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Beware of single cause explanations Individual Well-being

Beware of single cause explanations

As human beings we are very effective information processors. Our senses are exposed to a huge amount of data every minute we are awake. If you don’t believe me, just look around the room that you are in. Look at the colours, the shapes, the textures. Add to that what you can hear, what you can smell and what you can touch. And, of course, the raw data is just the surface – we also need to look below that surface to take account of the meanings we attach to each of those bits of sense data (and how those bits fit together to make a coherent whole). So, on a daily basis we are processing and filtering a huge…
Dr Neil Thompson
November 8, 2018
Develop recovery strategies Individual Well-being

Develop recovery strategies

Perhaps in an ideal world things would never go wrong. But, of course, we don’t live in an ideal world, and things will inevitably go wrong from time to time for each and every one of us. We can do our best before we reach that point to try to make sure that any such problems are avoided or, if they do happen, that their impact is kept to a minimum. But, we can never guarantee that something will not go wrong somewhere along the line. Rising to the challenges of things going wrong is an important part of life, of course, and also offers us a significant source of learning. So, where does that leave us? Well, this is…
Dr Neil Thompson
October 25, 2018
Beware of cynicism Individual Well-being

Beware of cynicism

The word ‘cynic’ comes from the Greek word for dog, so to be cynical literally means to be dog like, in the sense of not caring, of being happy to let the world pass you by. It involves not making an emotional investment, of being detached and disengaged. For many people cynicism is an emotional coping mechanism – if you don’t put your heart into something, you are much less likely to get hurt by it. And, without that emotional engagement, the result is likely to be negativity and defeatism. You can’t succeed at something if you don’t engage with it. But, equally, you can’t fail, which is a big part of the appeal of cynicism as a coping method…
Dr Neil Thompson
October 11, 2018
Be proactive: Make things happen Individual Well-being

Be proactive: Make things happen

Throughout my career I have come across people time and time again who are unhappy about one or more aspects of their lives who, when I ask them what they are doing to address those issues, respond with a shrug of the shoulders or the verbal equivalent. It is as if they feel overwhelmed by the situation and therefore adopt a passive approach to it. I have sometimes felt a bit of a fraud because it has often been the case that my saying: ‘So, what are you going to do about it?’ and helping them to formulate some meaningful answers to that question have been enough to free them up to take some positive steps. The ensuing progress –…
Dr Neil Thompson
September 13, 2018
Balance stability and change Individual Well-being

Balance stability and change

If life never changed, if everything was the same over and over again, we would be very unhappy, bored and far from contented. Same old same old is not a recipe for a life well lived. However, if everything was constantly changing, we would feel very insecure. Imagine getting up each morning and there is little or nothing you can count on to be the same as it was yesterday. We would no doubt feel disorientated. People often say that the only thing that remains constant is change, as I have argued many times, that is not true. Life is a mixture of changes and constants, but we tend to focus mainly on the changes. This is for three reasons.…
Dr Neil Thompson
August 30, 2018
Do a hassle audit Individual Well-being

Do a hassle audit

What I mean by hassle is anything that causes annoyance, slows us down or in any way reduces our quality of life. And, by an audit, I mean a means of weighing up the hassles we face, considering the impact they have on us and trying to do something about them. I am not proposing any sort of formal measurement system, just a listing of those things that give you hassle, a consideration of how significant each of these is and then some thought given to what, if anything, you can do about them. My career has involved me in helping people address problems and concerns that they are up against. This has often led to situations in which people…
Dr Neil Thompson
August 16, 2018
Don’t confuse experience with learning Individual Well-beingWorkplace Well-being

Don’t confuse experience with learning

It is commonly assumed that the more experience a person has, the more learning they will have done, and thus the more they will have to offer, but it’s important to realise that this is a very unsafe assumption to make. We don’t have to go far generally to come across someone who has a lot of experience, but has learned relatively little from it. There can be people with three years’ experience in a particular field who have done an excellent job of drawing out the lessons from that learning, of really making that experience count in terms of improving their practice and developing their confidence. But, there can also be people with thirty years’ experience who have done…
Dr Neil Thompson
August 2, 2018
Don’t fear change Individual Well-being

Don’t fear change

For as long as I can remember, people have been saying that there is so much change <em>these days</em>, but ‘these days’ of change have been going on for a long time now for them to be seen as something new. Perhaps a better way to look at it is to acknowledge that there has always been a lot of change, but when we look back over earlier days, it is often the things that stayed constant that we now remember most. And there always will be much that stay constant. You will often hear people say that ‘change is the only constant’, but that simply isn’t true. Think about your own life now. For every thing that is in…
David Proctor
July 19, 2018
Make your feelings known Individual Well-being

Make your feelings known

A much-used literary and dramatic device is for it to be apparent to the reader or viewer that someone has strong feelings (of love, for example), but is not expressing them and is losing out in some way as a consequence. As the plot develops, the feelings eventually become known and they all live happily ever after, or not, as the case may be. But, outside of the world of fiction and drama, the question of when and how to express feelings is a significant one. Some people can go to the other extreme and blurt out their feelings inappropriately, leading to embarrassment for themselves and others. So, the two extremes of ‘Keep your feelings to yourself’ and ‘If you…
Dr Neil Thompson
July 5, 2018
Define your own rules of success Individual Well-being

Define your own rules of success

In the days before we had rules, the strong and powerful could do what they wished and the not so strong and not so powerful could do little about it. This left little scope for fairness, equality, dignity and other such key values. While some people rail against rules and see them as an unnecessary restriction on human freedom, a civilised social order would not be possible without some set of rules that the vast majority of people are prepared to abide by. In a democratic society, the rules are based largely on the law and the legal system surrounding it, with official sanctions in place for those who transgress those rules. So, while such rules can be a problem…
Dr Neil Thompson
June 14, 2018