L - Learn something new

Change Coach Online are asking you to consider your mental HEALTH. This short series aims to introduce useful steps towards mental resilience. In this post, we're asking you to consider the last time you learned something new.

It doesn’t have to be a new language or the classical guitar, but maybe you will learn something new about yourself or your friends. Read an article that might interest you, subscribe to a magazine that takes your fancy.

Research shows that learning something new can improve our mental health by reducing symptoms of mild to moderate depression and anxiety, while self esteem and self confidence are also improved.

Learning can take us into a state of flow, an almost meditative state where we lessen or lose self-consciousness and are sufficiently challenged to remain focused. The chart above shows that flow can only be achieved when our skill level and the challenge we face are equal.

A great challenge without any skill will bring us anxiety and high skill without sufficient challenge results in boredom or relaxation. Achieving Flow is a wonderfully content and even happy experience and we should each experiment to find where this happens for us.

For me it can be gardening, not exactly a complex task but the gardening project or end goal may be challenging while I also am confident in my ability to achieve it. I lose track of time, feel calm and focused, experience no great highs or lows and feel nicely tired when I finish.

Where do you experience Flow? Is there something you love to read about? Perhaps you are an experienced runner? Find your flow and look for opportunities to enjoy it often.

For more inspiration, why not read our next post in the series, Time, or if you missed it, check out Accountability.

Thanks for reading and we hope this makes the tiniest bit of difference to your life. Change works best with baby steps!!