Mentally healthy and highly productive people

 Hello all. Hope you had a great Songkran holiday filled with love and family warmth ka.

I listened to one podcast program and liked it so much that I had to search for the original article ka.

The credit goes to Khun Rawit Hanutsaha and his 5-minutes podcast #1479 on '5 secrets of mentally healthy people', which he got from Karen Nimmo's article, entitle, '5 Secrets of Mentally Healthy, Highly Productive People' dated April 3, 2023 on Medium ka. If you want to read the full article, here's the link ka: 

https://medium.com/on-the-couch/5-secrets-of-mentally-healthy-highly-productive-people-bf4b1714fa15

It started with a story of an elite athlete whose success has driven her to be fearful of 'not being productive enough' as she needs to continue to 'achieve' things. The five secrets shared by the author/psychologist  (the bold and italic fonts mean the exact wordings copied from the article na ka) are:

1. Prioritise ruthlessly-- rank priorities according to our own, not other preferences and follow them.

2. Be the tortoise, not the hare (with tiny goals) -- kind of stretch goals to me ka....and with 'jai yen yen' notion to keep going without expecting to be successful too fast. 

3. Put the squeeze on distractions -- if you can’t master your distractions, they will master you

4. Bust out the bubbles — often -- celebrate the milestones

5. Drop down a gear -- being able to relax, unwind and calm yourself are essential life skills

The author also added the top five regrets of the dying (2011) identified by Bronnie Ware, a Palliative care nurse which are:

(1) being true to yourself (rather than doing what others expected of you), (2) not working so hard, (3) having the courage to express feelings, (4) staying in touch with friends and (5) letting yourself be happier.

Why was I so interested in this article? Notice what I think about capitalism, money, and competition mai ka? Not that I'm against the three but I think humans push them too far to forget the meaning of life ka. I also think that quite a number of us Thai people take up some frameworks, rules, formulas, research findings and theories far too much to lose right balance. 

We all have our own conditions, contexts, and preferences! The author says, 'think carefully about what makes us happy and excited, who we like to spend time with, how to have fulfilling relationships or, what brings us serenity and meaning.'

Over to you all as New Year's thinking points ka.