Promoting resilience and wellbeing

  EVERY ACTION YOU TAKE IS A VOTE FOR THE TYPE OF PERSON YOU WISH TO BECOME James Clear James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, defines habits as small decisions we make and actions we perform every day.   He suggests that we are in fact the sum of our habits.   What we do over and over again influences everything about us – what we believe, how we behave, what we achieve or don’t achieve. So, how do we get better at creating good habits? Most people’s initial instinct is to turn to willpower - I am sure we have all had the experience of looking at other people’s habits and wishing we had half of their willpower, I know I certainly have.   But actually, what the research tells us is that willpower is not the answer.   What we now know is that willpower is like a muscle, the more we use it throughout the day (avoiding the cake tin, not binge watching Breaking Bad) the less willpower we have at the end of the day.   This means that relying on willpower to create new habits

  You know the drill – you have come back from the beach; everyone is tired and your youngest child refuses to get her pyjamas on.   She is shouting and screaming and kicking her little legs at anything she can reach.   She is experiencing a moment of complete dysregulation – a moment where she no longer has access to the rational thinking part of her brain.   It’s her emotions in the driving seat and they have their foot to the floor. So, what do we do? Once we know our child is safe the single most important question we can ask ourselves in this situation is “am I regulated” - do I have access to the rational thinking part of my own brain.   If we do, we are in a strong position to take a deep breath (or 20!) and support our little person to get their own rational brain back online.   We generally do this by connecting with where they are.   This might look something like “ I can see that you are really struggling right now, it’s hard to put your pyjamas on when you have just