I don’t know when I realized this, but I’m awful at compartmentalizing things. For a long time, I didn’t even know what it meant to compartmentalize things and when I did learn, I wasn’t sure how to put it into practice. It can be very frustrating to discover you’re not good at something, and that frustration can grow even more when you realize it’s holding you back from wellness in an area of your life. Here’s how I handle it, and how I deal with the challenge of recognizing my shortcomings.
When a person is dealing with self-confidence or self-esteem issues, admitting they need to grow in an aspect of life is difficult. It often feels like this discourse is centered around the need to start building people up or to stop tearing each other down. But what about when a person realizes that they need to grow in a certain area? How can you work toward that while being okay with where you are now?
I say all this because I have trouble acknowledging my shortcomings, especially when it comes to my mental health. It’s not that I think I don’t have shortcomings – I’ve had them before, I have them now, and I know there will be new ones in the future. But there’s a difference between generally acknowledging that I need to grow in my wellness, and pointing out specific areas where I’m struggling. Most times, it makes me feel like a defensive mechanism is kicking to protect my from failure – almost like my brain telling me not to rock the boat when it comes to my mental health.
It’s overwhelming to name the ways we’d like to grow and improve in different areas in our lives, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. In the past few months, there are a few ways I’ve recognized how my shortcomings can exacerbate situations and trigger my anxiety and depression. It took a long time to name those things for what they were but once I did, I had to convince myself that it was important to face these shortcomings, acknowledge these situations.
Giving a name or definition to mental health challenges is a massive step in understanding what a person’s particular challenge is, but a lot of times we stop there. You should never push yourself too hard when it comes to your mental wellness – it is, after all, a lifelong journey – but you also can’t ignore what you’re feeling. I realized that I’ve been making things harder on myself because I refused to acknowledge that there were areas of my mental health that need to improve. Now that I have, it’s time to figure out what that next step is, and trust that I have the tools I need to continue on.
I recently discovered that I struggle with compartmentalizing and getting tasks done during the day, which is one of the most recent times that I’ve worked to acknowledge my shortcomings when it comes to mental wellness. Have you ever been able to recognize an area of your mental wellness that needed improving? How did you deal with that? Let me know in the comments!
My Brain's Not Broken 