Blogs
Bridget Jelley
Winter Wellbeing 101

Keeping our minds resilient and strong is important no matter the time of year, but in the winter months, especially as our days grow shorter and the sun slants lower in the sky, we need to put in more effort.

Blogs
Bridget Jelley
Did you say 'feedback'?

I asked a group of individuals in a performance session recently, what comes to mind when they think about feedback.

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How to Face Your Fears and Manage Anxiety

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How to Face Your Fears and Manage Anxiety

A couple of years ago, I tried out for the fire service.

Facing down the entry to a confined-space maze designed to test my response to claustrophobic conditions, I realised that I had spent far too much time focusing on my running speed and pull-up ability and nowhere near enough time practising the mental skills I would need to control my fear response and manage anxiety under stress.

I failed.

The good news is that you don’t need to be prepping to face down burning buildings to benefit from facing your fears or managing anxiety.

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Staying Connected: A Guide for Introverts

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Staying Connected: A Guide for Introverts

Mental Health Awareness Week 2022 has just come to an end. The theme this year was ‘Reconnect - with the people and places that lift you up, hei pikinga waiora.’

The positive mental health benefits of connection are clear.

Research has found that:

  • Happier people tend to have strong social relationships

  • Social networks promote a sense of belonging and wellbeing

  • People with a higher number of close connections (three or more) were found to have a lower incidence of mental health conditions.

  • You can explore some of the research on this via the MHAW website here

But how can this help people who struggle to stay social?

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IS THIS IT FOR GRIT and RESILIENCE?

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IS THIS IT FOR GRIT and RESILIENCE?

I love survival stories. Whilst often harrowing, they demonstrate the incredible power of the human mind and spirit in the most inhospitable conditions.

Laura Dekker, New-Zealand born Dutch sailor, pursuing her dream to be the youngest person to sail single-handedly around the world in the face of repeated opposition from Dutch authorities - grit.

Getting up and continuing to sail after being whacked on the head by a flying fish - resilience.

Yet, resilience and grit are perhaps now more readily associated with corporate wellness schemes, positive psychology, and psychometric testing in recruitment.

And yet, I began to wonder, is developing the ability to withstand trauma really what we want at work?

Wouldn’t it be preferable to create an environment where the capacity to avoid PTSD wasn’t a necessary quality?

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Let's Make Some Noise about Quiet Quitting

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Let's Make Some Noise about Quiet Quitting

What is Quiet Quitting?

In a nutshell, Quiet Quitting is simply doing what you are paid to do, and no more.

Oh the horror! Merely fulfilling your contract, as agreed at the outset with your employer? How entitled! How lazy! What is the younger generation coming to?

How can leaders manage Quiet Quitters?

Read on for more..

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Psychological Safety: What is it, Why does it matter, and how can you create it for your team?

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Psychological Safety: What is it, Why does it matter, and how can you create it for your team?

Feeling able to seek help, to admit mistakes, to speak up when something is wrong in the workplace, is less a reflection of the person doing the speaking and more of a reflection of whether their working environment enables them to feel safe to speak.

This is what we call Psychological Safety.

Ask yourself this - if one of your team members screwed up, would they feel confident that they could let you know, without fear of repercussions? Now dial-up the magnitude of the screw-up.

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Eight things I learned on turning 40

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Eight things I learned on turning 40

I’m not usually big on birthdays, but I turned 40 last week and it felt like a bit of a milestone.

I’m not depressed per se about almost being middle-aged (I intend to live until I’m 98, so I have a few years to go on that one), but I have spent some time reflecting on how it feels to be on the other side of four decades.

Without further ado, here are my thoughts on life.

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Should I stay or should I go now? The science of quitting, and when to do it.

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Should I stay or should I go now? The science of quitting, and when to do it.

We are celebrating Platty Jubes this weekend in the UK – the Queen’s Platinum Jublilee.

Seventy years of reign on the throne.

Whatever your thoughts on the monarchy, I think we can all agree that’s a long-ass time to be in the same job. Not to mention a long time to be working at all. Lizzy is 96 and still at it.

It raises an important question. How do you know when to play it like Elizabeth II and stick it out for the long haul, or make like Meghan and Harry and get the hell out of Dodge?

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How to Avoid Burnout When You Love Your Job

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How to Avoid Burnout When You Love Your Job

“Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life,” or so the old saying goes.

Anyone who runs their own business, or whose art is also their work, will tell you that if you do what you love, you will work every hour that God gives and then try to squeeze in a few more.

It is easy to assume that if you enjoy your work, you will be safe from burnout. But in fact, paradoxically, burn-out is associated with purpose-driven work.

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Hold the Bread: Delivering Feedback with Compassion (and no sandwich in sight)

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Hold the Bread: Delivering Feedback with Compassion (and no sandwich in sight)

Anyone can deliver good news effectively. But life is full of things that don’t go to plan. Even the best employee will make mistakes, or need coaching to improve. No one is immune from economic or political changes that impact the workplace and redundancy or a necessary but unwelcome policy change could impact any of us at any time.

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Play, Fun and Flow: What does Mental Fitness look like in 2022?

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Play, Fun and Flow: What does Mental Fitness look like in 2022?

For 2022 I have a new proposition.

Forget ‘getting the hard stuff’ done. Postpone your frogs, or just chuck them straight into your out tray and let them croak. Grasp joy wherever you can get it, grab it as soon as you can, and hold onto it for as long as possible.

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ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS... IS RESILIENCE

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ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS... IS RESILIENCE

Christmas-time brings with it added pressures and stressors that are unique to celebratory events and can pile on top of an already difficult year. Even the hardiest person can feel their resilience wane in the last weeks of December.

Here are some extra, Christmas-themed resilience tricks that may help you to get through to January. Whether you intend to go full ‘Buddy the Elf’ 100% festive, or pare-back your celebrations this year, these tips may help.

How to deal with Loneliness

How to deal with Loneliness

When I was younger, making friends was easy. I wasn’t a ‘popular kid’ at school by any stretch of the imagination, but I had my little group of pals, and always had a ‘best friend,’ or two. We would spend all day together, afternoons at one or the other’s house, and then call each other as soon as we reached our separate homes, talk for hours, and leave the phone off the hook when we fell asleep so that when we woke up in the morning, the other would still be there.