How can you feel a sense of accomplishment each day to improve your mental health?

The day of the week was a Wednesday. That day in the middle of the week where you are already exhausted but still have a little ways to go before you reach the weekend. It had been a rough day.  You know the kind, where nothing had really gone the way I expected.  I was tired.  I wanted to just sit down and zone out watching TV. But…I have young children and they needed to be fed. So I selected a recipe I’d never tried before but that sounded good (and easy!) and got to work making a healthy dinner. I threw myself completely into cooking dinner, because I simply did not want to give much mental energy to thinking about much else.

By the time I put plates on the dinner table and rounded up the troops to eat, something interesting had happened.  My feeling of exhaustion was still there but the irritability I had felt was replaced with a feeling of accomplishment.  I was proud of the meal I had made.  It felt good to offer my family something I had made from scratch.  I distinctly remember the thought, “Well, I did one thing really well today!”

This small moment illustrates the importance of accomplishing something every day-even if it’s small.  When you have the opportunity to feel this sense of satisfaction and dare I even say pride it can help you keep a positive attitude.  In a world where so many of us have frequent negative self talk, it can help change the tide in our mind to have just a little piece of success.  If we’ve done one thing well, we’ve more likely to begin noticing other things we’ve done well throughout the day.

Small Accomplishments To Build Mastery

The idea that doing something that gives you a feeling of accomplishment can be a form of self care is not exactly original to me. I was introduced to this concept when I was learning Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT).  DBT is a type of therapy that focuses on teaching skills that help people cope with strong emotions. One unit (I call them “baskets of skills”) is titled Emotion Regulation and I think of this as a self care unit.  The idea behind this set of skills is that they help decrease your vulnerability (in other words make you less likely to ‘freak out’) by building your overall resiliency so you can handle whatever may come your way.

In DBT (look at pg 256 in your workbook for any DBT folks out there reading), there’s a skill called “Build Mastery and Cope Ahead.”  Our great leader Marsha Linehan advises, “Plan on doing at least one thing each day to build a sense of accomplishment.”  She explains, “Plan for success, not failure.”  Purposefully building mastery and planning opportunities for you to feel successful is a form of self care and self compassion that will help you feel confident when you realize that you’ve having a human moment and have made a mistake.

How Does This Fit Into The Concept Of Self Care?

A recent Psych Central Blog Post said, “Self-care is any activity that we do deliberately in order to take care of our mental, emotional and physical health.”  Using that definition, I would say that engaging in activities that will give us a feeling of accomplishment, mastery, pride, or satisfaction should absolutely be considered self-care.  Giving yourself a chance to feel good about yourself no matter how brief and no matter how small or irrelevant the activity can be a way that you are taking care of your mental and emotional health.

Building Small Accomplishments Into Your Day

I encourage you to plan to do something that will help you feel this sense of accomplishment in some small way every single day.  Here are a few ideas of small things you could work into your daily routine to help build your feeling of accomplishment:

• Make a to-do list and check it off throughout the day as a visual reminder of what you’ve accomplished

• Work on a puzzle

• Do a crossword

• Sudoku

• Complete a word search

• Go for a run or otherwise workout

• Join a class to learn something new

• Read a book

• Reorganize one small area of your house (i.e. a shelf on the pantry)

• Make your bed each morning

• Mow the grass

• Plant a garden

Help Developing a Plan for Self Care

Do you want help developing a self-care plan that works for your own busy schedule?  Do you want accountability implementing a self-care plan? If you or someone you love is struggling to maintain optimal mental and emotional health, consider reaching out and calling Aspire Counseling at 573-328-2288.  We are a Columbia, MO area counseling center with empathetic, skilled therapists who can help you set goals, develop a self-care routine, and move forward to build a more fulfilling life.  Our therapists would be happy to work with you either just for a couple of sessions to develop and implement a Self Care plan or longer-term to work toward overall better mental health.

About The Author:

Jessica Tappana MSW, LCSW is the founder, director, and full-time therapist at Aspire Counseling.  She created Aspire Counseling to provide the Mid Missouri area with a counseling clinic where clients are carefully matched with the right therapist who they will connect with so people feel comfortable in the therapy office. All of our therapists provide at least one evidence based treatment.  Jessica is a big proponent of self care and helping people live a fulfilling life!