Top 5 Tips for Mental Balance - From a Psychotherapist

Life needn't be such hard going. When we let go of just a few faulty habits, everything just seems to go more smoothly. Below are some useful tips for achieving and retaining mental balance and health:

1. Let Go of the Need to Be Right - Is working ourselves up into a state of needless excitement simply because of a need to prove we were right anything other than an exercise in frustration and futility? If only we had been able to take a small step backwards and look at the situation in a calmer, less egotistical manner, then perhaps we might have been able to see - and to react - a little differently. After all, what have we really accomplished by always being right? Does it really bring respect, or does it simply breed resentment? Simply by giving up the burning need to be always right, we free ourselves - and others - to get on with the really useful and productive things in life. We may play being the know-it-all, but who really likes a know-it-all? A little inner humility goes a long way in the mental balance department.

2. Let Go of Being Perfect - Understand that being excellent does not mean being perfect. Sometimes it's easy to demand too much of ourselves. If we insist on being perfect because of the belief that to fail to do so means we leave ourselves open to criticism, then we might just need to do some serious work on our own self-acceptance. Don't waste your time attempting to make something absolutely perfect. It really is far more effective and useful to finish a task in a timely manner than it is to spend forever in a futile attempt to be perfect. There really is no point in dragging things on forever trying to get it perfect. Do your very best and then move on. Persist in this and you'll keep right on progressing in a positive, balanced manner.

3. Let Go of Trying - And start doing. This is where those advertising people working for Nike were on the money: What a wonderful slogan! 'Just Do It!' With that attitude we pretty much guarantee positive results. And, of course, mental balance is all in the attitude. The problem with trying, as opposed to doing, is that whenever we try, we set ourselves up to fail. You didn't try to open this page, you just did it. You didn't try to get out of bed, you just did it. We give ourselves excuses when we merely try. Lying to ourselves about ourselves and making excuses for ourselves really isn't the best way to achieve mental balance: We need to get honest. We either do it or we don't. It really is that simple. The choice is simple: either we act or we don't. Did I mention simple? Once we let go of trying we are free to begin doing - and doing allows us to move forward and grow. Set goals and start achieving them -- go on, just do it!

4. Let Go of Mistakes - We can learn from our successes and learn from our mistakes too - and then we need to move on. Every single experience we ever have contains some kind of lesson - even the ones we don't get right - if only we allow ourselves to see and learn. Mistakes are there, after all, to be learned from, which is why they're called 'successive approximations' in the language of psychology. Each time we make a mistake it's an opportunity to learn to get it right. Dwelling on our mistakes and beating ourselves up for them is a futile pursuit. Take the lesson and move forward. A well balanced self is a self that uses and is guided by life's lessons. Such an attitude leads to a life full of excellence - and mental balance.

5. Let Go of the Past - The past is there for a myriad of reasons - to instruct and inform, for example - but it is not meant to be lived in. To do so robs us of all we ever really have: Now. If we find ourselves spending too much time in the past, perhaps we need to ask whether we might not benefit by working with someone who can help us come to terms with it and move on. Each one of us has a past and each one of us has gone through experiences that were difficult and unfair. Because of this, each one of us has the need to forgive. Failure to do this makes us prisoners to the past. And if forgiveness seems just a bit too difficult at the moment, at least consider that anger and resentment does not hurt the person or people who have hurt us - they just keep us in chains to them. Letting go of the past usually involves finding a way to forgive - and don't forget, this means forgiving ourselves, too. Do this and we truly will live in a state of real mental balance and inner peace.