Bullseye! One way to look at your own psychological wellbeing

Here we’re looking at a visual way of starting to think about your psychological wellbeing. It’s all based on the target pictured above. As we’ve said before, one framework for thinking about our mental health is to focus on matching what we do in the main areas of our life to whatever has meaning and value to us. We’ll come to “meaning and value” shortly but let’s explain “work, health, love and play” first. For most people (there will always be exceptions – if you want to draw your own target with different sectors, feel free) the most important experiences of their life come under these four headings: • Work – professional role, career, structured activity, education • Love – the relationships we engage with – family, friends etc. • Health – whatever we do to maintain our physical and mental health. Food, sleep, exercise, mindfulness, mediation, therapy, engaging with healthcare professionals • Play – hobbies, sports, leisure activities and interests. Fundamental to the way we work at Oaktree Psychology Referrals is the stance that we will be at our psychological best and experience the most fulfilling life possible for us if, for each of the four sectors of our lives above, we have enough activity and engagement that is meaningful and valuable to us. This is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) in a nutshell. ACT is an evidence based approach firmly rooted in robust research and approved by the NHS in the UK – particularly within Clinical Health Psychology. We find it works well within aviation psychology as well. For more information see “how we work” or contact us…… So what is “meaning and value”? In essence we mean activities and experiences that match the person we want to be or the most fulfilling life we can imagine. We’re not talking about concrete goals (that comes later) but qualities that are important to us at the very core of our identity. It might be “I want to be a loving parent or partner”, a competent pilot, a good friend, respected colleague, or “I want to enjoy my hobby”. Think of values as compass directions that guide the way we behave and engage with all four sectors in the target above. Next time you have a moment you’d like to spend focussed on yourself (please find one every so often!), see if you can identify the values that are most important to you. Values can often be expressed as a single word (“loving”, “fun”, “respected”) and aren’t concrete achievements. – they’re directions of travel. Goals are concrete achievements and ideally are rooted in our values (being a loving parent means I will check in with and listen to my teenager once a week). They’re another subject altogether – join our subscription service for more. Once you have an idea of some of your values, use the target above to represent how closely you match that value. If you’re behaving and engaging in the way that you feel matches your values perfectly for a sector, mark a bullseye for that sector. The further away from a match you are at the moment, the further out you mark that sector. Once you have marked all four sectors, you can use the visual representation to decide of you need to take action – perhaps set some concrete goals in the sector that you marked furthest away from the bullseye or talk to someone you trust about how they would mark a bullseye for you. Of course, there’s more in our subscription service.