3. Learning to feel good about yourself through as many areas of your life as possible
Apart from the areas that you currently use to feel good about yourself, choose 4 more areas that you are interested in that can help you feel good about yourself. Use the table below to set yourself some short term goals (e.g. can be achieved in 6 months) in these 4 new areas. Some examples could include spending more time with certain people, having a new hobby purely for enjoyment rather than achievement, returning to hobbies that you have stopped when you focused on doing well in fewer areas.
Remember to set flexible and realistic goals and avoid any use of “must” and “should”. Choose small steps rather than large one, as the idea is to slowly build new areas in your life that you can feel good about, not to master a whole new area of life overnight.
| Area of Life | What do you want to be/do in this area?
What are the changes you want to make? What are the steps you plan to take? How will you know that your plan is working? What are some things that might stop your plan? How will you overcome them? |
|---|---|
| My work/studies My mental health My relationship with my close friends My relationship with my parents/siblings My service to the community My spiritual life (if applicable) My hobbies My fitness and physical health Others (please explain) |
4. Have more balance in what you pay attention to
Perfectionists are used to focusing on the negatives and ignoring the positives. A simple way to retrain your attention is to note down each day at least 1 thing you have achieved or done on that day. Train yourself to look for the small achievements, in a broad range of areas e.g. made time to walk the dog even though I was tired; started the essay I have been putting off because I didn’t know how to proceed; spent time talking to my parents and siblings even though I was really stressed.
