. Know when to seek help – We all experience dips in our wellbeing and mental health at times – it is normal. If the issues persist beyond a few weeks, intensify, or get in the way of us leading the life we want to lead, then it’s a good indicator that we need to get some help.
4. Identify your “go to” person – Unfortunately there is still a lot of stigma associated with mental health. The thought of talking to someone about our issues makes it scarily real. Think about who you would turn to, if you decided to talk about what’s happening (a friend, family member, GP, Counsellor, EAP). Now visualise yourself saying something to them like “do you have a few minutes to chat – I would appreciate your thoughts on a few things”. Visualising it makes it more likely it will happen when you need it to.
5. Put together a wellbeing plan – Thoughts in our head about what we ‘could do’ run the risk of remaining simply good intentions. Transferring those thoughts to a plan with actions and timeframes make it much more likely you will take the steps you need to.

You may be really struggling at the moment. You may be languishing (neither good nor bad; just going through the motions). Or you may be doing ok. Either way, ask yourself

“what could my life be like if I put more time into looking after my wellbeing”?

For help getting your individual, team or organisational wellbeing back on track, reach out for a free chat.