Written by Sarah Godfrey, Personal and professional development coach

Psychologist, Director Moving Mindsets  & Life Works When self help books

So you have identified what your goal is, how it relates to your values and created a vision board or mind map to stay focused and creative with reaching your goal. Those four future fact questions have been pondered over, you now have a clearer background to why the goal is really important to you and how it relates to your overall life and happiness.

Good job!

So, I hear you say, that’s fine and well but how do you actually start the process of goal achievement? What was I doing before that didn’t work and what do I need to do now so I am successful? Achieving your goals isn’t child’s play. We are all aware of the routine — setting up lofty goals and then pushing hard to achieve them while breaking free of that comfort zone. But that journey isn’t smooth. We can end up getting distracted, fed up. We can feel overwhelmed and frustrated when things start going downhill. Eventually, it ends with us reverting to the old ways. Sounds familiar, right?

We all struggle at some point in our life. On the other side of the struggle or perhaps better said, at the end of that struggle is success. In life, there are aims and goals that we set and eventually end up achieving. However, it’s important to make sure nothing deters you from achieving these goals. With a relentless drive, accompanied by a determined spirit, you can overcome anything that stands in your way.

So, what’s the difference between goals we eventually achieve and goals that we give up on? How can we set goals to achieve them more effectively? To answer these questions, let’s dissect the mechanics of setting goals a bit more, and review some strategies that will help you accomplish them.

The first rule of success is planning. The second rule is planning the third rule…. You get the picture. Know where you are, what you are doing and what you need to do next to get that goal completed.

• Plan

It’s simple, you cannot achieve your goals without a proper plan in place. You need to be aware of the direction you are travelling in. But that doesn’t mean you need to be aware of every single step along the way.

Let’s consider an example here. An airplane has the specific goal of taking off and landing in a specified destination at a specified time. To achieve its goal, the plane requires a plan- a flight plan. However, one must remember that a flight plan is susceptible to change. There might be various mitigating factors behind, like turbulence, air traffic congestion etc. Similarly, to achieve your goals you need to have your own specific set of plans. Create your plan, stick to it, and adjust accordingly along the way. You don’t need to change the goal, just adjust the plans that will get you closer to them.

• Invoking Discipline

You cannot achieve any goals without proper discipline and balance. Even if you set your goals correctly, without discipline you just make the task so much more difficult. To achieve your goal, you will need to create the right atmosphere by starting habits in your life that generate discipline. You will need order in your life. Whenever things go downhill, it will become hard to stay focused on your goals. However, if you learn the art of discipline you will be able to stay calm and focused even during hardships. This is easier said than done, though. Often, your goal might get outpaced by your obligations. Have no discipline? Get yourself a personal development coach to keep you on task, focused and disciplined. Know your strengths and weaknesses. Seek support in areas you have determined will sabotage your success.

• Reduce Distractions

Human beings are easily distracted. There are numerous things in life to pull us in multiple directions, away from our goals. We veer from course, moving from one tangent to another. So, it is important you reduce the distractions in your life and remain focused.

Analyse and search the origins of distractions in your life, and take healthy steps to eliminate them (maybe once and for all?). This may include excessive use of electronic gadgets, socialising, watching television etc. By getting rid of such distractions, you can gain so much more free time to pursue your goals rather than wasting time on things that don’t serve any meaningful purpose in your life. Distractions are time snatches, stealing hours and minutes away from your schedule. Wasting your free time. So, it’s time you take some responsibility and eliminate them.

• Developing milestones

Milestones are helpful markers you create while striving towards achieving your goals. The basic step you can take here is to take your long-term goal for a specific period, say one year, and break it into little milestones. Create your own weekly or monthly milestones to stay on course.  If your goal is measurable, creating your milestones should not be a problem.

For example: if your goal is to lose 10 kilos in one year, you can break that up into 1.2 kilos a month.

Milestones are more manageable and can help you visualise and achieve short-term results, eventually leading you towards the long-term outcomes. Long-term-goals might often become an overwhelming factor and are connected to individual levels of personal endurance and ambition. If long term goals are where you trip up, short-term goals are more manageable and finite, as you can approach them on a day-to-day basis.

• Time management

It’s the most vital strategy that you should be implementing while striving towards your goals. Perceive a good time management system and execute it. It will not only help you to avoid distractions but also utilise your resources to their maximum effort. Time is the greatest equaliser across our world. So, start asking yourself these simple questions.

How do you spend your time? Do you use it in the right way? Do you ensure that you are allocating sufficient time towards achieving your goals? Do you utilise it properly, or do you squander it away? If you are open and honest while answering these questions you can figure out a system suitable enough to manage your precious time. If not, again seek professional help. We are not all born with superhuman time management abilities. If it isn’t your super power than go and seek a professional who can help keep you on time and develop your skills in time management.

And of course the tried and true acronym for goal setting and achieving is the SMART goal strategy. SMART GOALS means, ensure your goals are:

Specific | Manageable | Attainable | Realistic | Timely.

Let’s break it down to a usable format.

 Specific

• clearly define or identify what is the goal you wish to achieve.

Manageable

• Your goal must be able to be controlled or dealt with without difficulty. If it is too complicated or out of your control, it won’t be reached.

Attainable

• It must be attainable. For example, if you wish to lose 10 kilos in 2018 your goal should be 1 kilo a month. That is attainable.

Realistic

• Don’t get silly with your goals. Have a sensible and practical idea of what can be achieved or expected.

Timely

• Watch out for this. It is very easy to create a goal that doesn’t fit in with your life, your job or your relationships. Set your goals to a favourable or useful timeframe to increase your success.

 Try this exercise.

1. What is the specific goal? Write a SMART goal based on where you want to be in the future (use your Four Future Facts to guide you)
2.  How and why is it manageable?
3. Why is this goal attainable for you?
4. Why do you believe it’s realistic?
5. What is the realistic time frame for you to reach this goal?

 Goals about effort vs Goals about achievement

 Lastly work out whether your goal is about effort or achievement.

• Goals about effort- Define if you goal is about effort in other words physical or mental activity needed to achieve something.
• Goals about achievement– Is your goal focused on something done successfully with skill, status or courage?

Knowing what your goal will need and its orientation will help you prepare and plan better.  A goal like weight loss or a healthier lifestyle, is a goal about effort. It requires physical changes and increased mental activity to be successful. A goal about work is more about achievement. It requires new skills, changes in status or income or upgrading old skills. It requires courage and skill to stay the course and take chances.

Now you have the strategies to really get started. Sit down and plan what your goal needs, what it will require from you and others, where your stumbling blocks may be (and seek professional support if required).

Good planning!

As Winston Churchill wisely said, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts”   

Reading and Reference Links:

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/284783

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/5-strategies-achieve-goals-13561.html

 Written by Sarah Godfrey.   Personal and professional development coach &  Psychologist

Director Moving Mindsets  & author of Life Works When self help books

1.Identifying goals

That time of year again! We set about making goals that we were unable to complete during the year. Or the year before. Or the year before that. Why is it so hard to achieve a goal we really want?  What makes us go from high motivation to loss of absolute interest and then a sense of failure, (and if you are the type who insists on making a public announcement of your new year goal, some level of embarrassment when people realise you have not been able to stick to the plan).

It takes more than a alcohol infused inspirational dream. More than just desire and motivation. Goal achievement is a little more complicated than most of us realise. Otherwise we would all achieve our dreams very easily. Our goals are what keep us going and help define our purpose in life. Goals, when properly determined, are nothing else but what we are meant to do. It is where we hope to see ourselves years from now – the ultimate destination of hopes and dreams.

Over the next few weeks I will offer some tips to help you through the goal setting and achieving process. From identifying what your goal is to celebrating reaching it.

So let’s get started.

Do you know what your goals are?

Have you tried to find out and set them for yourself? If yes, what techniques have you used?

First and foremost is know what your goal is. Vague goals like, “I want to lose weight,” are too broad and full of escape routes out of success. In fact, they are a dream, a concept or a desire but not a goal. I want to lose 5 kilos in 5 months is a goal. Be specific. But before we can look at goal achievement, we need to know the goal really is and why. Here are some ways to begin to identify your own personal goal before you set out to make it happen.

VALUES- Connect the dots.

Know Your values: The important beliefs in your life.

Think about what is important to you.

What do you value?

What are your beliefs about the things that are important to you?

Make a list of the 10 most important values you can think of and then rank them from highest to lowest. Think about things like Love, Success, Friends, Power, knowledge, Freedom, Popularity, Responsibility, Honesty, Humour, Loyalty, Achievement, Beauty, Spirituality, Wisdom, Fairness, Creativity, Wealth, etc

Done? So now where does your goal fit in with your value set? Which value is it aligned with? If a goal can be identified with a value you hold, it is easier to connect with the aim of reaching the goal than if you have little idea about why you want to achieve the goal in the first place.

VISION BOARDS OR MIND MAPS

Sift Through Your Subconscious.  Okay, sounds a little new age and unorthodox but to grasp what you subconsciously want, you can try this. Take a piece of paper and a pen, and write down about your vision of an ideal life. Jot down the important points and then study them carefully. The parts which you haven’t yet achieved are the ones that you desire, and these should form the foundation of the goal identification process. What you have left is a vision of what goals could bring you happiness. Get creative and make a visual representation of your goal.

A vision board or Mind Map is a tool used to help clarify, concentrate and maintain focus on a specific life goal. A vision board is any sort of board (be it in your kitchen at work or on your phone using a mind map app), on which you display images that represent whatever you want to be, do or have in your life. Try to think of times when you were at your happiest. What images come to mind that you can associate with the goal to make the process easier and more positive.

QUESTIONS- Four Future Facts you need to ask.

 Ask the questions you need. A goal is a future task that we activate in the present, so acknowledge that you are working towards a goal somewhere down the track. It is not going to be instantaneous and, yes all you iGen, YGen and zGen people that means goals are not based on instant gratification.

Work For It. Nothing was ever gained without hard work. If you want something great, you need to toil for it and with goals, the best way to know that it’s the right fit, is to take chances. Stop worrying about consequences and take that leap! It is only when you have attempted several things will you develop an understanding of what works for you and what doesn’t.

Don’t be afraid of recognising you may lack insight. One of the biggest reasons why goals don’t work out for some people is the reason they were set in the first palce. It is always about the end result and the ultimate ‘prize’ and never about the path to it. Yes, goals, by definition, are the result that you would expect from your efforts but if you don’t consider the journey that leads to it, you will never make it. For example, say you want to earn a fortune. It won’t happen by magic and there is a lot of hard work involved. Being lazy or unwilling to put in the hard yards, will not cut it and the goal will remain forever elusive. If you feel you don’t have enough real insight into your values, your goals and your endurance for reaching goals, seek advice and support rather than putting goals in the too hard basket.

Make sure when you are identifying your goal, you ask yourself the four future facts to make the future happen.

1. Where do you want to be in 1 year from now?
2. What do you need to do to make it happen?
3. Where do you want to be in 5 years from now?
4. What do you need to do to make it happen?

Don’t forget that all goals Are Subject to Change – It is not set in stone that when you have identified something as your goal, you’d have to stick to it despite evidence to the contrary. Don’t be stubborn about something and instead, always look for better avenues to your goals. Re-think everything and identify new goals flexibly. If you set a goal to lose weight in 5 months and don’t, well, redefine your goal with new expectations and knowledge about how hard or how long the goal is really going to take. Goals are things we have to manage around our lives, loves and work so cut yourself a little bit of slack if time is against you. Don’t see it as a sign your goal is unachievable.

Identify you can have more than one goal in life.  There is no limitation when it comes to your goals. Yes, there are things to which you may be suited to more than others, but versatility is always a gift. Rather than identifying and sticking to one thing when you are multi-talented and can have many well-formed goals. Don’t focus on ‘One’ but rather open your eyes to the ‘Many.’

Goals are all about you and your self-expectations. As such, it is less about what’s going on around you and more about what’s happening in you. Your goals are an extension of your abilities and they should never be anything less. Smaller goals will be a wasted potential and excessive projections will result in failure. Always go for what you are confident about and what makes you happy as with positive effort and thinking comes the strength of accomplishment.

Extra reading and References

http://jackcanfield.com/blog/finding-life-purpose/

https://www.fastcompany.com/3029765/how-to-set-goals-for-the-life-you-actually-want

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/shannon-kaiser/3-unexpected-ways-to-find_b_5176511.html

What Are Peak Experiences?

One way to create a sense of happiness is to  find peak experiences. You don’t have to look hard. It could be seeing a beautiful sunset. Noticing a blooming flower. Watching the ocean. Listening to  waves crash on the sand. A piece of music. A cluster of clouds. The idea is to NOTICE and stop. Let yourself be in the moment and pay attention to the wonderful experiences that surround us.

We can become so busy that these moments pass us by. Which is a shame as often they are the very thing that could lift our mood, even if temporarily.

Our challenge to you is to take a picture of anything that creates a sense of peace, happiness, fulfilment beauty and wonder.

Upload your photo onto out twitter feed MovingMindsets@movingmindsets every day and share your bliss.

  This is one of my peak experiences. It was a heart shaped hole in the rocks down at the beach. Beautiful and novel.

Sarah Godfrey

Below is a great article by  Kendra Cherry explaining in more detail what are peak experiences. Worth a read.

In Abraham Maslow’s famous hierarchy of needs, self-actualization is located at the very top of the pyramid, representing the need to fulfill one’s individual potential. According to Maslow, peak experiences play an important role in self-actualization.

Self-actualization is actually considered quite rare, which means that peak experiences can be equally elusive. Not all people reach the peak of Maslow’s pyramid.

In one study, researchers found that only about two-percent of individuals surveyed had ever had a peak experience.

Peak experiences are not restricted solely to self-actualized individuals, however. Maslow believed that all people are capable of having these moments, but he also felt that self-actualized people were likely to experience them more often.

How Do Psychologists Define Peak Experiences?

Peak experiences are often described as transcendent moments of pure joy and elation. These are moments that stand out from everyday events. The memory of such events is lasting and people often liken them to a spiritual experience.

Other experts describe peak experiences in the following ways:

“Peak experiences involve a heightened sense of wonder, awe, or ecstasy over an experience.”
(Privette, “Defining moments of self-actualization: Peak performance and peak experience,” 2001)

“…a highly valued experience which is characterized by such intensity of perception, depth of feeling, or sense of profound significance as to cause it to stand out, in the subject’s mind, in more or less permanent contrast to the experiences that surround it in time and space.”
(Leach, “Meaning and Correlates of Peak Experience,” 1962)

The Characteristics of Peak Experiences

Privette (2001) developed an Experience Questionnaire designed to look at both the shared and unique characteristics of peak experiences. After looking at a wide variety of people, peak experiences have been identified as sharing three key characteristics:

1. Significance: Peak experiences lead to an increase in personal awareness and understanding and can serve as a turning point in a person’s life.

1. Spiritual: During a peak experience, people feel at one with the world and often experience a sense of losing track of time.

When Do Peak Experiences Occur?

Maslow suggested that one of the best ways to think of peak experiences are to think of the most wonderful experiences of your life. Those moments of ecstasy and complete and utter happiness. Being in love is one example of a peak experience. Such moments may also occur when you are in a creative moment or when reading a book or listening to a movie. You might feel a sense of “being hit” by a particular creative work in a way that strikes an emotional chord inside of yourself.

In one survey, people reported that peak experiences tended to occur during artistic, athletic or religious experiences. Moments in nature or during intimate moments with family or friends were also common. Achieving an important goal, either a personal or collective one, could also lead to a peak experience. Other moments when such experiences might occur include when an individual helps another person in need or after overcoming some type of adversity.

What Does a Peak Experience Feel Like?

So what exactly does it feel like to have a peak experience?

Peak Experiences and Flow

Peak experiences bear numerous similarities to the concept known as flow described by positive psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Flow is a state of mind during which people become so involved in an activity that the world seems to fade away and nothing else seems to matter. When in a state of flow, times seems to fly by, focus becomes sharp and people experience a loss of self-consciousness.

Flow can happen when a person is having a peak experiences, but obviously not all instances of flow qualify as peak experiences. Everyday moments such as becoming engrossed in a thrilling book, working on a satisfying project, or enjoying an afternoon game of basketball can all lead to a flow state, but these moments are not necessarily peak experiences.

_References

_{Leach, D. (1962). Meaning and correlates of peak experience. Doctoral dissertation, University of Florida.}

_{Maslow, A. H. (1962). Toward a psychology of being. Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand.}

_{Polyson, J. (1985). Students’ peak experiences: A written exercise. Teaching of Psychology, 12, 211-213.}

_{Privette, G. (2001). Defining moments of self-actualization: Peak performance and peak experience, in K. J. Schneider, J. F. T. Bugental, and J. F. Pierson (Eds.). The Handbook of Humanistic Psychology, 161-180.}

_{Thomas, L. E., & Cooper, P. E. (1980). Incidence and psychological correlates of intense spiritual experiences. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 12, 75-85.}

From the APS website

Learning to handle stress in healthy ways is very important. Fortunately, it is easy to learn simple techniques that help. These include recognising and changing the behaviours that contribute to stress, as well as techniques for reducing stress once it has occurred. The following tips from the APS can help you look after your mind and body, and reduce stress and its impact on your health.

Identify warning signs
These vary from person to person, but might include things like tensing your jaw, grinding your teeth, getting headaches, or feeling irritable and short tempered.

Identify triggers
There are often known triggers which raise our stress levels and make it more difficult for us to manage. If you know what the likely triggers are, you can aim to anticipate them and practise calming yourself down beforehand, or even find ways of removing the trigger. Triggers might include late nights, deadlines, seeing particular people, hunger or over-tired children.

Establish routines
Having predictable rhythms and routines in your day, or over a week, such as regular times for exercise and relaxation, meal times, waking and bedtimes, can be very calming and reassuring, and can help you to manage your stress.

Look after your health
Make sure you are eating healthy food and getting regular exercise. Take time to do activities you find calming or uplifting, such as listening to music, walking or dancing. Avoid using alcohol, tobacco or other drugs to cope.

Notice your ‘self-talk’
When we are stressed we sometimes say things in our head, over and over, that just add to our stress. This unhelpful self-talk might include things like: ‘I can’t cope’, or ‘I’m too busy’, or ‘I’m so tired’, or ‘It’s not fair’. Try more helpful self-talk like ‘I’m coping well given what’s on my plate’, or ‘Calm down’, or ‘Breathe easy’.

Spend time with people who care
Spending time with people you care about, and who care about you, is an important part of managing ongoing stress in your life. Share your thoughts and feelings with others when opportunities arise. Don’t ‘bottle up’ your feelings.

Practise relaxation
Make time to practise relaxation. This will help your body and nervous system to settle and readjust. Consider learning a formal relaxation technique such as progressive muscle relaxation, meditation or yoga; or make time to absorb yourself in a relaxing activity such as gardening or listening to music.

By Sarah Godfrey with inspiration from the team at Moving Mindsets.

Here we are again. So much to do and so little time. The holiday season isn’t called the silly season for no reason. Somehow we start to panic and try to finish all those half accomplished jobs, shop for everyone we have ever known, feel compelled to over spend, over eat and over drink. We organise to meet up with all our family and friends, turn up to every Xmas function, design menus and decorate our homes and it all has to be done before the 25th of December. Stress levels rise, anxiety kicks in, we become tired and emotionally fraught as we try to squeeze in a years’ worth of celebrations in a few weeks. So here are a few ideas that the team at Moving Mindsets came up with that have helped others calm down and focus on having a healthy mind over the holiday season. Why not try a few? Better still try and think up some of your own?

1. An act of Kindness.
Do something for others. Sometime this week find the time to do an act of kindness for someone else. It could be to bake a treat for a neighbour, give someone a compliment or help a stranger in a simple way. Making others happy is a great stress relief.

2. Decorate.
Put up some decorations or a couple of pretty trinkets. Make some decorations, buy them or reuse old ones, any way you can, decorate your house to show a festive spirit. Even if you are on your own take the time to adorn your space with a few things of beauty or character that has some meaning for you. Not everyone can share this time with others, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t celebrate this time of year for yourself.

3. Heart and Head.
Use both your head (intelligence) and your heart (emotions) to make a decision that will provide a balanced or positive outcome. Sometimes we let our hearts rule our heads but in times of stress, relying on our head to make choices can reduce the chaos of Christmas time.

4. Mini Mind Declutter.
Practise cleaning out your thoughts by focusing on things that are important and discarding old, useless lingering thoughts that have taken up space in your mind all year. Let go of irritating frustrations, niggling grudges and old worries. Time to clean house mentally.

5. A New Habit.
We are very good at holding on to old, bad habits. How about starting a new one that enhances your life? Starting the day with a quiet moment of reflection or meditation? Go for a walk. Start to drink green tea. Increase your water intake. Whatever small habit you can introduce into your day will make a difference at the end of the week.

6. Don’t forget to laugh.
Find some time to watch something funny. A favourite sitcom, you tube blogs or a movie. Anything that tickles your fancy and stretches your mouth upwards. Let yourself laugh until you cry happy tears. It’s good for the soul.

7. Mini-Connections.
Feeling lonely? We need human interactions. Try to have an adventure by striking up little incidental, conversations with people you bump into during the week. Shop keepers, bus drivers, people waiting for trains, standing in a queue, anyone that crosses your path. All these interactions can create an opportunity for connecting with someone. These are moments where you can practise being friendly, open and warm with others and in this way feel less isolated and alone.

8. Breathe.
Re-oxygenate your body by breathing to reduce stress and anxiety. Place one hand on your chest and the other on your abdomen. Notice how your upper chest and abdomen are moving while you breathe. Concentrate on your breath and try to gently breathe in and out through the nose. There is normal breathing, exercise breathing and anxiety breathing. Check which one you are exercising.
9. Self Soothe.
Rub oil into your hands and feet. Moisturise to soften and nourish your skin and massage those tired and weary muscles. Take long, warm baths or showers and put your feet up. Send the message to yourself that you’re worth taking care of.

10. Shut down social media.
Seriously, turn it off for a while. Stop filling your head with idle chatter and gossip and focus on something real. Like the people around you, the tasks you need to finish and the self-care and reflection you should be doing to reduce your stress.

11. Cloud watch and be still.
Slow the world down and spend some time sitting or lying down and watching clouds float by, bump into each other and melt together. And don’t just watch the summer clouds. Look at the storm clouds as they can be just as fascinating and beautiful if you are looking at them in the right mindset.

12. Best friend yourself.
Treat yourself as you would your best friend. Be kind and compassionate. Forgive yourself for lapse in judgment and when you make a mistake. Look at yourself in the mirror with love and humour. None of us are perfect.

13. Read.
Treat yourself to something interesting to read. It can be a book, a magazine or newspaper but try to find something you normally wouldn’t purchase. Expand your knowledge and interests.

14. Eat.
Ask a mate or friend for lunch and find a new place to go. Enjoy experiencing new food and good company as you balance your hectic life.

15. Donate to Charity.
Find a few items of value that you really don’t need and don’t use and donate them to charity. You could buy a small gift and give it to those who are struggling. How about donating the money you would spend on gifts to a charity one year. Or set a low limit on what you will spend on gifts or celebrating and donate the excess you would usually spend to an organisation in need. Giving is a sure fire way to feel good and have a reality check about what is real and important in our lives.

Most of all try to find the moments in your day to enjoy, laugh, relax and celebrate. After all isn’t this really what we are trying to achieve during the festive season?

Merry Xmas and have a happy, safe and fun holiday season,
From the team at  Moving Mindsets.

If you are tired of washing and drying bed-sheets from constant wetting, you are not alone.

Bedwetting is common in young children. Most children become dry at night between the ages of 3 to 5. But, 20% of five year olds still wet the bed at night. Most of these children will stop wetting in early primary school, but 1% will continue into their teens.

Children do not wet the bed on purpose; it is not under their control. Getting angry or upset with them or offering rewards for dry nights will not help.

The best way to deal with bed-wetting in young children is to give lots of reassurance that bedwetting is normal and common and they will grow out of it. Talking about an adult in their life who was also a bed-wetter usually puts children at ease and not feeling so alone. Reading books can also help (Dippy’s sleepover by Jane Clarke, Sammy the Elephant and Mr Carmel by Joyce Mills or David’s Secret Soccer Goals by Caroline Devine).

Restricting sugary or caffeine-infused drinks can also help.

Bedwetting, known in medical terms as nocturnal enuresis, tends to run in families. The causes could be varied – it may be, simply, the brain has not learnt to make the connection between feeling of a full bladder and needing to void. It may be that the child has not yet started to produce the Antidiuretic Hormone (ADH). ADH concentrates the urine overnight so our bladders don’t become so full. Some believe that children who are deep sleepers simply don’t wake up to go to the toilet.

Urinary tract infections, constipation and other health conditions may also cause bed-wetting. Before starting any treatment, it is essential to have a health check to ensure there are no other medical reasons for the wetting.

Wearing night-nappies makes bedwetting more manageable for everyone, but may also extend the bedwetting as it takes away the discomfort of waking up in a cold, wet bed. Likewise, restricting fluids at night may reduce wetting, but fails to teach your child to deal with a full bladder (and could lead to dehydration).

Some children will have a period of dryness, and begin to wet the bed again at a later stage. Often, these episodes are triggered by a stressful event in their life such as parental separation, starting kindergarten or moving home. Most children will stop wetting again when the stress levels reduce.

Tips for dealing with wet sheets:

• Making the bed twice – mattress protector, sheet and again, mattress protector and sheet makes it easier to handle wet accidents at night, as the first layer can be peeled off and the bed is made – ready to go back to sleep.

• Use a Kylie bed-wetting sheet. These are 1×1 m absorbent sheets that sit on the bed over the child’s sheet.

Tips for encouraging dry nights

• Give your child lots of reassurance that it won’t last forever.

• For children over 6 years, do bed-checks for a week and work out about what time of night your child is wetting. If you find a regular pattern, you can then wake up your child half an hour earlier than the estimated time. Take your child to the toilet, but make sure your child is fully awake to void in the toilet.

• Have a reward system for remembering to go to the toilet before bed.

• Get older children to take ownership of their wetting by asking them to remove their wet sheets and take them to the laundry. Explain to your child that this is not a punishment, it is about taking responsibility for their issue.

From age six, many children become self-conscious about bed-wetting, particularly when doing sleep-overs or school camps. If your child starts to show signs of distress, seek professional help.

Doctors sometimes recommend a synthetic DHA medication to help children stay dry. This can be helpful short-term, such as when your child is going on school camp – but not recommended long-term as it does not teach your child how to stop the bedwetting. If you are going to try this, make sure you do so weeks before the event. It does not work for all children.

For children over 6 years of age, the most effective treatment is the Bell and Pad alarm. This consists of a mat with small electrodes, placed under the child on the bed. These electrodes are very sensitive to moisture, and set off a high-pitched alarm at the first urine drop. This wakes the child up immediately and teaches them to wake up and go to the toilet instead. Within 6 to 10 weeks of this treatment, 80% of children become dry. Some children will start to wet again within 6 months, but a quick response with another stint of the bell and pad tends to deal with this.

Where to get help

There are specialised clinics for enuresis in both the private and public sectors. Specialists can include Continence Nurses, Psychologists or Paediatricians. The first point of call is your GP.

Marisa Baschuk
Psychologist
Moving Mindsets
www.movingmindsets.com.au

By Sarah Godfrey

The emotional impact of moving is in the top 5 most stressful situations we experience across a lifespan, it’s up there with divorce. People develop attachments to their houses and communities that can be as strong as the relationships with their families. Here are some tips on how to survive the move:

Be as psychologically prepared as you are physically. Acknowledge that when you move you may experience anxiety (fear of the unknown) and/or grief at leaving people and places behind.

We resist change because it often feels forced upon us or is unpredictable. View the move as a transition. For some it is a transition towards a dream others it may be a transition away from a nightmare. Either way the move is usually about a decision to seek a better environment, a new start or an adventure.

It’s important to remember that everything you value, (experiences, people and places) are memories that move with you. Equally you can leave those memories that have no value behind in the bricks and mortar that you lived in.

Focus on the reality that you are not leaving friends and neighbours behind, merely extending your friendship group as you meet new people and develop new relationships in the community.

View packing the house as a chance to rid yourself of all the clutter (emotionally and physically) you have collected that doesn’t need to follow you in the future. A chance to spring clean the mind as well as the household contents. Create emotional space for new memories as well as physical space for new furniture.
Bring your old life into your new life -Involve family and friends in the move and resettling.

Start new memories – Visit the new community as often as you can. Walk around the local shops, buy some meals from the area and cook them at home.

Start new patterns- Develop a route to drive past your new home as often as you can (on the way to or from somewhere).

Start new relationships -Talk to local businesses and start establishing connections similar to your old community, join groups and attend activities in the area.

Introduce yourself to neighbours.

Start new traditions- Invite friends and family to have regular lunch or coffee in the new community before you move. Establish a pattern that already connects you to the new location.

Create a coffee table book. Take photos of all your favourite places and people in our old community and make a book, invite people to write something to put in the book. Include photos of your new location so it spans the old and new as a natural progression.
Say goodbye- Have a farewell party or gathering before you go to celebrate your time with those people you have created memories with.
Get organised! Plan six to eight weeks before you move. Prepare lists of all the things you need and who should do it, then start delegating.(removalists, friend and family help days, utilities, post office etc).

Self care! Make sure you rest, take time out and don’t over do it. It always feels like it will never get done and yet it always does get done.

Adapt and be flexible. Nothing every goes exactly to plan so expect some hurdles and obstacles along the way. Have a few back up plans in case things go wrong. Remain calm and focused-moving is the solution not the problem.

Prepare yourself for the emotional fallout of moving. Whether you wanted to move or are forced to move the anxiety and apprehension is attached to the ‘unknown’ part of doing something new. Mentally reassure yourself why the move is important and why now. Remind yourself that with everything that is new comes opportunities to develop new friends, memories and grow as a person. Accept the move and focus on the benefits and possibilities the transition will present for you.

Allow yourself a short period of grieving. Leaving people and places behind impacts on our emotional well-being. The sadness and fear of moving away from secure places and people is real so give yourself some time to adjust and let go.

Remember everything you value is with you or just a phone call away.

(from an interview for the Sun Herald).

By Sarah Godfrey

If there is one life changing event we choose to have it must be the decision to have a child. The excitement, responsibility, hope, changes to lifestyle, time, impact on our existing relationships and self-conceptions, ensures that one of the happiest times in your life can also be one of the most complex.  It is pretty common that some mum’s, up to 80 per cent, may develop low mood (often termed the baby blues), between day three and day ten after the birth of their baby. Giving birth is a huge physical and emotional experience and it would be reasonable to expect a little emotional turbulence. Low mood levels where you experience feeling flat, tired or a little teary generally pass in a day or two.

The baby blues is quite different from postnatal depression (PND) which extends beyond the first week or so and persist for weeks or months after the baby has been born. The most important message is that PND is a serious illness and not a character flaw or weakness on the mum’s behalf. It does not discriminate between socio-economic status, religion, culture, educational background or family of origin. It can develop at any time after the birth of the baby and may present suddenly or over an extend period of time. It can develop after the first child or second, third or seventh child. It can be present in all new births or only in one. In other words it is random and unpredictable.

PND (or often called postpartum depression) is one of the most prevalent mood disorders associated with childbirth, affecting up to 15% of mum’s (or around 1 in 7 to 10 new mum’s). The definition of PND is when a mum, following childbirth, suffers from a combination of hormonal changes, psychological adjustments to motherhood, and fatigue. It is a combination of factors that include shifts in her mental, physical and social well-being.

There are, like most psychological and physical illnesses, some factors that may predispose someone to experiencing PND. Some of these are:
Having a history of depression.
Experiencing depression during or before pregnancy (antenatal depression).
Difficulties in the relationship or marriage.
Significant stress such as the death of a loved one or moving house.
A complicated or prolonged delivery.
Problems with the baby’s health or a very unsettled baby.
The absence of emotional and family support.
A family history of mental disorders.
Inability to breastfeed.
These events can be a warning sign for some mum’s to begin a conversation with their doctor. Being mindful of past and current issues that could impact a mum is recommended as it can help with self-care and awareness. It helps the family to be watching for the onset of symptoms. These factors are not, however, predictors of someone having PND, merely contributing issues known to be common with mums experiencing PND. PND symptoms vary from mum to mum but there are a few themes we should be aware of. These are:

An overwhelming sense of inadequacy or failing as a mum. This can include feelings associated with the care of the baby to the upkeep of the home and normal day to day activities they previously coped with.

A sense of hopelessness about the future.

Feelings related to anxiousness, panic, emptiness, sadness and exhaustion.
Irrational fears for the baby or of the baby.
Changes in appetite, sleep (insomnia beyond the normal disruption of feeding and nursing a baby), or nightmares or over sleeping.
Thoughts about suicidal or self-harm.
Any of these symptoms could be a sign that you are struggling to cope and PND is setting in. Talking to your partner, family and doctor can help give you perspective. However if the symptoms persist it is important you seek psychological treatment to help you overcome the fears and negative thinking associated with PND.

But let’s not forget the new dad’s.
Just as it is for women, watching your partner change as the baby becomes a physical realty and an awareness of the changes you are about to experience throughout pregnancy, can be a very anxiety provoking moment for men. Men often have fears about their ability to be a good dad and partner and whether they can do the selfless job of fatherhood. Normal levels of antenatal and postnatal anxiety are felt by most dads at some time during the pregnancy. As with the baby blues, the symptoms generally subside as the adjustment to, and excitement of, parenthood begins.
However statistics suggest that around 3-10% of men may experience more significant symptoms of depression after the birth of their baby. PND in the partner of a new dad is the biggest predictor of a man experiencing paternal postnatal depression (PPND). Although this is not always the case. Men can and do develop depression independently from their partner’s mental health condition, after the birth of their baby.
PPND can occur later than the onset of PND with the depression increasing between six weeks and six months after childbirth. An issue with PPND is that too often dad’s don’t recognise their symptoms until they are in crisis mode or their partners have emerged from their own illness. They rarely seek support and discuss their emotional struggles. In the article Men Don’t Like Talk Therapy: Myth or Fact, Chloe Della Costa reported that research over the years repeatedly indicates that men don’t recognize the symptoms of depression and other mental disorders. Alternatively men can often be aware they have a problem but allow it go untreated. Many researchers attributed this reluctance to men being socialised to view asking for help as a sign of weakness. The added stigma surrounding mental illness likely acts as an added deterrent.
Yet even for those new dad’s seeking help, there are very limited supports for men. Unlike the community and social supports available to new mums (such as child and family health nurse or maternal health centres and mother’s groups), little is available for dads. These community based support services usually identify PND in new mums quite early, assisting them for prompt intervention. For men PPND often develops over a longer period of time, remains unseen and untreated. PANDA (Perinatal Anxiety and Depression Australia) have listed some issues related specifically to PPND which include:

The impact of changing social roles for fathers in the family.

Attitudes towards fatherhood and masculinity – men are less likely to talk about how they feel, and it’s important to them that they seem like they’re coping.

A change in family dynamics – some men might feel excluded from the parenting role or from the relationship with their partner, which can result in resentment towards the baby

Worries about extra responsibilities, financial burdens and managing the stress of work.

Unmet expectations about having sex again, in the early postnatal period.

Pregnancy, particularly early on – this appears to be the most stressful period for a man in the transition to fatherhood. This might be because of the changes in his partner’s body, how supported and included he feels, concern about the impending changes to his life, and feelings of uncertainty about his role in caring for his partner

A lack of opportunities to bond with the baby until after birth, unlike mothers, who can bond during the pregnancy.

The symptoms for PPND are a little different to PND and include;
Tiredness, headaches and pain

Loss of libido

Changes in appetite

A tendency to take risks

Changes to sleep patterns, especially a lack of sleep

Feelings of isolation and disconnection from partner, friends or family
Withdrawal from intimate relationships and from family, friends and community life

Increased hours of work as a part of the withdrawal from family

Increased use of alcohol and other drugs instead of seeking treatment for depression and anxiety.

If you are concerned PANDA and Beyond Blue have some good resources including an online assessment (The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale-EPDS), that can help you and your health professional get a better sense of how you’re feeling.

The good news is that PND and PPND are treatable. As always early intervention yields the quickest path to recovery. If a new mum or dad is feeling low for any extended length of time support them to seek help, offer kindness and compassion. Most of all, be non-judgmental as they work their way back to experiencing the joys and excitement of having a baby and becoming a parent to a new life.

By Sarah Godfrey

Sometimes therapy works brilliantly. Sometimes you may be disappointed. Being in therapy is like most things in life. What you put in is a measure of what you will get out of it. There has been a lot of research conducted on why therapy works. Studies suggest that cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT), dialectic behaviour therapy (DBT), psychodynamic, and interpersonal psychotherapy alter brain function in patients suffering from major depressive disorder (MDD), obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, specific phobias, posttraumatic stress disorder, and borderline personality disorder (BPD)*
With the magic of science we now know therapy actually alters the brain and that is why it works. But why and how are intriguing questions. The bottom line is it is a two way process between you and your therapist. And both of you have to work at success. Therapist can work harder, define their effectiveness, learn to ask clients what works and what doesn’t, but clients have work to do as well. You will get the best out of your therapy if you:
• Turn up to therapy. Regularly. Consistency in your attendance goes a long way to successful change. Developing a therapeutic routine will keep you focused and allows the therapist to build on the skills and therapy conducted in the last session. Imagine your therapy is like a train ride. If you get off at the first stop and don’t get back on the next time the train arrives, you will never get to your destination. Hop aboard. It’s better than standing still.
• Do your homework. Handouts, tasks, goals, journals, reflections and challenges are designed to keep you working towards your therapeutic goals. They are reinforcements of the work you do in sessions and a measure of your own commitment to change. Keep them in a folder or book. Value your work and efforts. They are important and in the future if life pushes you back towards that old default self you can use those tools again.
• If it’s not working, talk about it. Learning to have your emotional needs met can be practised in your therapy. Talk to your therapist about your concerns. Think about the solution. Why isn’t it working? They are there to help you. Your feedback helps the therapists grow and develop. Everyone can learn something about themselves, how they react or something new during your therapy. Including your therapist. It is, after all, a team effort.
• Expect resistance. From yourself and others. Your friends and family are not in therapy and strangely enough they have loved and liked you just as you are, (well sometimes, most of you). Change can be an unnerving process. Talk to them about what you are discovering, your treatment plan and your struggles and success. If in doubt ask them to come to a session and talk further with your therapists so everyone can be on the same page, working towards your outcome. Your old patterns are entrenched and have ruled the kingdom of you for some time. Imagine change as a pair of tracksuit pants. You are very comfortable with your old, worn out pair. Yes, they may be faded, too small, have holes and let’s face it, not as comfortable as you tell yourself, but they are familiar and have been with you a long time. Going to therapy is like a stranger asking you to toss those old, familiar trackies in the bin and wear a new pair. They may fit and feel a little different. Maybe you are unsure of the colour and fabric? You will feel some anxiety letting that old pair of pants go. Trust me you will realise the new pair look great on you and will last much longer. Give it time.
• Be honest with yourself. Don’t expect 100% change if you are giving the process 20%. Your effort, commitment and determination to resolve your issues are key factors in success. Be realistic. Sometimes we can’t give 100%. Life is challenging, busy and complex. Cut yourself a break if 50% was all you could muster one week. Remember 50% is still a long way from not doing anything at all. So be realistic but try for 100. If change is slow and you are getting frustrated ask yourself, what has been my commitment level?
• Give everything a go. Sometimes your therapist will challenge you and ask you to think differently, take responsibility for your own behaviour and reflect on yourself in ways that may make you uncomfortable. Commit to the belief that all change is challenging. Nothing great is given away. We earn the success we want.
• Recognise the process. The role of therapy and your therapist is very important to understand. You are in charge of your progress. Imagine that you are the boat and your therapist the river. The therapist will quietly support you, hold you above the water and guide you gently downstream but you are in charge of steering the direction you want to go in and the speed you are sailing through the waters of change.
• Finally, be realistic. To change the brain is not an easy task. Most treatments need 6 months to a year to create permanent change. And that is when you practice the new skills and cognitions every day. Be patient, dedicated and compassionate with yourself and don’t give up. Self compassion will get you through therapy. Don’t forget to hold your own hand and give it a squeeze on the tough days.
Most importantly, enjoy your therapy when you can. Find humour in the struggle, laugh when you make a mistake, find adventure in discovering a new way of interacting in this world. You have chosen to be brave and face the problems that have limited your happiness. This means you are successful. Therapy just builds on the decision you have already made.

You can do it.

*How Psychotherapy Changes the Brain. August 11, 2011 | Psychotherapy, Addiction, Major Depressive Disorder, Neuropsychiatry, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Special Reports By Hasse Karlsson, MA, MD, PhD

By Sarah Godfrey

Being a therapist is often amazing, inspiring, confronting, fun and hard. I think it is fair to say we all try to be the best that we can. Every now and then we sit at a seminar, attend professional development or seek peer consultation on a sticky case and have a moment of professional anxiety, where the person we listen to makes us in awe of their skill . (By the way if you never have experienced professional anxiety you really need to read on!). These supershrinks are our inspiration. Don’t get me wrong. This is a good thing. These supershrinks are our motivators and push us towards excellence. But as we strive to be as good as them, sometimes we wonder how they got their super shrink skills.
Now we have an answer. The research in Supershrinks: What is the secret of their success? by Scott.D.Miller, Mark Hubble and Barry Duncan confirmed what many psychologist have believed but perhaps not really understood. It is not just the degree you obtain or the type of psychology you practice that determines how successful you will be as a therapist. It is your flexibility as a therapist that makes all the difference. Miller and his colleagues found,  “ that who provides the therapy is a much more important determinant of success than what treatment approach is provided. The age, gender, and diagnosis of the client has no impact on the treatment success rate, nor does the experience, training, and theoretical orientation of the therapist.”
This isn’t to say anyone who hangs out a shingle and calls themselves a therapist is qualified to provide psychological treatment. On the contrary professional advice and treatment does require extensive training and experience. What Miller and his colleagues highlighted was the relationship between the client and the therapist as the determining factor. Without this rapport and trust the success rate in therapy drops dramatically. And you can’t teach this at university.
Focusing on your therapeutic treatment as the dominate process to help your client may be doing you and your client a disservice. Apparently specific psychological approaches (such as CBT, DBT, psychodynamic to name a few), contribute very little to actual outcomes with clients. Somewhere around 1% to 8% of all change is related to the treatment approach. (I can hear a thousand therapist’s feathers being ruffled at that statement.) Personally I think the treatment approach is still very important. Clients and their mental health issues are unique and require individually tailored therapy. A ‘one hat, fits all’ approach is destined to fail because no two clients present with the same problems and backgrounds.

Psychology, like any other business, is prone to trends, just therapeutic ones. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Mindfulness, Acceptance Commitment Therapy and Positive Psychology (a particular confusing and watered down approach to complex psychological problems, after all isn’t psychology by definition as a process to help and heal, positive?), have all had a turn at being flavour of the month. There is, of course great benefit in each type of treatment, but maybe we can become obsessed with the treatment approach and forget that the rapport we build, the trust we develop and the commitment we agree to each other as therapist and client are more important than the latest style of psychological methodology.

And the research seems to support this notion. In a nutshell it seems that the therapist’s psychological approach of how change happens must be a good fit with the client and they must have multiple techniques. If something is not working, they must be able to change what they are doing. This means therapists need to be skilled in more than one psychological treatment style. The last point is extremely significant as in Australia you would be forgiven for thinking that Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is the panacea for all mental health issues known to man. (Anecdotally I have always found and an eclectic, flexible approach to therapy has yielded the best results).
And there’s more. Miller and his colleagues suggested that there was a ‘basic formula for success’ that therapists could strive towards in becoming a supershrink. It involved:
• Determining your baseline of effectiveness– There are some therapist who “possess a keen situational awareness: they are observant, alert and attentive. They compare new information constantly with what they already know.” Miller and his colleagues suggest, “for the rest of us mere mortals, a shortcut to supershrinkdom exists. It entails using simple paper and pencil scales and some basic statistics to compute your baseline.” Try the Session and Outcome Rating Scales ( 2002, Scott D. Miller, Barry L. Duncan, & Lynn Johnson) that can be download and are a start in the practice of determining a therapeutic effectiveness for your practice, based on the client, not the therapists interpretation of the session. Confronting but enlightening!
• Engaging in deliberate practice. According to Miller and his colleagues, outcomes in a study of 6,000 practitioners and 48,000 clients were as good as or better than those typically reported in tightly controlled studies. Therapists, unlike researchers in controlled studies, ‘do not have the luxury of handpicking the clients they treat. Most clinicians do good work most of the time, and do so while working with complex, difficult cases.’ Become highly skilled in multiple tools and evidence based approaches available in order to meet the client’s needs. Don’t be fooled that one type of therapy is better than another. If one treatment doesn’t work, try another.
• Getting feedback – Miller and co acknowledge that ‘the prospect of knowing one’s true rate of success can provoke anxiety even in the best of us.’ This isn’t a reason to avoid seeking opinion from your client. After all shouldn’t therapists be modelling effective assertive techniques, heathy conflict and honest communications? If we can’t hear negatives, how do we expect our clients to? This is where psychologist can miss a beat. We must build a rapport and an internal practice that can allow us to ask our clients if they have felt each session was productive. If they say no, we should cop it on the chin and work harder.
Here are some more facts they discovered.
• What the client brings to therapy is the real source of change. Their strengths, culture, struggles, likes and dislikes and the events in their lives contribute to successful outcomes in treatment.
• The relationship (or rapport), commitment, hope and expectations between the therapist and client directly contributes to the success of therapy.
• Clients like to be asked about their opinions of the therapy.
• Therapist need to work collaboratively with their clients, evaluate and continue to work hard to improve their skills.
• Therapists must provide an explanation of how change happens and believe it!

Interesting isn’t it? This conceptualisation allows the client to believe that they directly contribute to their own wellbeing outcomes instead of relying solely on the therapist to drive the change. Which ties in with my own belief that the seeds to happiness need autonomy and self reliance in order to grow.
So now we know it is the client more than the therapist that can be a predictor of successful therapy and the rapport and commitment to the relationship by and between the client and the therapist determines how effective change will be. Miller, Hubble and Duncan, have found that the best of the best simply work harder at improving their performance than others and acknowledge that attentiveness to feedback is crucial.

That is what makes a Supershrink.
The main message is invest in your client’s participation in the process of change by asking them how you are going and how they feel your treatment plan is travelling. And be driven by constructive criticism, from your client but equally important from your own baselines of treatment and interpersonal effectiveness. Be flexible with your approach and try different treatments to offer the best opportunity for your clients success. Maybe being a supershrink isn’t so unachievable after all?