Psychology Month

Me in 20 years? Perhaps.

"The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind." -William James (American philosopher and psychologist 1842-1910)

We all have brains in our skulls- even the US President and the burgling scratters on my estate. (More on each of these later.) We normally use these brains without consciously 'thinking'- going about our day doing whatever we do- working, studying, staying in, going out, exercising, whatever. And, as a result, we achieve whatever it is we achieve- staying in a job, paying bills, enjoying an easy-going TV show. This is all well and good, if you're happy.

But what if you're not?

What if you want to be smarter, happier, more socially adept, more successful (however you want to define that)? Can we use psychology to develop ourselves further? I say we can. Due to memory difficulties and depression I've been learning more about psychology since 2007. By reading online advice, joining an employment scheme for people with disabilities, reading books, meeting with support groups and spending time with various NHS professionals I'm overcoming issues and developing more direction. I'm meeting with someone in the NHS at the moment, working on confidence building and combatting depression, so now is as good a time as any to start a new monthly project. This month I'm going to look for new opportunities to challenge myself. I've asked around at support groups like Andy's Man Club Oldham, Talk About It Mate and Manchester Depression, Anxiety and Bipolar Meetup. The goals, as embarrassing as this is to write, are:

• to be free of anxiety when approaching women, and free of self-pity in the face of rejection.
• to provide helpful information relating to memory difficulties, that could assist others with acquired brain injuries.
• to come down in weight- to drop from 80.9kg to 77.
• to run for 10 minutes at 14.2kmph.
• to bench 104kg.
• to do 16 wide-grip chin-ups in a row.
• to horizontal dumbbell fly 2 40kg dumbbells.

I will then review each challenge I find myself faced with and upload these once a week to the blog as part of the #psychologysaturday trend. Starting now...