10 Ways To Improve Your Mental Health

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. We will go to the doctor for a physical checkup, but how many of us engage in a mental health checkup? The goals of my process, InsideOut Empowerment, provide us with ten things we can do to improve our well-being and increase our happiness. Does Your Baby's Father Have Postpartum?

1. Assess the strength of your needs while learning to obtain the proper amounts for happiness. We all have five basic human needs — connection, freedom, significance, survival and enjoyment. While we share that in common, the strength of our needs vary. So for example, one person may be high in connection and enjoyment, while another person might be high in significance and freedom. The key to happiness is to engage in behavior that brings you the precise amount of each need you want. Having too little leaves you feeling deprived and having too much can leave you feeling oversaturated.

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2. Understand and take responsibility for your choices. You have choices in every situation. You may not have any "good" choices or choices you like, but there are choices nonetheless. You are doing whatever you're doing because you chose it, not because someone forced you. You may be doing it to keep your job, please a loved one or to save your life ... but you are choosing it. When you let go of the victim mentality and embrace the choice aspect of all you do, you will feel empowered. Parental Violence Affects Kids' Mental Health

3. Make the connection between your behavior and your progress or lack thereof. We often look to outside "causes" for our success — or lack thereof — and forget to look at what we, ourselves, are doing or not doing to move us toward our goals. When you begin to take charge of your own outcomes instead of giving that power to others, you will feel much happier. Knowing The Difference: Healthy Or Dysfunctional?

4. Understand the power of your perception and how to change it. We often make up stories about people and events in our lives that have nothing to do with the facts of the situation. They are simply our interpretation. Your interpretation can cause you great unnecessary turmoil. If your perception isn't serving you, change it! Make up a better, happier, more generous story.

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5. Find the balance in all things. Everything that happens to you has equal positive and negative qualities; a ying and a yang, pros and cons. The problem is our perception again. We tend to label things as good or bad, positive or negative, painful or pleasurable. The truth is, both sides are always present. It just depends on where you place your focus. Seeing both sides equally will improve your mental health. How Laughter Can Save Your Marriage

6. Distinguish and choose between what feels good right now and what will feel even better later. We often engage in a battle of what we want right now versus what we really want. As a general rule, those who can delay gratification achieve greater satisfaction than those who always indulge themselves in the moment. But there is another option. See #7.