Mental Health Blog

How many times have you set out to improve your life? Several of us set out to make radical changes at the end of the year and for our birthdays, but how many of us really make it? The answer is VERY few.
 
Many times, we get confused in setting goals and creating new habits. What do we really need to be able to make positive changes in our lives and maintain them?

1. Establishing the difference between goal and habit: A habit is a continuous action which, most of the time, is done unconsciously. We can say that it is the process and it is long term. A goal is something short-term and conscious with an objective in mind. That is, a goal is reached or completed but a habit is repetitive and maintained. Habits lead us to achieve our goals.

2. Identifying necessary goals and habits: We need to identify what we want to achieve. What will be our goal? Once we know where we want to go, we need to consider what we need to get there. For example, if our goal is to win a marathon, we must acquire the habit of exercising every day and gradually it will be something that our body will demand, and we will do it almost automatically. Our final destination is to participate in the marathon (goal) but for that we need to exercise every day (habits) to be able to improve our physique and endurance. The goal is short-term as it ends once we finish the marathon but the habit - the need to exercise every day - will continue with us in the long term.

3. Focus on the process and not the final destination: We have a habit of wanting to give a 180 degree turn to our lives, and we want a total change from one day to the next. Unfortunately doing this is counterproductive and leads to frustration. Continuing with the example above, we will have neither the physique nor the resistance for a marathon with a single day of training, even if we spend all day in the gym. In these cases, we should always have the goal as a starting point or a direction, but our attention and emotions in the day to day, in other words in the process, in the formation of a new habit.

4. 80/20 rule: This rule is useful in all areas of our lives and especially when we want to reach a goal and acquire a new habit. We should always ask ourselves, what 20% of our effort produces 80% of our results? With the example of our training for the marathon we must study, analyze and specify which exercise or routine performing it 20% gives us 80% of the desired result.

5. Eliminate bad habits: No human being is perfect, therefore we all have at least one bad habit. We need to identify what activities we do that take us away from achieving our goals and are hampering our path to our final destination. To eliminate a bad habit, we must analyze why it is negative and its consequences. This way every time we do it we can rationalize the reason we must eliminate it immediately. Following the example of the marathon, if we have the bad habit of not drinking water, we must rationalize that the human body needs to hydrate and more if it is exercising. We know that the lack of hydration will affect us in the marathon and our physical condition in general.

6. Introduce new habits: After knowing where we want to go, how we are going to get there and what we have to do, comes the difficult part, introduce a new habit. At first, we will have to struggle to carry out the new desired activity but gradually we will require less effort and then we will do so as part of our lives, with barely any thought about it. For example, when we were little our parents fought with us to brush our teeth, at first we forced ourselves, but today we already do it as part of our routine and does not cause us any discomfort, on the contrary if we do not do it we feel uncomfortable, with the feeling that something lacks us.

7. Monitor your process: It is necessary to monitor our process either ourselves or by finding a person who identifies with our desired goals and habits. If we do it ourselves it is important that we keep a record of the days where we have carried out the desired activity and the days that we have not. At the end of the month we will see how our efforts have been and what we must improve. If we do it with someone else, we must motivate each other and be honest with them. This person should be someone who shares our goals and desires to acquire new habits.
 
"Habit, if not resisted, soon becomes necessity" -St. Augustine

​Look back and remember when you were a kid and you were playing hide-and-seek, tag or a spent a lot of time riding a bike. It sure was a fun and healthy childhood. Many of us would like our children to have a childhood similar to ours or to that of children in decades past.
 
Today our little ones have a new kind of fun through video games. This kind of fun every day gains greater strength and interest in children and even in some adults. There are many reasons why children are exposed to this type of games, but what are the positive and negative consequences for our children?
 
Video games are fun, entertaining and challenging, and they develop perseverance and encourage the development of connecting thoughts with manual skill. At the same time however, abusing these games or spending a lot of time in front of a screen produces negative effects. When the constant fun of the little ones is through video games, they develop a growing desire for instant entertainment that decreases their attention span and concentration, harms their hearing, does not contribute to their social development, does not stimulate their imagination and endless negative consequences.

To decrease the time the little ones play video games follow the following tips:

1. Play with your child your favorite video game. This way you will realize the tastes or interests of your child, at the same time teaching him that you are willing to try new forms of entertainment and then it will be easier to introduce him to forms of entertainment of his own. Remember that you have to set an example first.
2. Record the time used in video games for a week. For a week you will be an inspector at your home, you will take note of how long your child plays video games, and your child will have to put his or her name on each annotation. At the end of the week, discuss and analyze whether the amount of time invested in video games is appropriate. I'm sure your child hasn't considered how much free time he spends on this activity.
3. Set a set schedule to play video games at home. A possible schedule could be zero hours from Monday to Thursday, since this time is for school and extracurricular activities, two hours daily on Friday to Sunday. This schedule can be modified during the holidays or summer vacation.
4. Together, make a list of activities that could be performed in the amount of time used weekly in video games. Ask your child what activities he or she would like or seem interesting to him or her. Teach them traditional forms of fun, such as scratch, trumpets, stilts, marbles. With this list you will have an idea of what you can do with your child and have fun together. Another option is to include your friends and plan an afternoon of activities with them.
5. Think about a long-term project that you could help your child do at home. A project that motivates and excites your child. It could be the construction of a dollhouse or a small soccer goal. Use your imagination! This activity will not only take you away from video games, it will also help you organize your time, manage a budget, improve the family relationship and once the project is completed, it will help their self-esteem.
    
   Never forget that it's not an easy task to be parents but immensely rewarding.
   

​We all want to improve our lives, but many times we see that we have to make a drastic change and we quickly demotivate ourselves, lose direction and fail to achieve that change that we craved. We don't need 180-degree changes, we just need to modify small actions and take small steps and we'll see great results. Follow these tips and you'll see how you'll quickly feel more motivated, energetic, and happy.

1. Watch what you eat
For multiple reasons it is sometimes difficult to maintain a totally healthy diet, but we can make certain modifications, which will make big changes.
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• Try to minimize the consumption of sodas. You can replace them with water, cold tea, green tea or natural juices. Remember that drinking a lot of water is the best thing!
• Avoid fast food. Homemade food is healthier. Make sure it's balanced. 
• Eat 5 times a day, between breakfast, lunch and dinner, have snacks. The best things for snacks are fruits or seeds of any kind.
• The best investment you can make for your body are vitamins. Never forget to take your vitamins every morning.

2. Exercise
You do not need to be part of a gym or purchase any equipment. If you like to exercise but do not want to invest, you can do it at home. If you're not one of those people who like to exercise, you can make small changes and not even notice that you're exercising.

• Don't park your vehicle near the entrance, so you'll be forced to walk.
• If you are not in a hurry do not use the elevator, use the stands.
• Load the supermarket bags yourself and if you want to, use them as weights to exercise for a few minutes.
• Play with your kids. This will help you exercise and have quality time with your loved ones.

3. Materialize your dreams
Take a moment to dream. Imagine you can make the scenario you want no matter what, what would it be? Once, to be clear about your dream, it's time to make it happen. Write in your calendar all the actions that you must take to materialize it. Every day you must do something, even if it is small, that brings you closer to reaching your vision. There's no better day than today to start working on what you want! 

4. Leave behind bad habits
We are human beings and therefore we are not perfect. We have flaws and it is our obligation to try to correct them. Gradually we can improve and eliminate bad habits. No matter what your bad habit is, (smoking, overeating, disorganization, etc.) any bad habit can be modified little by little. Don't think you can change it overnight, but a change day by day will make a huge difference. (In another article we will talk about ways to overcome vices and bad habits.)