How to find your potential through increasing mental fitness

Science is in no doubt that as well as finding better treatments, it needs to focus on identifying key resilience factors that help prevent mental ill health, keeping more people at the healthy part of the wellbeing spectrum. Here at 87% we focus on your potential.

Being measured on all the different parts of the 87% wellbeing wheel provides an awareness opportunity and a growth factor, by focusing on goals relevant and personal to you. Here are 5 key pieces of mental fitness advice to get you started towards reaching your potential:

Build up daily habits of awareness and personal development, and give up unhealthy habits, such as getting stuck in negative self-critical thinking loops. Practising gratitude and self-compassion are two key ways to experience mental fitness gains, and there are lots of opportunities to do this on our #3forme.

Effectively deal with stressors by developing a more resilient emotional processing style, where emotions are adapted and integrated into your experience. In order to do this you first need to raise emotional awareness by identifying what emotions you feel and when.

Learn to notice the details of your own experience. The bodily sensations you feel, thoughts that pass through your mind. Recognise the variety, their power and influence and find ways to manage them that suit you. This may require writing down your thoughts and feelings in relation to different situations, or journaling them as if you were telling a close friend about what happened. Use a voice note if you’re not keen on writing.

Get to know your values and what areas of life mean a lot to you (is it family, work, education, environment?) so that your sense of life purpose can be knitted to your desire to behave in a way that gives you a real sense of achievement or accomplishment. We’re not as good at this as we think we are and are often directed by peers or social world pressures. 

Make a commitment. As with a physical fitness plan, a lot of the above wouldn’t get done if you didn’t set a workable goal with what you intend to do. When the changes become more habitual you can carry on and set new goals for further change.