 for some people. So we're also going to spend a little bit of time on how change can be managed in the workplace. Now we're going to try to do this all in a brief time as possible. But we realize that everything that I've just said, we could talk for about a couple of hours. So we'll do our best. So what we would like you to do is to become engaged in today's Facebook live because it is about you. And we're going to ask you a question, and maybe you can start putting some comments in it, is why do you think change is so challenging for people? So why do you think change is so challenging for people? So maybe you can start answering that question. So I'm going to jump in while we get those answers in and see how it matches with what people are talking about. Hi everyone, I'm Amy Golding, Director of Psychology at the Institute. So I guess we know that change is a part of life. We know that intellectually, right? That from the minute we're born we start changing. We're growing and we're developing and we continue doing that throughout life. And the world around us is also changing. But the only way not to have change would be for the time to stand still and for the world to stand still. So we're actually quite good at dealing with change in many ways. And yet it seems that somehow as humans, we're not so great when it comes to sudden change or things that we think might be negative. And there's a couple of different psychological explanations for this. It basically comes down to our survival mechanism. So it seems that we humans are built for survival, not so much for happiness. I'll say that again. We're built for survival, not for happiness. Sorry to disappoint. That means that in an unconscious level, our mind is basically saying, look, I'm alive right now. Things may not be perfect, but I'm alive. If anything changes, that could threaten my survival. So therefore, I don't like or want change because it could be negative. Never mind that it could make things better. Our survival brain doesn't think like that. It adopts a better the devil you know kind of approach. But that can also keep us stuck as well. So it's not so much that we don't like change. It's things that we think might be bad. And might is that really important word? Because if change was guaranteed to be positive, I don't think we would mind it at all. So we call it a surprise, wouldn't we? Well, a great surprise that we love. Like if I said today, miraculously, you're going to find an extra million dollars in your bank account, tax free, no strings attached. Would you find that change challenging? Not at all. I don't think so. You might have a challenge deciding how you're going to spend that million dollars, but I don't think we would find that quite so difficult as some other changes. Or, you know, as another example, one we often talk about in workplace settings, you know, a lot of the time people are really worried about what happens, you know, the worst case scenario and I lose my job. And, you know, people get very worried about that. And they say they don't like the change about it. But when we ask, well, if you knew that the very next day you had an even better job to move into or a more enjoyable, more fulfilling role, something that you got paid twice as much for, then again, you wouldn't mind that change so much. So we only dislike change when we feel that there's something that could be lost. So the other sort of aspect to this is that we have a need for a certain degree of certainty and security and a sense of control over our own lives. And some of us have a greater need for certainty and control than others. So it's that uncertainty that we actually find difficult, the worry for the future in case it may be negative. So we all meet our need for security in different ways. For some of us, it's by having routines and structure and being organized. For other people, it's about being very particular around how things are done, either for themselves, or sometimes that can be for others as well. So we can all imagine someone who is very particular about how their partner must do things or how their kids must do things, or in a workplace environment, you know, becoming micro managing around things, you can see how easily that need for certainty and control can become excessive and can cause distress for the person and those around them. Absolutely. That's when we when we talk about control freaks, you've probably heard of that expression. It's not a psychological diagnosis. But it definitely is a problem, you know, when the more we're fearful, the more we tend to control things, make sure that there's certainty. And but imagine how bad that could get very quickly. Imagine if your life was 100% certain, you knew exactly what was going to happen tomorrow to the last second. Why? Because what's going to happen tomorrow is exactly the same what happened today. Can you imagine how boring your life would be? Well, I can hear some people right now say, Oh, no, no, mine would be fantastic. I can't wait for that to happen. I look, I get it when we're stressed, we want a higher level of certainty. And that's why why when we're fearful, when we're stressed, what we do is we try to control. So when you meet a control freak, who you are actually meeting, it's a very scared little girl or little boy on the inside. That's why they have to control everything. They have a high need for for certainty. When you when you meet somebody that is settled, that is mature, that has some life experience, and it's okay with change, they really need to control you. If ever. Right. So this is something interesting to to think about, because we want a mindset that allows us to be comfortable with change and welcoming of change, because that makes us better human beings for other people too. So Peter, it doesn't seem like the pace of changing, the pace of change is increasing, like if change has always been around, but now it's getting faster and faster. Why? Or at least we're becoming more aware of it, because what what has changed in the last 30 years or so is not necessarily things because there's always been things happening. That's life. It's called life. But the amount of information as to what is happening, as it's in our face, we have so much information. Every single day, we have more information than a person could have had in a whole year, 60 years ago. Now we get in one in one day. So what do we do with that information? Well, you know, if if we tried to take it all in, that could be very overwhelming. So technology has meant that I can I can know about a kid that goes missing in Minnesota, in the US, while I'm in in Europe somewhere. That was not possible, you know, 100 years ago. So now all this brings change in front of our faces and a lot of it. So we need we need to to be really good at making decisions as to what we are going to pay attention and what we're not going to pay attention. And we need to be able also to get very comfortable with our own bodies. So we get to tell what kind of information is to is useful for our lives and which one is not useful. And then we have to be very disciplined. That that information that is not useful, even if it happens to be a favorite TV series, we don't entertain it, we push it aside, because we know is not going to be a good result of maybe maybe not the TV series, we'll give that one a miss, if it's your favorite one. But just you get the point, right? In order to be comfortable with change, we also would need to be decisive on what change or what barrage of information what channel of information we will accept. And there's a few critical decisions to be made there. Yeah, problem thinking about in a workplace, for example, Peter, when a change is being implemented, and, you know, we don't necessarily have choice in that matter. This is happening. And some people will be more easily able to adapt and they'll take that on board faster. It just almost seems to be a personality difference. Other people will need some time to get used to the idea to let it digest to kind of sit on it. And yet, where you've got a group of people together, they're all going to have a different style in terms of accommodating new information. Yeah. Well, let's remember that what is going to make change welcome or hurtful, sometimes it's how a level of resistance to it. Now, I'm not saying that we should accept every change. Some change comes along, and it's morally and ethically unjust and wrong. And we should not get comfortable with a change. We should adapt to that change very quickly. So we can fight it. But we fight it in a in a in a constructive way. That is appropriate. But with most change, you know, it doesn't really doesn't really matter if they have painted the walls in a different color, and we didn't like that color. Is that really that important? Can we live with that? It doesn't matter if the air conditioning is 24 degrees instead of 25. Could we could we wear a jacket? Does it really matter? So there are most of the things that come our way are not that important. They're not life changing. You know, I'm not going to break down as a person. So keep that in mind. You know, some some some changes external, and sometimes not very much we can do about it. But we can adjust their thinking and their mindset to meet a head on and make it useful for us. So what are some of the changes that people are dealing within the world today, given that, you know, there seem to be some of those bigger picture changes happening or fundamental changes to the way we live at the moment? Absolutely. Yeah. And they do impact to the core of how we live. We've we've seen lockdowns right across the world. I mean, look, that was a very different from one region to another. But you know, in general, they have limited people's ability or ability to move from one place to another, which is a very human basic human right, the ability to say, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. You know, but it has limited that in some places, children have not been allowed to go into the street for weeks on end. And at all, not even to exercise or to see the sun. While dogs were allowed to go out every day, often as they wanted, by the way. So that's a very just. And but you know, those are externally imposed things. And some people have been forced to work from home. They haven't been asked, would you like to work from home, but they've been forced to work from home, regardless of the situation, regardless of whether they had a desk, a computer, or family around them, or a private space in which to work. I mean, imagine, it can be very easy to say, yeah, I'll work from home if I have a space where I can do it, that is quiet. Well, what happens if you're a man with four or five kids? And because you're on lockdown, you don't now don't have a nanny, you don't have a childcare center. So that has been imposed on you. And there's an expectation that you will perform at the same, at the same level or close to it. So there's a lot of ways from working from home to how we operate or how we move up and down. And in the actions that we even even the action of wearing a mask, in some places, you're encouraged to wear one in some places to tell you don't wear a mask that aren't actually work. So why would you wear it? Health authorities in other places, health authorities are saying absolutely they work and they are the only thing that will save you from the virus that you must wear. So it's confusing. Not only these are changes to you're sorry, these are changes to how we work, how we relate to our family, and how we socialize with other people, how we dress. I mean, they're pretty core parts of, I mean, Freud said there's work and love, the two things in life. Intrinsic, intrinsic, intrinsic to human nature. I mean, what is the first thing that we see in another person when we look at them? Their face, their complete face, we get so much information from the face. And now it's covered. We can't see the face of the other person. It's interesting. Just a few months ago, if we wanted to go into a bank, we were told to remove any thing in our face or helmets. And that is that we told everywhere, you better wear a mask like a robot. So whether we agree with masks or not, we need to understand there's a psychological cost, a psychological impact that these things have. I'm not talking about the science. That's a different conversation. But the psychology of it, how it impacts our social interactions. And some people have taken it even once they're further, I have heard anecdotally of people that are wearing masks in their own homes with their own spouse, and they haven't kissed their spouse since the beginning, just because they're so afraid of the virus. So that could logically put a lot of strain on what I think or suspect that could already be a very strange relationship to begin with. So yeah, lots of change, lots of distress. And again, I think one of the core principles here is that it's about not having that sense of control and choice around the changes in our life. That's what it's not the change itself. It's that sense of control that is so important for well-being and for mental health. And just to add, we're now seeing... Go on. The exercise of the coin. Like I may be okay with change if I accept it, or I drive it, or I volunteer for it. But what about my spouse? What about my kid? What about anybody else that is impacted by being close to me? So how are they going to, are they going to be okay with a change? How is that going to impact them? So we are living in a very narcissistic society. What I think is what should go, and I'm not going to tolerate a different kind of opinion. Not everybody, of course, but this seems to be a topic. So it is quite narcissistic. We need to be aware of that. It's very egocentric. And we need to, in times of distress, in times of change, we need to think of other people too. And we need to say, okay, well, am I respecting their way of looking at the world too? Am I being tolerant of that? Or am I expecting that everybody will play by the same rules this game? And I think that comes up at the moment with... Yeah, it's coming up at the moment is a lot of the organizations that we work with, for example, are seeing that now, in a lot of places, they're starting to get back to the regular workplace wherever that is. And so there's another change back again. So there was a change to work from home, and then there was a change to, all right, now we want to start bringing people transitioning back into the office. And for some people, that's back to business as usual. For others, there will have to be changes for social distancing and whatnot. But I can see that that's the new challenge for workplaces is that tension in how do we... We don't want to be pushy to force people to return. But we also want to create some sort of structure or consistency or those business needs that we need people back. And so for many people who've found that there are actually aspects of working from home, for example, that they enjoyed or liked or that really suited their working style. Now it's yet another change that feels like it's being forced on me as well. And I know some workplaces are more strongly encouraging that return to work than others. So I think this is a really interesting topic because it's very easy for people to feel like I'm in trouble if I don't feel comfortable to come back to work yet. And I guess I want to share that that doesn't mean that you're a bad person if you're not aligned with the change that the workplaces wanting to the direction they're wanting to move in. But there is a real need to be honest about what works for me and what this job requires as well. Because there's this sort of balance between the two. It also doesn't mean that the workplace is bad if they're opting to have a working environment that involves people being present all the time. We need to remember that when we first came into our work lives, it was all new. We started with a blank slate. If you think about the very first job that you ever had, and put it in the comments and tell us what it was because I want to see how many people are still doing that and how many have gone to something new. But we had all these expectations about what that particular industry involved. And we came together. We had an interview. We set up a contract. We said, all right, I'm going to exchange this product or service or this work in return for you giving me money to live my life. So there was this less emotional, I guess, agreement that's mutually beneficial for the two people. And over time, things change. So it's it's simple to say, well, all right, now, now the situation has changed. Does this work still meet my needs? So I still meet the organization's needs. And if it works, great. And if it doesn't, can we make it work? And if it really doesn't, this is where I need to be very honest with myself and say, well, if it's just not working for what I want anymore, then perhaps it's time to change. Absolutely. Look, and you know, and I've said this before to the audience, I'm very fond of working from home. I'm working from coffee shops. I'm working from the beach and working from wherever I really damn well like. I'm very fond and there can be a psychological advantage if you're getting that way. If you're good, not everybody is, but if you're getting in that way, and I am, I'm very fond of that. However, my being able to do that relies on other people not being able to do that. If that makes any sense, in order for me to work from the coffee shop relies on somebody not being able to work from the coffee shop because they work at the coffee shop. There wouldn't be a coffee shop if they were working from home. Does that make sense? So it's a little bit of a luxury, the fact that I can work from these places because it relies on other people not being able to do it. So I'm aware of that, you know, and it's not always a fair system. So, but I do like it and I approve of it and I encourage if people can do it, please do some. Now, should you work from home all the time? Should I always be working on my own? Look, thousands of years ago, there's a very wise man that said, you know, he who isolates himself will see it's selfish longing. And this is an interesting look at the psychology of what happens to people if we completely isolate ourselves is we become selfish, we become egocentric, where we become less able to empathize with other people. But that's pure psychology because we have no contact with the world. And if we have no contact with the world, how are we shaped? How are we challenged? We don't get that. We can do whatever that we want. But when we do whatever we want, we can become one track mind. We don't become as complete in our experience as human beings. Maturity is a lot harder to achieve, not impossible, but it is harder to achieve from a psychological perspective. So these are things to have into consideration. It is true, though, that 2020 is providing us a a thinking time, isn't it? Like, yes, there's a lot of change. But at the same time, we can look and say, how do we want to live our lives? How do we exactly what are our choices? What are real choices when someone can come along and lock us up at home? Do we have any? So the interesting questions, do we need to change something in society to make sure that we have the freedom and the safety? Because we don't, we don't want to, we don't want to hurt other people. Well, normal people like us, we don't want to hurt other people. We do what we do because we want to help people. So what can we do? I mean, to me, a big question is not climate change. To me, a big question is earth cleanliness. What can we do in order to make the earth more clean? I don't want to go outside to the beach and it's full of rubbish. I don't think anybody wants that. Or I don't want to go outside in the city to have a cup of coffee and they get into smog. So is this an opportunity in which we take real appraisal of what we do? See, change can equal opportunity to kind of. So what's the opportunity here at work? Now we've experienced working from home. Most people have gotten used to this technology of, you know, where we can talk and we can be in real time with each other, which is amazing. This is like a miracle, right? This is an amazing magical technique, technology, which allows us to do that. You know, months ago, most people wouldn't even know how to, no, most people, a lot of people didn't even know how to turn on the computer and didn't know about this thing called zoom. Now everybody is zooming all around the place. Zoom, zoom, zoom. Right? So yes, change can be scary, but also it cause opportunity. So we need to get into that mindset, right? So how do we deal then with change and uncertainty that's been imposed? And I want to share what might sound like a bit of a contradictory approach, but stick with me on this. We're at one level, we want to look for where and how can I get that sense of certainty and security, particularly when it feels like there is none when things are in chaos. On the other hand, at another level, we also want to look at how can I surrender to that uncertainty and the seeming chaos. So these two kind of intertwine because sometimes the way you get control over a situation is by being OK, not having control. So you can get control by being OK without control. So a quick example, there might be in a workplace, there might be an announcement that there's going to be redundancies and I don't know if my job is going to be one of the ones going. I don't know what would happen if I did lose that job. Would I get another one? Where would I work? There's a lot of uncertainty in that scenario, right? So to answer for ourselves, the first question, where can I get a sense of certainty and control? How can I tap into something that I know for sure? What do I know for sure? Well, I know for sure that I can ask for information. I can ask about time frames. I can I can take. I can be empowered to ask those questions and find out what I can. There may or may not be answers, but I can ask. I know for sure that I have good skills. I've completed various training courses on the qualified person. I'm a dedicated person. So that puts me in good stead going forward for the future. I know that I can prepare my resume or my portfolio and have that ready and also so that I can have a sense of how much value I actually bring to the world. I can start to look at alternative options. So I know what's out there. If I need to sort of a contingency plan. What if I can't get another job? Well, I know for sure that I have X months of savings in the account as a bit of a buffer. Or I know for certain that I can find a way, even if it means taking on something else temporarily until I can get back into my industry, for example. So we're looking for just as many things as we can think of that can give me a sense of what I do know for sure what I am certain of so that we get a sense of control. And then we bring in the flip side, which is and now I surrender to whatever's going to happen. I wait and see will what's going to happen with the redundancies that may be absolutely. So I have done all all I can. I've done my best, put everything in place, practical steps and and now I wait. Yeah. And that waiting, I think, is oftentimes what people can sort of struggle with. Yeah. Some people are helped by having a faith or religion or something that they trust in sort of outside of myself. There's someone or something else, a higher power that is in control of everything, even if I'm not. But for other people, it can be a trust in myself. So reminding myself that I don't know what's going to happen, but I trust that whatever happens, I'll handle it. I will cope. I've always managed to get through till now in life, despite the things that have been thrown at me in life. And I will continue to do that. I will find a way. But having said all of that, there are some people who actually really thrive on uncertainty and change. Many of us find it difficult, but there are those those people that seem to love it. I'm sure you can think of people that seem to, you know, move location all the time or they switch jobs a lot. Or they they seem to handle it really well. So I'm curious and I'll get Peter to answer this. Yeah. Some people seem to cruise through or even thrive. I'm going to I'm going to sound like a grandpa now, but it reminds me of a story. Once I went into one of these opportunities, it was it was a job in which we were all new and it was like 15 people in there. And in the course of explaining to us what the the job was going to entail, they're mentioning passing that they didn't have the manager, a team leader for the team yet. That was it in passing. By the end of the one hour presentation, we had we had a little bit of a break in the middle and by the end, they told us that one of the ladies there had offered herself as a team leader and she was now the team leader. And I was like, oh my God. Yeah, that's an example of someone that goes with change very quickly and grabs it on. And I've seen people do that. I've seen people in which downsizing gets announced and a package is offered and they jump at the opportunity and they move, they grab the package, get out of there and before anybody else is looking for new jobs in the market, they are out there and they've got a job within two weeks because there's no competition. And then there's the normal way of acting in which people go and they get told they're going to get a mortgage. And five years later, there's still another downsize coming and there's still something. Obviously, the annoying ones, the ones that move quickly, they are annoying, the ones that have got a mindset in which change, move, change, move, change, action, change, action tend to do a lot better. And those that are changed are resisted, resisted for as long as they can, they're going to get upset, they're going to get depressed and they lose strength. So there's a mindset that doesn't love change but accepts change for what it is, the reality. And there's a mindset that allows people to move on quickly. So what do we see? How do we see those people that we can adopt? What do we learn from so that we can get better and making that change? Well, first of all, you see change, think of an action. Change action. And then don't just think of the action but implement the action if it's a good one. Now use change as a motivator not as a detractor. I've met some people that have caught a convincing or a convencer that takes a couple of months. You ask them how do you like this? I say I'll take you in a couple of months from a change adopting perspective that's an issue. You don't see good leaders taking a couple of months with decisions or waiting until they have all the information. They don't wait until they have all the information. They just need a summary. They just need a list of the benefits. And within a few minutes they've made a decision and once they've made a decision unless contradictory evidence doesn't come their way, they stick to that decision. It's a decision for sure. They also are okay with taking risk. They know that whatever decision they make will have an amount of risk or an amount of opportunity loss. That's what happens when you make a decision this way, you can't go the other way. It's like being in a car. If you decide to turn right that's it. You can't turn left at the same time. You miss that opportunity. But that's okay. Because right has got its benefits and left that as well. I often share with people a good way to practice this is to practice making decisions next time you go out to a restaurant to eat a meal. Some people will stress over the menu, what am I going to order? I know I like this because I had that last time but I should I always have the same thing every time? Or should I try something new? Just a really simple and fun way to practice taking safe risks and making decisions quickly is to be able to say right I've got 30 seconds and I'm going to decide and train yourself to be able to make those decisions quickly. You're generous. I was going to say 10 seconds. 30 seconds is a long time. The idea is to reduce the time that it takes you to make a decision. Because the only reason why you're taking so long or we take so long to make a decision is because of fear. So we need to get over the fear. The only way to get over the fear is to practice. Right? So that's a great exercise. But what would there has to be a little punishment if you don't make it within 30 seconds? What's the punishment? You have to pay for the meal. You have to pay for everybody's meal. I love it. I love it. Let's see what happens. If you guys put that into practice, tell us what happened. Also, what I see people with a good mindset around change is their self-talk. They don't ruminate. This is an important thing because especially women are given to ruminate. Ruminating is to go over the same decision again and again and again. Have you ever been like that? I have to back you up there and just let you know that's proven by the research. It's not a patriarchal thing at all. No, no. This is actually psychological studies they've done. It's women, not all women of course, but women as a group tend to ruminate on problems and decisions again and again. So they will make a decision, yes, I think I will wear white to the wedding next weekend. You can't wear white to a wedding. Unless you're the bride. Or maybe I won't wear white then. I'll wear yellow. By Tuesday, yellow maybe it doesn't look so good with my skin. I'll wear gray. No, then you'll stand out too much. I shouldn't have chosen. I shouldn't have chosen I'm waiting for the example then. But it's a good example, right? Because you go back to the decision. That's exhausting. It's related to higher rates of depression. It's one of the factors. And anxiety. And who suffers most anxiety in the world as a gender group? Women, by far. Why? Because if you think everything three or four times or you think about what you could have done or what you lost by making this decision, your husband I had two or three other men that were after me. What would have happened? You're never going to be happy where you are right now and your anxiety levels are going to go through the room. It's an ability. Make your decision and drop intellectually psychologically, drop the other choices that you didn't make. Stick to that one. And talk to yourself in such a way that supports your decision, not undermines it. What if I made a mistake? It's not a good question. And this comes to the self-talk. How we talk to ourselves. And I think we really on a whole we need to stop saying that I don't like change and we need to start telling ourselves that I love variety. I love adventure. Life is to be lived. Or maybe it's that I'm a laid back person even if you feel at some level maybe I'm not so much. If we can change the self-talk in our head in the direction that we want it to be so that we can start practicing those skills because the way our mind works it listens to what we tell ourselves. So if we tell ourselves this is stressful and I hate change, we're going to resist it and dislike it more and find it more difficult. If we tell ourselves it's going to be okay, something always works out one way or another and I go with the flow then we become our own coach, our own cheerleader to help us in the direction that we want to go in. Right. And remember basic change, act change, act change, act, change, act. The faster you can join the both, the easier change will be and the more likely change will become a fuel for good results and success in your life at every level and you know what as far as we know there's only one life as far as we know right there might be a sudden later, there might be a resurrection there might be a reincarnation but right now we've got this one, we may as well do as the best we can with it so the less time we waste in in adapting to change the better it is. So and I have to say Peter one of the changes that I've seen people make in this space is that in the past few months we're noticing that the world can change so drastically and quickly that I see more and more people willing to live for the moments so to speak so you know why wait till a month from now to go out to that restaurant for dinner we might not have a chance let's do it now let's enjoy it now let's make the most of the here and now why wait for retirement to do the job that I've always dreamed of why not make that happen now so that's sort of I think one of the trends that I'm seeing in terms of how people's psychology is shifting as a result of everything that's been going on in the world this year yeah yeah that's very true and that's something to think about and it comes it's a good introduction to the topic of next week because next week we're going to be talking part of what we're going to be talking about is going to be about how social media not social media alone but how being connected to screens all the time is impacting our relationships our most intimate relationships with our spouses, with our partners with our kids, with our friends not for the positive not for the positive but for the negative not anti screens but we will tell you exactly how that is this is happening and I'm not anti technology I love my technology but we need to be aware of this if we're not going to lose our humanity so we will talk about that next week because it's a very exciting topic I can't wait to talk to you about it I have to stop myself literally right now that's how interesting it is so we've looked at why change can be challenging the increasing pace of change some of the changes that people are dealing with at the moment and how we can deal with uncertainty on one level but also how some people really thrive on change and uncertainty and how we can use that more effectively that mindset of positive change so I'm going to put a call out there just to see if there's any final questions before we wrap up for today in the meantime Peter any final comments on the trends that you see for the future of well-being and particularly well-being at work yes of course a very positive one where people have got more flexibility in the workforce especially for women or men that have got responsibility with kids it's very positive in that regard but let's remember that these changes only apply to luxurious states like the western western society where we have the luxury where we can do this hopefully other people around the world will soon be able to do that too the positive as well is that psychologically we're aware of the things that work really well in this space so this information is now available this in-depth and advanced information is also coming to you for free we're talking about it now and this can be very useful but it needs to reach more people so the more we share this information with other people the better it is you never know who's needing it we're all in control freaks in potential control freaks it just takes fear for us to become more controlling so don't let fear of change or any type of fear but fear of change dominate your life so let's get on with the change and I think we're going to brace ourselves because a lot of change is coming over the next few months as well so we'll see what they are and peter aunty kick has put in a great comment here about perfectionism and can make it harder to change sometimes wait for everything to be perfect when we should move first and then adjust and then move closer to perfection if such a thing even exists because who decides what's perfect and that's what I was going to talk about I think a very good question should have talked about that is what's perfect I mean what standard is perfect and sometimes we need to look at if I have perfectionism that's not a that's not a virtue I find it funny because I used to be one of those I used to talk about I'm a perfectionist as if it was a virtue it's not a virtue it doesn't achieve anything it lets you postpone very conveniently because if you can't make it perfect you don't have to do anything so it's very self-serving if we're really honest with ourselves it's a little bit selfish because what does it mean most people that claim that don't achieve anything I always give the example someone who wants to write the perfect book but if you spend 80 years perfecting the perfect book then you've deprived the rest of the world from that enjoyment for 80 years even if we looked at the technology that we have now it's been continuously improved over time we didn't wait until we had perfect technology before we start using things and we get it out there we get a certain level and we put it out into the world and then you improve that's continuous quality improvement I remember that's a very interesting one because now with Lucas I experienced a little bit of this it's just an example but when I was a kid and we didn't like some food we were fussy about food my grandparents whoever was there they used to say, you know what your problem is you haven't experienced hunger if you had experienced hunger you would eat everything now that I'm older I agree we're only perfectionists because we are spoiled and we can wait and not much happens life doesn't completely crumble it gets destroyed if we postpone things other people don't have the luxury of postponing other people don't have the luxury of perfectionism they have to do with whatever is available to them and I think that's a brilliant skill to be able to have in life it's probably a work in progress for a lot of us to practice that dropping the perfectionism and it is a work in progress because we need to sit down and write down specifically what's my belief around this how do I know when I have achieved this goal so there's a method in which you can get out of this and do something how would I know when I have achieved this goal is it something that I see is it something that I feel is it something that I hear is it something that I do and then look at this because if we're suffering from perfectionism one of those rules that we have imposed on ourselves is not realistic but when we find it and we go oh that's not realistic what would be more realistic than that and then we change that with the realistic goal we stop being perfectionist remember at the end of the day if you're hungry a beautifully presented meal is fantastic but a normal meal will do the job too and sometimes what we need to do is get it done I was just about to say that's been one of the most useful pieces of advice that I've ever received it doesn't have to be perfect it just has to get done progress is better than perfect we can repeat these things to ourselves until we get it and if we learn anything from Microsoft and Bill Gates and we haven't you can put it out a completely shorty product to the world sell it for billions of dollars and then a few months later put version 2 out and on that note I'm going to wrap up before we get ourselves in trouble thanks everyone for joining us today as you said next week we've got social media we're going to be talking more about mental health and the pointy end of the continuum when it comes to mental health as well so make sure to like and follow the page so you get the notification brilliant topic what to do when it all gets too much we hope to see you there bye bye everybody thanks for joining take care thank you bye hi I'm Emmy Golding director of psychology for the Workplace Mental Health Institute we hope you liked the video if you did make sure to give it a thumbs up we have more and more videos being released each week so when you subscribe you'll get a notification letting you know when a new one's just been published so make sure to hit that subscribe button and don't miss out on this vital information for yourself, your colleagues and your loved ones