Life Skills (AKA Adulting) to Enhance Mental Health

Foreign. I'd like to welcome everybody, today's presentation on life skills. I AM your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. Today we're really just going to review just what it sounds like, the common life skills. This is one area that a lot of times we don't focus on very much in outpatient treatment. We focus on it more in residential. But it is an issue that we may want to focus on a little bit more. If the clients that you're working with are receiving benefits from tanf, which is temporary Aid to needy Families, Life skills is often a part of their treatment plan. But a lot of times when I'm working with interns and sometimes even seasoned, seasoned counselors, that term life skills is just so vague. So what exactly are we talking about? One of the first things we're talking about with life Skills and with a lot of clients that I've worked with is communication skills. A lot of people really don't have wonderful communication skills, whether it be written, non verbal or oral and remembering in the job environment, in the work environment, you know, we have to write sometime. Depending on your job, it may just be for your employment application, but that does make a first impression. For other jobs, you're going to be writing more often, doing more things that are written. Like for us, we do our progress notes and our treatment plans and everything else. We need to be able to effectively communicate in written format and get our point across. Non verbal communication is something of the past, since there has been such an emphasis switching to texting and methods of communication that are that don't allow for observation of non verbals. I've noticed that a lot of people that have grown up in the past, you know, 15, 20 years have more difficulty interpreting nonverbals. Additionally, people who have fetal alcohol spectrum disorders are also potentially going to have problems interpreting nonverbal communication, as well as those who may be on the autism spectrum. We do want to recognize the unique challenges that are facing each individual client. And finally, oral communication skills, you know, can you say what you mean and mean what you say? And that sounds super simple. But oral communication skills, we're also talking about the difference between being passive, assertive and aggressive. And a lot of people that we work with have difficulty with assertive communication. They tend to be either more on the passive or more on the aggressive side. So we talk a lot about what those things look like. Assertiveness means being open in expressing wishes, thoughts, feelings, and encouraging others to do likewise. And that is a caveat with assertiveness. A lot of times People think of assertiveness as, you know, openly expressing what we need. But we forget the part about encouraging others to do likewise and respecting that their thoughts, need, needs, opinions and views are just as valid or important as ours. Our beliefs and values aren't more important than someone else's. We want to respect their humanity. We want to respect their perspective as individuals. Even if we don't agree with them, it doesn't mean we have to think, agree that they're correct. But we do want to agree that from their point of view and their thoughts, feelings, needs, wants, etc are equally valid. Assertiveness also means accepting responsibilities and being able to delegate to others. Recognizing when you take a job, for example, or when you get into a relationship or when you have a kid, certain responsibilities come along with that and being able to accept those responsibilities, recognize what you can do and, and recognize what you may need help with or you may need to delegate. And learning the crucial skills for delegating. Just walking up to somebody and going, hey, do this. Does it get the point across? Yes, but that tends to be more aggressive thinking back. You know, I refer to Covey's seven habits a lot. We want to help people learn how to communicate with others in a way to create a win win. It would really help me if you would do this, you know, that's delegating to someone else, showing them, you know, what the benefit is for them as well as the benefit for you. Assertiveness also means regularly expressing appreciation of others for what they have done or are doing. We do, and this kind of goes with empathy. But when we are assertive, we're recognizing, you know, the good, the bad and the ugly, not just speaking up when there's a problem. We do want to be assertive about, you know, what people are doing well, and you, I really want to thank you for doing X, Y or Z. Assertiveness can also refer to being able to admit mistakes and apologize. It's really important for people when they're assertive to take ownership of their feelings and actions, behaviors, thoughts. It doesn't necessarily mean they were always right, but assertiveness is the willingness to take responsibility and say, you know what, I screwed up, or, you know, I'm sorry that this happened. And there were some clips on online the other day of a politician who shall remain nameless, who was trying to, you know, the people were trying to coach this person into how to apologize. And every time the person started to apologize, they turned around and started blaming the victim. And, you know, it was just kind of Making people get frustrated. Assertiveness is that accepting responsibility and accepting ownership instead of saying I'm sorry that you felt I'm sorry that I. I made you feel I'm sorry that I did this. Maintaining self control is also part of assertiveness. When we're assertive, we know what our wants, needs, values, etc are and we're able to communicate those in a way that's not aggressive. We're not yelling, we're not forcing it on somebody, but likewise we're not keeping it to ourselves and feeling like doormats. We are able to put it out there and go, this is what I need. I don't have to get fired up about it. I don't feel like I need to scream and yell and holler to get you to pay attention. I'm going to put it out there. And assertiveness means behaving as an equal to others, respecting that their opinions and needs are equally important. Six main characteristics of assertive communication include eye contact that demonstrates interest and shows sincerity. When you're talking to somebody and they're looking around or looking at the ground or they can't look at you when they're talking to you, you know, you kind of wonder what's going on back there. You know, looking too much at somebody, just like staring and boring into their soul is a little bit aggressive, but so there's that happy medium. And eye contact is somewhat culturally prescribed. So it is going to be important to recognize the culture of the people that you're communicating with. But a certain amount of eye contact certainly shows interest and sincerity. Body posture that is congruent improves the significance of the message. When we are saying that we're all on board but we're closed off, you know, that sends a contradictory message. We do want to pay attention to body language and encourage people to pay attention to their own body language. And one of the ways you can do this, which is kind of interesting, is let them know ahead of time that it's going to happen. You don't want to videotape somebody without their knowledge, but let people hang out in a common area, you know, maybe in your recreation room or you know, on break and record it. And then look at the non verbals, don't have the sound on, look at the non verbals and try to identify what's being communicated to help people see, you know, what they were communicating. Have people guess, you know, what was this person trying to say when this was going on. Gestures, appropriate gestures help to add emphasis and assertiveness. Assertive communication. We do want to use some gestures, but we don't want to be forced in the gestures that we use. And we want to recognize again, this can be very culturally sanctioned, if you will. Some cultures use very large gestures. And you know, my, my stepfather was from a culture that used very large gestures. So in our family, we tend to be loud and we tend to use very large gestures. It doesn't mean that we're being aggressive. It means that we're excited. We are thrilled. Thrilled. You know, there's just sort of an intensity to what we're talking about, but it's not, we're not getting in people's faces. We may be using sort of bigger gestures, but it's important when we're being assertive to recognize if our gestures are becoming overwhelming to the people that we're talking to. We do need to have a certain amount of self awareness, a level W. Well modulated tone is also more convincing and acceptable and not intimidating when communicating to people. If you are loud all the time, you know, people can feel intimidated. They can feel like you're yelling at them. Think about, you know, the tone of voice when you're talking. If you call customer service and you start talking to somebody and they sound like they're half asleep or they sound very aggressive because their voice is really, really loud and strong. And, you know, it's kind of hard to describe, but you, you can tell when somebody, somebody sounds angry. And we want to pay attention to that just to see how we're impacting other people. We want to use our judgment to maximize receptivity and impact when we're being assertive. If we're talking to somebody who is, you know, really fired up about something and we want to assertively state our position, that may or may not go over well. When you're talking to somebody, it's important to identify the best time. You know, if they've had a really bad day and you want to assertively communicate something, you know, the timing could be off. They could be kind of on that precipice where they're feeling overwhelmed. Being assertive also means picking your times and, and making sure that, you know, everybody's calm and you're not taking something, somebody who's already upset and sort of poking the bear. And content is also important in assertiveness. How you say it, where and when you choose to comment, is often more important than exactly what you say. If you're saying something and you are owning your feelings, you're using I statements. You've chosen an appropriate time. You know, you don't hit somebody with something the minute they walk into the door after a hard day's work or at another time when they are, you know, stressed out. You know, those are all things that are going to make the message more receptive. If at work, for example, my boss would come back from meetings with senior management, and if I had something to talk about with him, you know, I'd kind of take a look at how he's walking when he's coming back to the building, and what he looks like to see is now really the right time to go knock on his door and dump another problem on his. On his desk. And it didn't mean I wasn't ever going to say something. But sometimes, you know, I could see that, okay, I need to give him about 15 minutes to get reoriented before I go in there and dump something else on him. Conflict management and dialectics are another important thing we need to help clients learn. We respond to conflicts based on our perceptions of the situation, not necessarily an objective view of the facts, because most everybody has a slightly different interpretation. Our perceptions are influenced by our life experiences, culture, values, and beliefs. It's important to recognize, you know, embracing those dialectics that how I view something may not be the same way somebody else views something. And to recognize that in conflict, when there's a. When a conflict arises and try to put myself in their shoes, try to get my head into where they're coming from based on their experiences, culture, values, and beliefs that will help us more. More effectively manage conflict, because I'll be able to more effectively empathize. Hopefully, that person will do the same thing for me, and we can try to communicate in a way that is meaningful. Conflicts trigger strong emotions. If you're not comfortable with your emotions or able to manage them in times of stress, a lot of times you're not able to resolve conflict successfully. One of the things I do with clients is I ask them to think about times when they got really upset and they wanted to talk to somebody about something, and it just ended up in a shouting match. And, you know, most people have had experiences like that. It's not uncommon. And helping people recognize, okay, you know, what could have gone differently or what could have happened that would have made this go better. And we talk about different distress tolerance techniques they might have used, how they might have used different timing, how they might have used a different approach to communicate that, as well as taking that person's perspective. And I encourage people before they start, when they're Trying to learn how to be assertive before they're having a conversation where they need to be assertive to think about, number one, what is this other person's perspective of what's going on? You know, how might they be perceiving it? What part do I have in it? Recognizing that, you know, when you're pointing your finger at somebody else, you've got two fingers pointing at them and three pointing back at you. Generally, we all, there's. We all have a part in what's going on, even if it's our perception or how we react to a situation. So understanding the other person's perspective of what's going on, understanding my perspective of what's going on, figuring out the best timing to have this discussion, and using language that's appropriate, making sure to own my own statements, all of those are helpful in preparing for it and then rehearsing it, you know, using guided imagery, rehearsing it in their mind, whatever they want to call it. How will this conversation go? And what tools can I use to manage my emotions? If I start feeling like I am getting frustrated, what can I do? I encourage people to practice using those skills. I encourage them, you know, there are lots of TV shows that you can watch that you can get riled up or when you're watching a sports game, you know, unfortunately there's not lots of live sports right now, but watch a rerun and get frustrated with one of the referees and, you know, I. When we get to basketball season, I'm like screaming at the. The television, you know, every night. And I recognize that doesn't do any good, but encouraging people to put themselves in a situation where they are, have a tendency to start feeling those strong emotions and start emoting and practice using their distress tolerance and emotion regulation skills in those sorts of situations before they're doing it with, you know, when they're having a intense conversation with their significant other or their boss, for example. Recognizing that conflicts are an opportunity for growth, when you're able to resolve conflict in a relationship, whether it's a personal relationship or a work relationship, it builds trust. You can feel secure knowing your relationship can survive challenges and disagreements. It's really important when we're helping people learn how to develop their social support systems, that they recognize that they can have a fight with their best friend and it doesn't mean that that relationship's over. We live, unfortunately, in what I was talking about with a client today. You know, it's part of the cancel culture or the tinder culture, where you just kind of swipe left or swipe right, I don't know the difference either way. You, you get rid of somebody as soon as there's adversity, as soon as there's conflict. And that's not healthy. That's not a healthy way to develop a social support system. That's not beneficial to having people around to help you when you need them and you help them. We want to be able to identify that even when there's a little bit of adversity, we don't have to cancel somebody or swipe them away. We can work through the conflict and come to an understanding. Even if it's an agreement to disagree. You know, my mother and I had very, very different political views, for example. And you know, so a lot of times when that stuff came up, we just agreed to disagree. Most of the time we just kind of avoided talking about it because it was one of those areas that would tend to start stoking that fire. Now is that the best way to be. Do you want to just avoid unpleasant topics all the time? No. And when it came up, we were able to have calm, reasonable, assertive discussions and agree to disagree. Conflict management skills and dialectics that people need to know. And these are some handouts that you can, you can put this stuff on handouts and give it to people to help them review and practice. So the first thing is get the facts. We don't want to use emotion based reasoning. We want to get the facts in the situation, Supporting your position and supporting the other person's position. Empathize with the other person and try to understand their feelings and point of view. Be respectful and objective in communications. You know, no name calling, no derogatory language, no you know, and, and this is especially important where those non verbals come in because you can be having a discussion and I have teenagers so I know how non verbals can be very loud in and of themselves. I swear I can hear my daughter's eyes rolling. I know I can't, but part of me, it's just, I can feel it. And, and those types of things, eye rolls, closing off, looking away, huffing. Any sorts of non verbals like that can be disrespectful in communication. So we need to be aware of those verbal and non verbal cues. We also, in conflict management, not only do we need to be aware of when we're being dismissed or when we're being dismissive, but we also need to notice when someone else's frustration is rising. It's one of the most important skills I learned I think when I was homeschooling my children is to be able to identify, you know, when we were going through a lesson, when they were learning something, identify when their frustration levels were starting to rise to a tipping point. I mean, there's, you know, a little bit of confusion when you're starting to learn algebra or something. And then there's the point where you're so frustrated you can't think straight. And you know, it was important for me to be able to notice those non verbal cues and help them learn how to notice them in themselves and articulate it. But conversations and assertiveness goes a lot better if you're having conversations and you, if you notice that the person you're talking to is starting to get frustrated, acknowledging it or backing off and you know, saying, do you think we need to take a break for a minute? We need to identify triggers for conflict. When we are working with people, when we are talking with people in relationships, we need to seek compromise and embrace dialectics. Instead of seeing everything as a win lose, we want to try to see how we can make it a win win. Instead of seeing, you know, somebody as either competent or incompetent, you know, holy. We want to see, you know, how they are competent in their own way and, you know, right and wrong, you know, there is objective right and wrong, there's morally right and wrong, there's all kinds of different right and wrongs. So when we're looking at something, we want to see how it can be right in its own way, how it, what we're looking at how both of our perspectives can be right in their own way. And sometimes we just need to be creative when we're negotiating in that creative phase, we need to prepare, we need to think about how can we create a win win in this situation. How can this, whatever I want be beneficial for this person and how can I communicate that to them? We need to discuss what's going on or what we need. We need to lay out our case, so to speak, and hopefully acknowledge their perspective. We need to help them learn how to clarify goals. And a lot of times people go into situations where they're trying to communicate and they don't exactly know what their goals are. We have that a lot. When clients come into treatment, it's like, okay, what, what are your goals for treatment? And they're like, I, I want to be happier, I don't want to be depressed anymore. Okay, I need to know what that looks like for you. So it's important that you spend time working with clients and helping them identify or learn how to clarify goals and make them smart, specific, measurable, achievable, time, limited and relevant. Sorry, I got that in the wrong order, but you get what I mean. Once you've prepared, discussed the issues, discussed the options, clarified goals, negotiated toward a win win, then you need to agree and implement a course of action. And these are all really important in work at home. You know, you find it goes a lot. Things go a lot easier if there is sort of a democratic approach to things, which is that creating a win win and synergizing. One thing that Linehan talks a lot about in dialectical behavior therapy that goes along with negotiating is saying no and asking for something. And that's part of her interpersonal skills toolbox. A lot of our clients have difficulty saying no. They feel obligated to say yes because they're looking for approval from other people or they're trying to avoid rejection, or they're afraid to ask for something because they don't want to bother anybody. They feel intrusive. So that's when they're more passive. And then when they don't, don't say no when they probably need to and they fail to ask for things that they may need, then a lot of times they end up feeling rejected, taken advantage of, unhurt, unheard, misunderstood, which contributes to their feeling of powerlessness. We need to help them learn how that it's okay to say no sometimes and how to do it respectfully. Not just say no, but provide an answer. And Linehan has multiple levels of saying no. And there's the hard no, there's the no, it just that ain't gonna happen. It goes against my core values. There's the, you know, I'd really like to. However, I can't do it right now. Here's an alternative. And then there's the I'd rather not, but I might be able to be convinced to do it. So there's. She actually has five levels of no's, but I usually just use the three when I'm, when I'm teaching. The asking for help and, and saying no skills. The same thing with asking for something. It's important to let people know and encourage people to develop their self esteem and their assertiveness to the point where they recognize that it's okay to ask for help. And you know what, a lot of times people are really happy to be able to help. It actually improves relationships. If you think back to, I think it was last class when we talked about creating those helpful relationships where people feel like they're contributing. It strengthens relationships when people feel like they're able to help one another. So asking for something is not necessarily an imposition, but helping them prepare if the other person says no. And, you know, working through all those different possibilities is a big issue, because saying no and asking for something is underscored by people's levels of self esteem and their need for external validation. And a lot of times our clients have low self esteem and desperately seek that external validation. So when something goes wrong, when they don't get their own way, or if they have to ask for something, it is anxiety provoking. It's terrifying for them. Another skill that I teach in in life, skills that a lot of people just don't even think about. And I created this PowerPoint when I was working with in residential, and I had text, I had some techs that were teaching this class and they're like, what do I teach? And, you know, one of the things was interviewing skills. And they're like, well, what exactly am I supposed to talk about? Because they couldn't think of the specific skills that go into interviewing. So we talked about dressing for the job, and this can be a fun activity for people to do in group, you know, talk about what would you wear to dress for an interview for, you know, McDonald's, what would you wear to dress for an interview for, you know, some big accounting firm or whatever. And ultimately it comes down to generally you want to try to dress the same, but we talk about what appropriate dress is. I have, well, this was back in the day, and I had a PowerPoint that had different images of people that I found, you know, going through different online clothing store sites and stuff. And I would put up different pictures and I would have people identify whether it was appropriate for work and interviewing or inappropriate. And if it was inappropriate, we talk about why encourage people when they're interviewing to listen more than they talk and to answer questions clearly and concisely. A lot of times in interviews, when people just start kind of wandering in, in their thought patterns, they can get themselves kind of into trouble. So encourage people to listen more than they talk. Employers also like to feel like you're interested in learning more about their company, you're interested in helping their company, which means you have to hear what they need, which is listening engenders a lot of connection. Ask questions. Another thing that goes along with that is asking questions more than telling. One of the key mistakes a lot of people make when they go into interviews is they go in and they wait for the interviewer to ask them questions and they respond and bada bing, that's it. And that leaves the employer a lot of times thinking, well, this person isn't really all that interested or invested in my company. Which is why it's important to have people go in and ask more, you know, ask questions. When the employer says, do you have any questions? Well, yes, I do, matter of fact. How do you see this? How do you see my particular skill fitting in? Or, you know, however they want to propose it. And these are things that are helpful to do in rehearsal, in group, or in individual counseling. When you're teaching these skills, sometimes you just have to, you know, role play interviewing so people can figure out, you know, what kind of questions might I ask? You can give them a list. You can brainstorm a list in group. This is another fun, kind of fun group activity. You say, okay, you're going to go interview at ABC Company. And I would just pull one up on the Internet and I would put it up there. What kinds of things would you want to know about the company before you went? And what kinds of things would you want to ask the potential employer about, you know, your job? And have them identify 10 questions to have available to ask the potential employer and to. To show interest and show that they did their research and just help them get ready for preparing for interviews. Make sure to answer the questions asked of you. Use proper language. Try not to use shorthand like, you know, I'm bad about that, or, y', all, I'm really bad about that one. Encourage people to use, you know, form more formal language when they're interviewing. Speak confidently and clearly, but don't be too cocky. You know, walking in thinking that, of course I've got this job. Puts off, sends off the wrong air to people. Express optimism, enthusiasm and gratitude. You know, optimism about how awesome it would be to work there, enthusiasm for all the potential things that you could learn and how, you know, excited you are at the possibility, and gratitude for getting the interview. And, you know, we need to talk about some of those things because so often, again, a lot of our clients have gone into interviews and they show up, they're like, I'm here. You know, this is me. Take it or leave it. Bada bing. And they walk out. And it's really important to teach clients how to sell themselves, how to create a rapport, create a relationship and a lasting impression with that employer. Research and rehearse potential interview questions. Reread the job description prior to the interview. You know, I like to go through the job description myself and identify the bullet points when they have the description of the job, about what the person will be doing and what types of skills that they're looking for, and make sure that I have that, their verbiage in my head so I can repeat that to them. If they're looking for somebody who is a strong risk manager, I am going to use that phrase whenever I can figure out how to work it in. I'll try to use that phrase when I'm talking to the employer. And again, like I talked about earlier, encourage people to do research on the company, not just assume. Even if they're applying for a job at McDonald's, you know, knowing about the history of the company and what it does for employee relations is important. Teaching people how to give criticism to their significant other, to their roommate, to their kids. A lot of us, we hate getting criticism a lot of times, even if it's constructive. And a lot of times we are really free with giving it. Not paying attention necessarily to how we do it. Encouraging people to state the problem objectively. Not talking to your roommate and going, oh my gosh, you are such a slob. You need to do better. Well, what does that mean? What exactly am I doing that's bothering you? You know, leaving my underwear on the bathroom floor? Okay, that's objective. Give people objective examples of what you're talking about. Phrase it in terms of how the solution can be helpful to the person at work. If you're, if you're a supervisor, you can say something like, your paperwork has been very late, you're an excellent employee, and getting your paperwork in on time will go a long way to helping you get a promotion. Okay, so they're seeing how getting whatever they're wanting done or what, whatever you're wanting to get them to get done done is going to benefit them in the long run, even though in the short term they really hate doing it. And also, when you give criticism, ask how you can help. Sometimes people aren't doing something partly because they don't know you want it done, or they may not know how to do it, or they may not have the skills to do it. So you may want to ask something like, is there something that has changed that's causing this problem? Or is there something I can help with? You know, if you've got a student who's not getting their homework in, or if you've got a client who is not complying with their treatment plan, you know, we want to ask them, is there something I can do that can be helpful or is there something about the treatment plan that's not working for you? Handling criticism goes kind of the other way. We want to help people learn how to listen, to hear what the critic is saying and separate the criticism from the self. They are criticizing a behavior, they're not criticizing you as a person. This is the third one's a hard one. Help them practice. And this is, it's hard, so it needs to be practiced. Practice not being defensive. Often the person is trying to help and thank the commenter for his or her criticism and acknowledge the point without being defensive. You know, I hear what you're saying and I recognize this is a problem. You know, that can go a long way. You don't have to necessarily say, well, thank you for pointing out help what I'm doing wrong. Sometimes that works. You know, thank you for helping me see what might need to change for me to be able to get a promotion or whatever. It's important not to be defensive, recognizing that none of us is perfect. Ask open ended questions for clarification, admit your mistakes, take what's useful and leave the rest. You know, sometimes people are critical, but it's more about them than about you. They are frustrated, so they may be, you know, nitpicking everything that you're doing that day because they're just, you know, unfortunately taking it out on you. So recognize that sometimes people are going to give you criticism that just isn't helpful and you know, still not getting defensive. Look at criticism as a challenge to do better if there is something useful. And encourage people to work on their self esteem, recognizing that ultimately they need their own approval and they are not going to please anybody all of the time. And I usually have people write that phrase down. I will not be able to please anybody all of the time and have them repeat that to themselves for a week. Get them used to using that sort of as a mantra. Mario Andretti was asked for his number number one tip for success in race car driving. He said, don't look at the wall. Your eye, your car goes where your eyes go. If you choose to focus on the anger and criticism instead of your strengths and the solutions, you're likely going to crash and burn. So you know, Mario Andretti, that was many, many years ago. But I really like that analogy for people to focus on. Remember, people who criticize everything or make scathing remarks to be hurtful are often the ones that need help. I encourage my clients when they're getting criticism from people to sometimes just take a breath and Imagine what it's like in that person's head. Are they trying to be helpful or is it really dark in their head and they're unhappy and that unhappiness is just bleeding out into their communications? Listening is another communication skill. Encourage people to practice, and this is another one where videotapes can be helpful, but you can use excerpts from TV series. I find that can be helpful a lot of times too. Face the speaker and maintain eye contact. Be attentive, listening to hear, not defending and keeping an open mind. Too often in our culture, we are so eager to have a response that we don't even let the first person finish speaking before we're devising the response in our head, which means we don't hear the last half or two thirds of what they're saying. I encourage people to spend a day, you know, it doesn't have to be a long time, but spend a day just paying attention to that particular aspect. How often when you're talking to somebody do you start trying to formulate your response before they've even finished speaking? Try to picture what the other person is saying or understand it from their point of view and don't interrupt or impose your solutions. A lot of times I'll do an activity with clients that helps them identify and I say, who. What message does interrupting send to people? And a lot of times I get the responses such as, I'm more important than you are. What I have to say is more interesting, accurate or relevant. I don't care what you really think. I don't have time for your opinion or this isn't a conversation, it's a contest and I'm going to win. I'm going to get the last word. Make sure when you're listening to ask clarifying questions, use that paraphrasing to understand and summarize and check for understanding. Each one of these slides that we're going through can actually be a whole group in and of itself. So there's a lot of things that people actually, we assume people know that we actually don't teach very well in, you know, primary school. I talked earlier about goal setting, beginning with the end in mind, thinking about, okay, what is it that I want to do if I'm going to make a cake, I think I want to make a cake. I know what I want out there. I have the end in mind. Now, how do I get there? Smart goals, as I said earlier, are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic or relevant, and time limited. Encouraging people to pull practice setting good goals and I have lots of videos on the All CEU's education YouTube channel that go through goal setting. So I'm not going to spend a lot of time on that here. Critical thinking is so such an important life skill because people need to be informed in order to make effective decisions. So we need to teach them how to research to assess the accuracy of something. When you read something on Facebook or on the Internet or you hear it on Sirius xm, how do you know that it's accurate? Where do you find that information? And it's important to help them understand the differences between, you know, referee journals or authoritative sources like theoretically the.gov domains and other resources. We want to encourage them to question findings, even things that are on PubMed or, you know, CDC.gov or whatever. You don't want to necessarily take those at face value. Sometimes you want to question them and go, how does this apply to me? Or do I agree with this in totality and help people learn how to arrive at their own conclusions? This is a really fun activity you can do. I generally pluck headlines when I do this out of the social media or right off Google, you know, so I just, Google just feeds me random stuff, I don't know why. And I bring it out and I say, okay, is this true? And we sort of do our own little snopes sort of thing to try to figure out is this really accurate? Or what are some other things that may not be being said. Decision making is also important. Helping people first start by thinking who and what is important in my life? And that's one of those basic questions we ask in acceptance and commitment therapy. For example, in order to define what does a rich and meaningful life look like to me? Because for me to have a rich and meaningful life, then my decisions are going to be based on guess what, what that looks like my end where I want to go. Establish the facts in the situation when you're going to make a decision where to move. For example, establish the facts about each neighborhood, each house, each job, whatever you're looking at, and figure out which one fits best with what your rich and meaningful life looks like. Identify your options and the positive and negative consequences of each. Recognizing that for every give, there's often a take. Choose the best option, implement your decision and evaluate the outcome. Stress management is another. You know, we have a lot of communication skills and I spend a lot of time on that because like I said, a lot of people that I've worked with have challenges with their communication and job skills. So I spend a lot of time on that. But we also need to talk about stress management and burnout prevention. I help clients learn that stress can mean anxiety, anger, or feeling overwhelmed. And encourage them to know their stress triggers, to keep a log over the day or to think about what triggers their stress, what triggers them to get all riled up and identify ways to prevent them when possible. There was one study that I read when I was in teaching at UF that indicated that people experience approximately 15 stressful events per day. That's a lot, especially when you're only awake for like, 16 hours a day. That's like almost one an hour. So how can you identify what those triggers are and figure out how to either prevent them or mitigate them? Know the impact of stress on you emotionally, mentally, physically, and interpersonally. And I will do this with those flip charts around the room and have people go around the room and identify how stress really impacts them. Because a lot of people, people haven't thought about how stress impacts them. And when they really start looking at it, they're like, oh, you know, that really does have a much bigger impact on me than I thought. And then identify five ways of dealing with unavoidable stress. And we talk about distress tolerance skills, we talk about radical acceptance. We talk about a variety of tools that people can can use. And I want people, when they walk out of this group, I want clients to have five ways that work for them that they can start using to deal with stress in a healthy way. We move from stress, which is kind of anxiety, maybe anger, it's kind of middle of the road to anger. And I help them recognize the whole fight or flee and anger representing the fight part of the reaction to a threat. We talk about common threats, rejection, failure, isolation, loss of control, and the unknown. And I will put those. Sometimes I do the beach ball, Sometimes I do it on flip charts around the room. I don't get real creative when I'm teaching life skills, unfortunately. But we talk about what types of threats, what types of things make me feel rejected and trigger my anger, what types of things make me feel like a failure and trigger my anger. And I have them think over the past month when they go around to the flip charts. Think about things that have triggered your anger because they made you feel re rejected, things that have triggered your anger because they made you feel like a failure. And they start identifying more and more of those anger triggers so they can deal with them ahead of time and figure out and understand why those things are triggering their feeling of threat, why it's feel as threatening to them and identify, using the ABCs, identify whether that actually is a threat. You know, if they didn't get a promotion and it made them angry because they felt rejected and they felt like they, they were a failure. Okay, so let's look at that. Was that failure to get a promotion actually a threat to you? And you know, looking at the bigger picture and figuring out, you know, maybe I wasn't the right fit for the situation, it wasn't a personal rejection. It was a strategic decision on management's part, you know, whatever. And then again, we identify five effective ways to respond to anger. A lot of times when people get angry, they get into that fight or flee mode. So they have tunnel vision. They're in their emotional mind. And we talk about noticing anger cues so people can start identifying when they're getting angry before they get to the point of lack of control and what they need to do to try to de escalate it. Mindfulness and self awareness I encourage people to know their temperament because it's so important to know how they get and keep in mind. Energy extroverts, for example, love to be around people and they draw energy from others, whereas that exhausts the introvert. They prefer to be around a small group or independent. Sensing people tend to think bottom up. They think about how the pieces go together. Intuitive people start at the top. They start with the big picture and work their way down to the details. Thinking and feeling that describes what motivates people. Thinkers are motivated by facts and words like justice and right and wrong. Feeling people are motivated by compassion and what promotes harmony, for example. And judging and perceiving basically is people's time management styles. Judgers tend to be much more calm and comfortable in situations where there's predictability and planning, whereas perceivers get very stressed out and feel very hemmed in and stifled in those sorts of environments. There's a book called what color is your parachute? That is used that does use temperament to help people identify good career choices for them, for example, and we'll talk about that. I also encourage people to know their cycles. When are they most energetic? For example, for me I'm most energetic before noon. Once I get to noon, I start winding down very very quickly. Other people aren't like my son, are night owls. And it's important to know when your energy is strongest so you can capitalize on that. And knowing your happiness, anger, anxiety and depression triggers is also important in life, not just for mental health, but in order to help you have that rich and Meaningful life. You want to know what types of things you want in your environment and what types of things you want to minimize. We talk about mindfulness to help people learn how to check in with themselves to identify things that are making them more vulnerable to distress like sickness, pain, lack of sleep, or plain stress. When you have, sometimes you can't avoid stress and things pile up. Or, you know, during the holidays, you can feel rushed and harried and stressed. So you may be more vulnerable to reacting strongly to stressors that normally wouldn't bother you. So it's important to encourage people to recognize that there are times that they are more vulnerable and figure out what they can do in order to help themselves deal with those situations. Organization is also important. Now, some people like more organization than others, but encourage people to set aside cleaning or organizi organization time each day where they they can use bins, for example, they don't have to get super meticulous with it. You know, we have a bin in the house that we put bills. I have a bin in the foyer where we put our keys and I put my purse. You know, we just have bins around the house so things aren't scattered everywhere. When you're putting sheets in the closet, one of the tricks that I learned was to put the other pillowcase, the fitted sheet, and the full sheet inside a pillowcase so you're not always scrambling around trying to find the full matching set. And encourage people to simplify. Not everything has to be an ordeal. Simplify what's going on. Simplify what you've got to do each day. Time management is another thing. I have people keep a list for a week of everything that takes up their time. And then we go through it the next week in group and we talk about, all right, where are places that you could have saved time, you could have condensed things or simplified. For example, I do all my shopping once every two weeks, so I'm not going to the grocery store four times a week and wasting that extra time. Encourage people to list, eliminate, prioritize, delegate and combine. List what they have to do. Eliminate what isn't essential to get done. Prioritize, delegate and combine everything that's left. One of the things in time management that people often forget when they're writing their schedule is their activities of daily living. You know, eating, bathing and travel time. So making sure that you review it with clients when they write their time management schedule, schedule reviewing it and make helping them see any weaknesses that, you know, things they may have forgotten. And if you have to H, schedule it in. If you're a J, you may need to schedule in recreation and rest as well. Study skills are really important, and I know I'm running out of time here, so I'm going to go through these quickly. People have different learning styles. Some people learn better by listening, some people learn better by doing, and some people learn better by seeing. Most people are a combination of two or sometimes all three learning styles. I know, for example, I'm more visual, kinesthetic, auditory comes in a distant third for me. So when I do something, I need to actually apply it to my life. Make a quiz to help myself learn it. I read it, I highlight it, I see it, I create graphs, whatever, so I can conceptually visualize it. Improve concentration by paying attention to your nutrition to make sure you have the neurotransmitters to focus your environment. You know, you don't want too many distractions. Study at a time of day and learn at a time of day. That works for you. Try to make it fun by gamifying it. We learn more and we remember more when we're having fun, when we're in that positive frame of mind. Which is why I try to gamify a lot of my psychoed groups and chunk it, put it into sections that are, you know, 10 or 15 minutes if that works for you. Improve note taking by finding the main point of each pair paragraph. You know, even at work sometimes we have to study to do things. Teaching people how to learn is really important, even for a lot of adults. This is a skill that they will need, you know, ongoing and helping them learn how to figure things out. Reminding people not to cram all their studying into one session. Try to study at the same time each day. Do 15. If you really don't want to study, just decide that, okay, I'm going to start doing it. I'll do it for 15 minutes. And at the end of 15 minutes, if I'm still miserable, then I'll do something else. Most of the time, getting started is the hardest part. And that's true for anything, not just studying. Make sure to have a goal. And that's true for anything, not just studying. So you know, when you're there, instead of going, well, I'm just going, I'm going to study now. All right? I was, when I would study, I would say, I'm going to study chapter 10 and then I'm going to take a break. So I had a goal and when I reached the end, I was like, hallelujah, I can stop doing it. Now and then Review your notes before starting an assignment. I do this a lot with at work. You know, before I'm beginning a new project or getting ready to do something, I review my notes about exactly what I'm hoping to accomplish with what I'm doing. In addition to interview skills with job skills, we want to talk about appearance, punctuality, teamwork and work ethic with activities of daily living. And these are some I took for granted that my kids just knew and I learned the hard way that they didn't. So teaching them about finding and actually implementing or doing recipes, shopping, and the difference between things like frying, sauteing, boiling, steaming, broiling and baking. Thankfully, with the Internet you can look up just about anything now, so it's a lot easier than back before the Internet existed. But helping people feel confident in the kitchen will help them make sure that they are well nourished and can, you know, keep themselves healthy. Laundry is another thing, and doing laundry as well as mending laundry is another skill that a lot of people don't have. But especially if you're working with clients who don't have a lot of money, they are going to need to do their own laundry and they're going to need to mend clothes occasionally. So this can be a very helpful skill when paying bills. And I do a whole set of groups on financial management and financial responsibility with a lot of my clients, encouraging them to figure out what bills they have and when they get paid and how much, and then figuring out how they're going to pay those bills and then identifying what money's left over and instead of spending money kind of willy nilly and hoping there's going to be some left at the end of the month. Other things for paying bills, including balance balancing your checkbook at least once a week, not spending more on credit cards than they can pay off, always having overdraft protection, setting up auto payment when possible, trying to have at least three months of money in reserve, which is, you know, not possible for a lot of people, or trying to save $10 or more per week until they do. Avoid using debit cards because it's really easy to get in a bad way there and not keeping cash in your wallet if you have it handy, it's easy to spend. There are a variety of skills people need to succeed independently. Without safe housing, nutritious meals, proper health care and a job, people will often not be able to stay independent for long because we need to meet those basic Maslovian needs. Life skills are going to help people have the tools to get their basic needs met. Alrighty. Thank you for being with me today. Have an awesome weekend and I will see y' all on the flip side. Between writing notes, filing insurance claims, and scheduling with clients, it can be hard to stay organized. That's why I recommend TherapyNotes. Their easy to use platform lets you manage your practice securely and efficiently. Visit therapynotes.com to get two free months of TherapyNotes by just using the promo code CEU when you sign up for a free trial at therapynotes.com you if this podcast helps you help your clients or yourself, please support us by purchasing your ceus@allce.com or getting your agency to sponsor an episode. 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