The new year can be an exciting and motivating time. It may bring increased inspiration for a new project or goal and you may feel ready to progress towards your goals and get what you want. Equally, it can be a difficult time, it may feel like there is pressure to get things done or maybe you don’t quite know what you want out of the year. The weather and long dark nights can be a drain on your energy and make you feel a bit miserable.
Whatever your situation, counselling can help you make the most of the new year. By now, you have probably had some time to think about your new years goals, resolutions or intentions. Whatever they may be, counselling can help by building your self-confidence, increasing self-acceptance, improving boundary setting, focusing on goals, keeping you accountable, reminding you of your progress, improving your relationships, and so much more.
These things themselves are excellent goals to have, but even if these are not your goals, they can help you to achieve what you want. If you’ve never been to counselling before, it's the perfect time for fresh starts and prioritizing your mental health and wellbeing.
Self-confidence
Counselling can help you to improve your self-confidence as when you go to counselling, you are directing your energy towards what matters to you and you are taking control and being intentional about your choices. Following through with your commitment to attend counselling and take steps to change or achieve your goals builds self-esteem and confidence. Exploring your values in counselling helps you to make decisions that are more in line with who you are. This also fosters growth and confidence. I will say more below about how working on your boundaries helps to improve your confidence.
Self-acceptance
Counselling can help you to become more accepting of yourself. As counsellors, we accept you as you are, empathise with you and don't judge you. We will reflect your values back to you and reinforce to you what kind of person you are. We get you to see yourself from a different perspective. We challenge the negative beliefs that you have about yourself. We help you to recognise the difference between the “shoulds” that have been ingrained in you throughout your life and your true values. We help you get back to what is important to you. We see the good in you and help you to work on feelings like guilt and shame. We also keep you accountable and challenge you to reframe your mindset, encouraging you to look at your words and actions with curiosity, rather than judgement.
Boundary setting
Boundaries are talked about a lot and often misunderstood. The best way that I have heard boundaries described is not in you telling someone else to change their behaviour or act in a certain way, but instead you saying "If you continue to do xyz, I will leave", or "I can no longer be your friend", or "I will need to take myself away from this situation". You cannot change other people’s behaviour, but you can decide how you react to other people’s behaviour. Again, counselling reminds you of your values and may look at whether your actions align with your values. If you want to work on your boundaries, you can set little goals to help you get there.
For example, if your focus is to have better time boundaries at work, and you often find yourself taking on extra work that you don’t want to and which could wait for another day, you can say something like “My shift finishes at five o’clock, and I’ve got things to do, I’ll get started on that tomorrow”. When you work on your boundaries, this provides continuity for yourself and others, shows respect for yourself, and builds your confidence and self-esteem, as you are following through on what you said you would do for yourself.
Keeping you accountable and reminding you of your progress
I’ve mentioned this already in the context of how counselling can remind you of your values and help keep you focused on your goals. It is often difficult to follow through with your boundaries and keep the promises that you’ve made to yourself if you are a people pleaser or you are not used to setting boundaries. However, having somebody that knows about your goals and values and will ask you about this will help to keep you on track.
We know that it's not easy and that progress is gradual and that change is not linear. There is no shame if you don’t get it right a hundred percent of the time. Counsellors will remind you to look after yourself and show you that you are making progress even if it might not feel like it. Even if you stick to your boundaries 30%, 40%, or 50% of the time, that might be more than where you were two weeks ago. Nobody does this perfectly. We will work together in such a way that will challenge you but won’t set you up to fail.
Improving your relationships
Working on your boundaries can help to improve your relationships. It will either alienate people who don't respect your boundaries, or get them to treat you with respect.
One quote that I love is “Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously” -Prentis Hemphill.
It's about being clear about your values and being able to communicate them with the other person, provide clear expectations and be able to follow through on what you say you will do.
Counselling can help you improve your relationships through bringing awareness to how a lot of other people's behaviour and things they say about you has more to do with them and less to do with you. You might explore different possibilities of what people mean when you are hurt by something that they say. You might explore how your own beliefs and experiences influence your interpretation of what others say. Counselling helps you to improve your communication and understanding of other people.
Improving relationships can help you to achieve your other goals, as you will have people who trust in you, believe in you and want to support you. Learning to ask for help can get you far. By seeking the help of a counsellor, you are practicing this. Many people find it difficult to ask for help, but people are meant to work together. We survive by relying on other people and thrive by seeking support and community. You would be surprised by how much people are willing to help you if you ask. Having supportive relationships and having the support of a counsellor can also help to keep you motivated to achieve your goals.
What if I don’t know what I want?
Haven’t made any goals or set intentions for the new year yet? Not sure what you want out of the year? Maybe you have some vague ideas but no idea how to get started. Going to counselling can help you to get to know yourself better and understand what is important to you in life. It can help you to get clear about what you want.
You are more likely to achieve your goals if you know exactly what it is that you want as this will help you direct your energy towards achieving those goals. Once you know what you want you can see what obstacles and challenges stand in your way and with your energy focused on achieving your goals you will constantly be looking for solutions to these problems and formulating a plan for how to get to where you want to be.
If your goal is to improve your confidence, think about why and what you could achieve if you were more confident. Counselling can help you to notice the limiting beliefs about yourself that you may have picked up in your childhood or throughout your life. Once you are aware of these beliefs we can work together on slowly shifting your mindset and replacing these with new helpful beliefs about yourself. One of the new helpful beliefs might be that you deserve to be confident and to achieve what you want.
This blog post has covered how counselling can help to develop your self-confidence, improve self-acceptance, improve boundary setting, keep you accountable, remind you of your progress, and improve your relationships. In turn, you can be better equipped to achieve your goals, more motivated, more able to deal with challenges and more likely to believe you deserve the things you want.
If you are interested in counselling or how I work, have a look at my website here, and feel free to ask any questions or enquire about counselling sessions with me here.