Learning To Prioritize: Key To Psychological Well-being

The human being is complex. Throughout life, you seek to meet your physical needs and increase your psychological well-being. Man is always in constant change and in search of balance between body and mind.

This balance is found in mental health, because the individual is aware of their capabilities and can face the challenges that arise. Psychological well-being is made up of physical, mental and social aspects. In addition, it is the way to enjoy life with strength.

To achieve psychological well-being, the individual must first know himself, develop habits and organize time. Keep this in mind if you want to achieve psychological changes that, in turn, positively influence your health.

How to achieve psychological well-being

Although achieving this may not be easy, the point is that achieving psychological well-being can be accomplished in some way by yourself. In any case, if the following tips do not work for you, we recommend consulting with a psychologist or therapist:

1. For your psychological well-being: know yourself as an individual

According to psychologist Carol Ryff, psychological well-being is based on six dimensions. These represent the way in which the individual copes with the situations that arise in life.

It is important to know and accept yourself with your strengths and weaknesses. Explore your personality and tastes. If you do not accept yourself as you are, it will be difficult to move forward, because you will live dissatisfied. By accepting yourself, you will create positive relationships with yourself and the people around you.

After accepting your identity, you will be able to draw a purpose in life with short, medium and long term goals. This purpose will lead you to personal growth, because you will feel that you have a goal and you occupy a place in the world around you.

By developing as an individual, you will have autonomy and freedom in making decisions and you will be able to have control of the environment. You will develop your own opinions and decisions without being affected by others.

When the individual strengthens his identity and knows himself, he lays the foundation for achieving psychological well-being. In the case of not finding the way and deviating in the search for the “I”, you can resort to the professional help of a psychologist. Leave behind the taboo of “psychologists are for unstable people” and dare to advance in the search for well-being.

2. Develop habits

Sometimes we have a to-do or to-do list but we don’t keep it. We fall into anxiety to achieve them but we do not organize our time. One way to meet the objectives is to create habits or simple rules that allow us to carry out tasks.

Author Stephen Covey developed in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People  a series of tools that we can use to prioritize and achieve stability. These habits are developed with will and daily work.

• The first habit is responsibility, a person who fulfills his tasks respects the time of the other and develops a discipline in the organization of priorities. By being responsible, we create personal leadership because we are autonomous and have an end to achieve.
• Prioritizing what is important over what is urgent is the habit of personal management, and it is achieved through tools to use time effectively. If we organize our work, personal, academic and economic life, we achieve mutual benefit in relationships with other individuals.
• As the human being is social, effective communication is essential because it consists of understanding the other and being clear when issuing a message. In this communication process, the individual generates interdependence, because it is nourished by the knowledge and experiences of others.

3. Organize time and prioritize

Organizing time effectively will be the key to achieving goals and meeting the dimensions of psychological well-being. Time is a variable that is not controlled, but there are tools that allow us to manage it efficiently.

It establishes the priorities to achieve a goal, determines the important versus the urgent: the important thing is the tasks that will allow satisfactory results in the achievement of the objectives and the urgent thing is the completion of tasks immediately.

One way to prioritize is to make a to- do list where you can visualize your goal and the steps to reach it. In all aspects of the individual, setting objectives is essential because it will allow us to understand the advances in the search for psychological well-being.

Tools to organize time

Time is characterized by being inexorable, indispensable, atypical, equitable and inelastic. It is the one that determines the actions of the individual and cannot be controlled, but its distribution can be managed.

Make an activity calendar to define tasks and dates. Set limits and respect completion times, although you must be flexible so as not to generate stress. There are different tools available online that allow us to organize time, as well as assign colors to your tasks and make reminders.

A blog of notes will allow you to record the details of the activities; There are various blog formats and many computer applications have it. There you can make selections, task lists, set priorities, attach photos and charts. It will be useful to keep track of your tasks.

The main challenge when organizing our schedule is to fight against time thieves, all the distractions that do not allow us to finish a task. The mobile phone and social networks are the main distractors. To combat them, focus and put them aside when you’re working.