I was sitting in my garden in late September, eating lunch after a morning spent gardening. I had accomplished some daunting jobs involving creepers and ladders and been able to tick off many other ‘need to tackle now jobs’. It was pleasingly warm for the time of year and my garden was looking spectacular. So many plants had recovered from the dry spell we had this summer and were flourishing with the rain.
Then I caught myself thinking about all the jobs on the list I had not yet done, worrying about when I was going to fit them in before I went away. I started to notice that I was feeling tired and my hip was aching. And then I laughed a lot. I have spent much of the last 25 years telling others about the value of focusing on the positive and here I was with so much that was delightful around me focusing on the negative. None of the things I hadn’t managed to get done mattered that much anyway. Laughter is a very good antidote to negativity. So is the appreciation and gratitude I found after I had spotted my bad habit. By the time I was drinking my coffee I noticed not only had my mood shifted but that my body had started to feel better too. I was looking forward to the game of tennis I had agreed to play later than afternoon. Habits are just well-worn neural pathways. By the time we reach adulthood most neural pathways are so well established that we don’t notice them or their effects. It takes something or someone to draw them to our attention and even then most people encounter some resistance to the idea that it would be a good idea to change. It’s hard to believe that the habit could matter much. It’s hard to believe that the important things will get done without a list and a bit of worrying about it. Even when the feeling does arrive that it would be a good idea to change nothing much happens without quite a lot of effort. People working in public health have established the stages people go through when they are trying to change bad habits like smoking for example, and these stages apply to psychological habits too.
Once someone wants to change they need to think about how to help themselves, start to practice behaving differently, learn how to sustain the new way of being and then deal with the relapses that almost always happen. In short it takes time and practice to develop new neural pathways and then to make these the dominant ones. But there are some tricks that make the process easier. The most important of is these is kindness. Any berating or deriding of the self for having bad habits or finding it difficult to change makes it more difficult to do so. I have had a lot of practice changing bad habits and I have experienced the effects of kindness and unkindness. With kindness the learning can become amusing and enjoyable. Patience is another attribute that helps. You cannot rush the speed at which nerves grow and make new synapses. That one has taken me a long time to learn. And then there is getting the balance right. Some people have a very hard time focusing on anything negative. Pollyanna’s like these give Positive Psychology a bad name. The aim is not to ignore distress and difficulties. Ignoring problems leads to all sorts of complications and ignoring distress is unkind at best and bereft of compassion at worst. The aim is to restore balance. But 21st century norms mean that most of us do not need to worry about becoming Pollyanna’s.
If this sounds interesting you can get started just by noticing what is going in in your psyche, try not to get caught up in the content of your thoughts, get curious about the energy behind these thoughts. And meet whatever you find with kindness. And if you would like some guidance or the support of a group to get started, these are examples of the sort of things that we explore on the Wellbeing Days I offer. The next one is in Oxford on Sunday 9 th November and the one after that on Thursday 18 th June 2026. I also offer these days to groups or organisations so do get in touch if feeling better feels appealing.
