With the arrival of spring for many of us comes an instinct to spring clean our environment. This normally means tidying up, cleaning and throwing out worn, outdated things that have passed their use by date. This instinct ranges from our food, our tools, our clothes and our equipment and files at work.

Just as much our external environment gets worn and dirty, so does our internal feelings and our mind. And for this, we promote a Spring Clean of the Mind!

And this is how we help our clients do it…

Firstly we invite them to take a look around their life and what they do and have around themselves and what those things make them feel and think. What do they do for example that makes them irritable, annoyed or generally unhappy? What things around them are they ‘putting up with’, which are creating semi-conscious and even fully conscious irritations? These irritations if unattended and allowed to grow, generate stress, minor at first; then if continually ignored – major stress, difficulty, rows with other people and growing dissatisfaction in your life.

Each person’s tolerations will vary – and can extend from very minor things to significantly major issues that can have serious work and life affecting impact.

As examples, the range goes from – shirts missing a button, shoes needing cleaning, a leaking tap, a broken piece of equipment, an unreliable photocopier, a person in your team who gossips, your car needing a repair, people who interrupt you without permission, not having a quiet space to work, a person who consistently doesn’t deliver their work on time, not giving yourself enough time to rest, exercise or eat well etc.

And all of these things, even though they’re often external matters, relating to other people and things, will be impacting upon the mind and wellbeing of the person, inside their mind.

Taking Action

So the action that is called for is to begin by detailing every single thing that you’ve identified and that you are currently putting up with in your life. If you really concentrate on this exercise you will probably be able to identify anywhere between 60 and 100 things.

1. Take two sheets of paper and draw up two lists – one covering everything you’ve identified within your personal and home life, and the other detailing everything you are putting up with in your working environment.

Writing them down will help you feel a great deal clearer in yourself, (because you won’t be carrying them around in your head, unexpressed) and this will alleviate some part of the stress.

2. Decide to take action and rectify those that you can do easily. This will improve matters further, as even attending to some of the minor issues will help clear part of the backlog of irritation.

3. Create a plan on how to address the more significant matters that relate to more structural changes in your work environment and inter-personal relationships. Talk them over with a trusted friend or family member (or professional coach) and agree what can be done about them and in what time frame. You don’t want to make yourself more stressed by taking on too much at one go, but you do want to know that you will be taking more long term actions to address the serious matters that concern you.

4. Once you are clear on what you need to do, clarify priorities and take on one thing at one time. Agree to hold yourself accountable to the other person (trusted friend, family member or professional coach) and when and how to check in with them for those longer terms goals. They are there to provide support and encouragement to help you through to the end of your stated goals.

As you demonstrate to yourself that all those bothersome things you have been ‘putting up’ with are being eradicated by consistent and persistent action, settlement and peace of mind will be the result.

Penny Sophocleous