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Feeling down and out? Your life feels doomed and overwhelming? Depression is a term that’s thrown around a lot in the modern era’s improving culture of mental health awareness. We say we’re depressed when we’re sad. But how do you know if you are just feeling down or if there is something more serious that needs addressing?
On Thursday 20 June, I will show my support for thousands of Australians currently experiencing homelessness by sleeping out on one of the coldest and longest nights of the year as part of the Vinnies CEO Sleepout® 2019.
I’m fundraising to help Vinnies provide vital, life-changing homelessness support services. We're aiming to raise $5000 in the next month so please if you can, donate to this valuable cause and play a part in me freezing my xxx off. 🤣
I work first hand as a psychologist with many clients facing homelessness and the cycle of mental health issues that perpetuate this social dilemma. The Happy Collective is our family company and is striving to be involved with more charity events and organisations involving our tribe wherever we can.
To make a donation to St Vinnies and help make a real difference for someone experiencing homelessness, please visit: https://www.ceosleepout.org.au/…/thehappycollect…/gold-coast
All donations are tax deductible.
Thank you for any support you may be able to give to this great cause.
I invite you to share this far and wide to extend this support wherever you can. Thank you so much. 🙏
https://www.ceosleepout.org.au/…/thehappycollect…/gold-coast
Image courtesy of Upsplash
‘In the Psychologist counselling room, you aren’t defined by your past.
You aren’t defined by your past actions.
In this room your thoughts and feelings are legitimate and valuable. These are what will define you.’
Image courtesy of Upsplash
A simple fact is that getting out to do something like going to the gym can often help us feel a bit better. But we’re in a catch 22 here. How do we get to the gym if we don’t have the motivation to do it!?
Many people often hold the common misconception that they need motivation in order to actually do something. The truth is, it is often the opposite - we have to do something in order to get the engines moving to spark motivation. So we are offered two choices here; force the initiative to get started to reap the motivation later, or increase motivation from the get-go. Both work wonders to improve your likelihood of success.
Let’s adopt some Motivational Interviewing* and Behavioural Psychology principles here that you can apply to increase your likelihood of making it to the gym. Why is this important to me as a psychologist? Well, because if your body is healthier, it’s much easier for your mind to work well too.
What's Your Why
Simon Sinek wrote a wonderful book called ‘Find Your Why’ a few years back promoting the importance of meaning and purpose in sustaining fulfillment in our lives. Sinek talks about our WHY being grounded in the biology of human decision making and we can take advantage of this in increasing our motivation towards something even as simple as the gym.
The questions to ask yourself here and be honest with your answers are “Why are you really going to the gym? Do you have a goal?”
Go on. Think now for a minute beyond your immediate answer. What else? What are some good things about exercising for you? What are some of the not so good things about not exercising for you? How important are these things really to you? Be honest.
Your answers here can help highlight your motivations for the gym - whether they are intrinsic (self oriented) or extrinsic (other oriented), for example. There are no right or wrong responses in any of your responses, though your likelihood of exercising is significantly increased if you can brainstorm more intrinsic motivations for attending the gym like you value your health, rather than extrinsic such as going because your partner/ your doctor/ society believes you should. This is YOUR why we are looking for here, not someone else’s.
From your reflections, form a concise and comprehensive WHY for you exercising. Try reminding yourself of this statement whenever your motivation dips. Sinek tells us to return to this statement regularly and ensure your every action is aligned with it.
Behavioural Activation & Removing Choices For Your Lazy Brain
I regularly meet people who say that they lack motivation and I challenge this statement outright. The statement is categorically untrue even in the depths of disorders such as depression. What these people really mean is that they lack motivation to do the things that they feel they should be doing or want to be doing. Even in doing nothing we are motivated to be doing nothing right? From the very core of our evolution, motivation is inescapable.
One commonly used initial approach to supporting people facing depression is called Behavioural Activation (check it out if your interested). It’s basic, but it works. It involves getting started at the lowest common point of action and building from there. The same can be applied to the gym. Say you’ve lapsed for a while in your attendance. Start off small. Aim to walk around the block today. Awesome. That’s it, you're done... Tomorrow 2 blocks. 3 a few days after. Be kind to yourself and you will be rewarded with motivation to continue through the achievement of mini-successes.
An alternative approach to maximising the chance of your success, is to try minimising the barriers to your activity...
Take going to a 6:30 class in the morning for example. What steps are you taking to ensure that you get there? Early night and alarm set? Great, this is the bare minimum. Now let’s make it easier for your brain in the morning by reducing choices. How about getting your entire gym outfit including socks and shoes ready by the bed the night before? Or take this one step further and wear your (clean) gym clothes to bed the night before?
Ensuring you have fuel in the car the day before. Check.
Getting your water bottle filled. Check.
Breakfast partially made. Check.
Protein shaker prepared by the door in a bag. Check.
Camping outside the gym ? Okay, too far….
Get this stuff done while you’ve time because at first light, most people’s brains are often more motivated towards sleep than a jog and so will create any mental excuse to avoid extra activity.
Schedule in Your Non-Negotiables
Facilitating change in your life is not always easy and so let us take out another choice for your brain - deciding when.
'When' refers to scheduling your weekly exercise routine. Everyone has different exercise requirements according to their goals. This is fine. You are more likely to keep to your goal if you have gym times scheduled in to your week as non-negotiables though. ‘Non-negotiables’ are like if your boss said, “This has to be on my desk by the morning or you’re fired” (Does that only happen in movies? I don’t know). Either way, it’s NON-NEGOTIABLE.
What’s that? Beer offer at work lunch - gym time is still non-negotiable.
Stayed up late to watch final 3 episodes of GOT on TV - still non-negotiable.
Essay due at end of week - definitely non-negotiable…
As before, set your gym attendance goals realistically and be kind to yourself and you will achieve what you set out to. This will encourage you to be more motivated to continue. Setting out a new gym membership thinking you’re going to go 6 times a week every week from day one is likely to lead to failure. This will lead to demotivation to attend.
Train with a Mate
Your brain was evolutionarily designed towards adapting itself to the easiest possible solution to every problem it faces. Simple solution: get another brain on board to hold your brain accountable.
According to the research, you are more likely to remain committed to a weight loss program or gym regime if you have a gym buddy. Also, the Kohler Effect describes that no-one wants to be the weakest link. So..., in a gym setting, you will generally push yourself harder if you hang around with people just above your own fitness/ strength level.
Finally, mix it up with the people you exercise with. Go to different time classes, join a community sports team, go running with your gym buddy... By making your workout schedule fresh, this will increase your brain’s intrinsic desire for stimulation and improve your motivation.
I hope this finds you well and healthy. If you enjoyed this article, check out my website for more www.tristanabba.com or follow my FB page https://www.facebook.com/tristanabbapsychologist/ for a regular thread of mental wellness info and whimsical ideas related to your psychological health.
*Motivational interviewing is a conversational style of counselling that is most commonly used to help people facilitate change in their lives. It is the cornerstone of addiction therapy and something I have incorporated in to my practice supporting clients with mental health and drug and alcohol issues over the past many years. The aim of MI is not to necessarily demotivate people regarding the addictive behaviour but to instead highlight people’s motivations towards using and not using substances. By increasing people’s awareness of this contradiction, their motivation to not use can often change.
This articles outlines 7 fundamental psychological strategies that can be easily applied to your gym sessions to improve your performance and get better outcomes. So get inside your own head for a moment to see how it can help you.
1. Awareness to thought. Building awareness to thought process is a key strategy in psychotherapy to help clients improve their mental health. What are you thinking just before going to the gym/ just before that next set? Are these thoughts negative and are they attached to a negative emotion? (“this is going to be a hard session” - dread/ laziness for example). These negative emotions can influence your personal performance or earlier, determine whether you even turn up to the gym.
Knowing your cognitive tendencies is a healthy process, even if your tendencies are negatively oriented. Avoid placing judgment on yourself for them, just be aware and notice how your thoughts have the capacity to subconsciously affect your behaviour. By bringing this subconscious into the conscious, you gain power by what you choose to do the next time this thought arises.
2. Challenging your limits. What limits are you placing on yourself during your gym session? Ensure that you are planning and tracking your sets or times and continuously aiming to improve them.
Achievement is one of the three fundamental behavioural ideals that balance a life of psychological wellness (the others are responsibilities and pleasures FYI). Working towards micro goals in the gym can be a fantastic way to build an ongoing sense of achievement in your life.
3. Challenging your thoughts. From your newly developed cognitive awareness gained in strategy 1, ensure that your self-talk isn’t hampering your gains. For example, if you have a set of 15 bench press lifts to complete and you’re lying flat staring up at a bar, what is your internal dialogue?
a) Nothing
b) “I don’t know that I can do this” or “This is too heavy”
c) “I know I can do 12 at this weight. I’ll aim for that”
d) “I’ve totally got this down”
If your answer is:
(a) potentially it’s worth taking a bit more time on strategy 1. On the other hand, maybe your mind is clear at the gym and this could be highly functional to your performance (no intrusive thoughts = high level of task-oriented focus).
(b) you can no doubt notice the negativity here and, without judgement, maybe spend some time challenging these thoughts as they occur. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is apt for this process, though Acceptance and Commitment Therapy has some wonderful strategies to manage thoughts like these too.
(c) your limits are greatly defined by yourself. Always aim for what you want your body to prepare itself to achieve. Sure, you may not make it sometimes but that’s why your spotter is there, right? If you aim for 12, you’ll more than likely make that but those last 3 are going to be much harder to push out if your brain isn’t pre-warned that they’re coming.
(d) not surprisingly, this is exactly what we need more of in any potentially challenging task. Boost yourself up before you start with positive self-statements. You don’t need to believe them, just repeat them in your head until your actions meet your beliefs.
4. Visualising. Visualising is a well established psychological performance strategy. It works because to a certain degree, your brain doesn’t know the difference between actually engaging in an activity and simply imagining the experience. Psychologists rely on this minor brain flaw for many interventions we adopt. So if you visualise yourself completing that next block run in record time, as far as your brain is concerned, it believes that you can do it. Now you just need to get your body to keep up!
Start each session during your warm up visualising what it is you are about to do from start to finish. Then again before each activity, visualise your gains before you begin.
5. Breathe. Physiologically, the regulation and timing of your breathe is key to performance in the gym. You’ve probably been told this and if not, you’ve likely noticed it yourself. But while your muscles’ cells are sucking up the maximum oxygen they can with every breath you take, your brain is often depleted. Our body has evolved to direct blood and oxygen to where it needs it most, and at the gym, it’s more likely to be your biceps than your head.
By regulating your breathing through slowing down your breathe out, you also have the capacity to help your brain deal with any negative intrusive thoughts all the while reducing the experience of pain that you are enduring. Experiment with this just before the next time you are about to begin a set. Deep breathe in to the count of 3 or 4, slow breathe out for 4-5. Then return your breathing to as it normally would be in the activity you are doing.
6. Reflective practice. Reflecting on the progress and changes that occur in our life as a result of our actions allows us a sense of empowerment. It also gives us the capacity to fine tune our goals and improve our overall mood.
Environmental re-evaluation provides us with the opportunity to periodically check-in on how our gym habits are affecting us physically (our body) and socially (how are we in relation to other people from our gym practice?).
Self re-evaluation provides us with the opportunity to periodically check-in on how our gym habits are affecting our self-confidence, our self-esteem, and our emotional state.
Taking time to notice even small positive changes occurring as a result of a healthy habit like going to the gym is a great motivation boost to continue with the behaviour. Try regularly practicing re-evaluation just before your scheduled gym times and notice how your motivation and mood changes as a result.
7. Sleep. This is an essential prerequisite to any mental performance. If you want to apply any of the above to the best of your ability, sleep is a no-brainer. As an adult, we require between 7-9 hours of sleep per night and if you are a teenager, then boost this to at least 8-10. Caffeine is not a replacement for sleep people!
Evidence shows that our cognitive and physical performance dramatically declines with sleep deprivation and can be improved with an increase in quality sleeping hours. In one study of elite basketball players for example, by increasing sleep to 10 hours every night over 5-7 weeks; reaction times significantly decreased and sprinting pace increased as did shooting accuracy.
Further reading
https://www.sleepfoundation.org/press-release/national-sleep-foundation-recommends-new-sleep-times
https://academic.oup.com/painmedicine/article/13/2/215/1936333
Gibbs G [1988] Learning by Doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods. Further Education Unit. Oxford Polytechnic: Oxford
Mah CD, Mah KE, Kezirian EJ, & Dement WC (2011). The effects of sleep extension on the athletic performance of collegiate basketball players. Sleep, 34 (7), 943-50
Ha ha… If for no other reason guys… :)
Photo courtesy of Pixabay
Okay, the truth is that there are so many specific thoughts that could be potential culprits here but I wanted a catchy headline so apologies for misleading you. But… What if i could give you a list of the most common general thoughts that trip up everyone at some time or another and leave us feeling angry, shameful, stressed or depressed? Then if you can recognise that you are thinking (or are about to think) one of these, you are empowered to stop this thought ruining your day by coming up with a more reasonable, kind, or self-empowering thought. Wouldn’t that be great!?
The thoughts I’m talking about here psychologists refer to as Cognitive Distortions (Cognitive=thought, Distortion=misleading). Now I must admit, when I was learning this stuff back in second year Cognitive Psychology, I never liked the term Cognitive Distortion much so let’s just call them Brain Farts. It’s kind of apt, it’s less technical, and, well, it sounds funnier…
Believe it or not, brain farts are there to protect you. They provide an immediate go-to thought in new, challenging or stressful situations when your prefrontal cortex (the part of your brain best adept at complex thought processing) isn’t engaged. Doesn’t make sense? You’re thinking, ‘in challenging situations, my prefrontal lobes are totally active and that’s how I solve the problem’. And yes, you’re correct. At the end of your challenging situation this is often the case but at the acute, beginning point of challenge or stress, your brain is in survival mode where you need to react to survive. Thinking and considering various options doesn’t help when you are faced with an angry moose (moose are really angry creatures I learnt recently). When faced with an angry moose, you need to react in order to survive and your brain knows this, so it generally shuts out your complex / creative thinking prefrontal cortex and instead relies on tried and tested automatic algorithms of thought that were designed many evolutionary years ago to get you out of danger. Unfortunately, it is these same algorithms that can sometimes seep into your consciousness at times when you don’t need them (i.e., non-moose situations). And this is how the evolution of brain farts (cognitive distortions) has transpired.
Image courtesy of Squarespace
From here on, I’m going to use one, single common situation here that could very well occur in your day to help you to see how each of these brain farts (BF) can accidentally emerge (pardon the pun). The hypothetical scenario we’re going to imagine is when another driver pulls in front of us quickly but we didn’t see them because we were texting or checking our phone. With this, we will explore the various ways we might cognitively react to this experience.
Brain Fart #1: ‘all drivers are such idiots’ ‘everyone in this city drives like shit’ OR, ‘it’s not safe to drive on the roads ever anymore’ ‘I’m always nearly having crashes’
In these examples, we are Overgeneralising by using one (or a few) experiences to generalise extensively. Look for the words always or never in your thoughts. Overgeneralising often leaves us feeling negative towards others or if it involves self-blame, negative towards ourselves.
Brain Fart #2: ‘It must have been an Asian/ white / male/ female/ young/ old / sportscar/ truck drivers’ (you choose the stereotype you most often fall back on).
Here we are Jumping to Conclusions. We didn’t see the other driver. Sure it explains the event and displaces blame from ourselves but it can also create misplaced anger and ongoing unnecessary resentment to certain people (or types of people) in this case. Not a happy way to start your day.
Brain Fart #3: ‘OMFG, i nearly crashed and if i did i would have to call mum and OMG I wouldn’t have a car and how will i get to work and i’ll lose my job but i don’t have the money to fix the car and i’ll have to borrow money from somewhere or i’ll lose my job and then i’ll become destitute and then i’ll won’t be able to pay my rent and i’ll have to … etc etc’ OR ‘i’m never going to drive again because it’s just too risky’
Okay, you get where I’m going with this. This is called Catastrophising and it is the hallmark of anxious thinking destined to increase your stress levels and ruin your day. As soon as you start thinking ‘what if…’, pull yourself up
Brain Fart #4 & #5: ‘I’m such an idiot, I shouldn’t have been texting’ OR ‘what an idiot, he should have been watching where he was going, what is he, blind?!’
These are both examples of two common TFs; Labelling and Should Statements. Labelling is really useful for fight/ flight situations when we need a quick solution. With time, a reasoned approach to this scenario might be that both drivers were in some ways at fault but in an emotion-fuelled moment, the brain will often resort to ‘us vs them’ logic and attribute blame wherever it is most in a habit of doing, leaving us occasionally feeling better in the case of self-righteous indignation but often worse in the longer term.
Shoulds, oughts, musts, are all telltale words to look out for in your thoughts. They’re absolute rules there for our brain to provide quick solutions but often leave us feeling negative, rigid, or shameful.
Brain Fart #6: ‘They cut me of because they didn’t like me’ ‘That truck driver must have cut me off because I have such a lame looking car’ ‘people have no respect for older drivers’
Here is an example of personalisation or taking responsibility for things that are not (solely in this case) our fault. In the scenario described, there are many possible reasons why the other driver cut you off. Personalisation of the event is possible though often improbable where a more simple explanations is more likely. The other driver didn’t see you, or simply misjudged their lane change perhaps?... Maybe they’re just having a bad day, maybe they’re trying to get their wife in labour to emergency? Who knows but more often than not, it has nothing specifically to do with you. Personalisation emerges frequently in people with more fragile sense of selves or lower self esteem. Be mindful of thoughts that involve self-blame and take a moment to analyse these.
Brain Fart #7: ‘All male/ female/ young/ old/ Asian/ white/ truck/ sportscar/ Holden/ Ford drivers are bad drivers’
This is called ‘All or Nothing’ or Dichotomous Thinking. It’s fraught with danger because there are no absolutes in this amazing world we live in. We all make mistakes and there are plenty of white/ asian/ male/ female/ young/ old/ truck/ sportscar/ Holden/ Ford drivers out there with all sorts of grey degrees of driving skills, right? Worse yet, if you are applying dichotomous thinking to yourself such as in ‘if i’m not perfect i’m a failure’, it is toxic! Allowing more shades of grey into your mind will enable you more cognitive peace.
TF #9: ‘I’m so angry now because of that driver!’
Final Brain Fart for this scenario is probably the most common because it is so easy for us to fall into the trap of. In this example, we are straight-out Blaming someone else for the way that we feel. ‘BUT IT’S THEIR FAULT!’, I hear you yell. Well, even if it was wholly their fault and you weren’t texting and even if they cut you off on purpose and even if they flicked you the bird as they did it and they yelled out “lame car” to you, here’s the clicker, and I say this to almost every one of my clients;
You, and only you, are responsible solely for the way that you feel.
So own this responsibility. Change your thoughts and your feelings can follow or accept your feelings and watch them pass. Either way, don’t blame them on someone else. This will only leave you feeling disempowered and definitely ruin your day.
If you want more information about brain farts or more diverse scenarios where they might be applying to your life, search Cognitive Distortions (brain farts might not come up with what you’re looking for). I covered some common ones here but there are many others including Magnification, Minimisation, & Emotional Reasoning. The point of knowing this information is bringing aware to your own cognitive tendencies and over time practicing new and more helpful self-talk to replace them.
Take care people and be kind to yourself, always.
Oh, and don’t text and drive…
“He who has a Why to live for, can bear almost any how”
Viktor Frankl (from Nietzsche)
(1) Learn something new
Even if you’re at the seemingly, most monotonous job devised in the entire planet, try to create the possibility of learning something new within it. There are a myriad of ways to do this. At the simplest, it’s honing a work task you are already doing, or improving your personal pace in which you complete this task.
If work time absolutely doesn’t permit learning while at work (insert facepalm emoji), use your lunch break to study something of interest. Coursera is an example of a website where you can access hundreds of diverse professional development or simply personal-curiosity courses. From the Indigenous History of Canada to AI Machine Learning, plenty of the courses listed are free unless you want certification at completion. Block out your Wednesday lunchtime every week for study and you’ll look forward to the time every week instead of dreading it.
(2) Set Wednesday as intention day
Just like the study idea above, Wednesday is now your intention day.
Every Wednesday before work for example, add something new to your exercise routine. What’s that? You don’t have an exercise routine!? Well, Wednesdays are a great place to start!!! Even if you hate exercise or are limited in what you can do, try a walk around the block every Wednesday morning before work. Even mild exercise triggers the release of serotonin and dopamine, neurotransmitters that are associated with more positive mood. Numerous studies also demonstrate that optimism is positively correlated to the amount of exercise you do. If you can start the day feeling more positive and optimistic, surely that 2 hour afternoon update meeting will be more bearable.
Whatever your intention is, It should leave you feeling genuinely good about yourself or, if it’s set for after work, something you are going to look forward to every week. Remember, as Da Vinci is famously quoted, “Being willing is not enough, we must do”. So, don’t just have the intention, implement it!
Image courtesy of Pixabay
(3) Change your mindset
Okay, easier said than done I know, so let’s be more specific.
You are responsible for your feelings. Your environment / your boss isn’t solely to blame. One way to change your feelings is to change your thoughts. This is the foundations of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) adopted almost universally in one form or another by psychologists. So…,what are you telling yourself about Wednesdays that make them feel so damn long? I’ll give you some examples to consider...
(i) Is it that you are thinking that the weekend is so far away? In this case, you must have something amazing to look forward to on the weekend, right? Well, this is a great thing neurologically speaking, as you have excited cognitive energy to burn. Try and find something within your workday that you can apply this excited energy to, and your day will fly by. Note that you don’t need to find something as exciting as what the weekend will hold, just something you can apply your excitement to.
(ii) Maybe it is that you think that your work is boring / unstimulating? Humans have a tendency to generalise our perceptions of reality in order to navigate the world more efficiently. This generalising, though, is a cognitive flaw that can leave you believing that the whole of your work sucks when really it is just few things about it. Okay, maybe it’s 90%, I don’t know. In this case, seek out that 10% that doesn’t and be sure as hell to reflect on, or do these things on a Wednesday.
(iii) Or, is it the most frequent of complaints of dissatisfaction at work; your boss? I’m sorry you have a horrible boss, I really am. I can’t change this and maybe you can’t either right now. So what is in your control here? Remember, your thoughts affect your feelings so take control of your thoughts. As surprising as it might seem, no-one can make you feel anything. I must say this to almost everyone of my clients at some time or another. It’s so easy to fall into the trap of believing that it is someone else’s fault that you are feeling inadequate, disrespected, unimportant, or even unloved at work or elsewhere. The slap in the face is that it’s not. It is your perception of other people and events that leave you feeling a certain way. So change the unhelpful thoughts that you are thinking about your boss. Take personal responsibility for the value that you are placing on what your boss says. Is it really as important as you are making it out to be? Will what they just said matter as much in a year’s time?
Take personal responsibility for the choice that you are making to stay at your job (see 5.). It’s not your boss’ fault that you continue to work there if you don’t want to (often quite the opposite in fact ironically). Face any resentment you feel head-on.
(4) Take a plant to work Wednesday
Preparation is the key to success. So, arm yourself with everything you have if you know midweek is going to be rough. Chances are if you’re reading this you’ve been at your same workplace a while and your desk is set up just-so from the first week you started. Unfortunately, the brain stops attending to repeated information after a while as it’s not beneficial to your survival. So give your brain some new material to process. Take a new drawing that one of your kids did each Wednesday to put up next to your computer or a new photo of someone important to you or somewhere special. Alternatively, bring in a diffuser and get some essential oils to freshen up your senses. Trial some different oils to see which brightens your mood.
Alternatively, buy four new pot plants from home and bring in a new one each Wednesday. Create a cycle of the four plants so that they get sun at your home for three weeks so they can endure a week of dungeon living at your desk. Plants release valuable oxygen to your environment and as a result of this and perhaps just their visual appeal, are reported to improve cognitive skills such as concentration, and also reduce stress and anxiety.
(5) Ask the question...
Now..., there is a premise somewhere in this article, and actually in the whole concept of Wednesday-humpday, that you don’t like working in your current job, right? Or is it simply that you prefer your life outside of work to your life at work?
Well, if either of these ring true to you then you’re not alone, though this doesn’t need to be the case. Here is a question I suggest you ask yourself; Are you, in some way, in some capacity, acting towards making your work-life more enjoyable or making it AS enjoyable as your non-work-life? And, if you are not, then why not? We live in an age where career changes at any age are almost a necessity rather than a choice, and there are more avenues for alternative income production than at any time in the past. The days of 9-5 are past for many. Why are you not pursuing something that you have always wanted to do? Money? Fear of failure? Of judgment? Something else? I encourage you to speak to a good friend/ psychologist / mentor / whoever about these. These are not insurmountable barriers to you being happier at work and in life.
Job satisfaction is a fascinating topic that has plagued economists and psychologists in the face of dissatisfied employees. The predictable doesn’t hold true in the research results. Money doesn't improve job satisfaction after a point, working as a garbage-man isn’t the least satisfying job, etc. What does predict job satisfaction more than anything else is the meaning that you place on your work. So, finally, find your why. Take personal responsibility and find or make meaning in your employment, current or your next.
Take care people.
Tristan
“Don’t aim at success — the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself.”
Victor Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning
See the below link for a wonderful article describing the fundamentals of perfectionism and overcoming this debilitating trait…
https://psychologycompass.com/blog/battling-perfectionism/?platform=hootsuite
