Building The Social Bank.

In the last post we spoke about the importance of learning healthy communication to mental health. In this post we are building off of this concept and really looking at Building The Social Bank and how it impacts mental health. I was recently watching the Heisman Trophy Presentation and the acceptance speech was great. As with every acceptance speech like that, or every post game interview on ESPN the winner focused on giving credit to many members of his family, each of his parents individually, siblings, even his grandmother. From there it went to many different coaches, teammates, and basically every personal relationship in his life. He didn't talk about his mental skills, practice, or really even hard work, but essentially how everyone in his life inspired and motivated him. With tears flowing you could really see the move and how it made him into who he is and how he works as a person. Everything he spoke about was consistent with my relationship with athletes and elite performance, as across the board relationships were the most important factors to how an athlete performed. Although he is an athlete, these lessons and topics go beyond sports, and are lessons for everyone (and consistent with my research). What he was talking about was building his social bank.

So what does Building The Social Bank really mean? In this instance we are using the terms to look at how those people around you build you up, teach you values, resilience, motivation, confidence, and essentially help shape you as a person. In reality these same people can bring you down, but for the purpose of this blog we are only focusing on the positives of relationships.

We obviously know that to be successful in anything as a person we have to build relationships, and healthy ones (as discussed prior). We need to be open to trusting others, listening to them, and taking in their feedback to help us grow as a person, even when we disagree with them. We want to ask questions, and internalize every experience we can. This will help us learn to manage anxiety, remain motivated when we are facing adversity or challenges, and push through. In the end this helps confidence grow. These skills are not unique to athletes, as everyone can learn the skills to do this with the right guidance.

The holidays are obviously the time of family and friends. It is the time to work on these relationships, embracing the time we have with others. It is a time to recharge, and have fun. Why is this important? Because by spending time doing this now adds currency to our social bank. We are adding more and more to our mindset at a natural time of year when it is all about relationships. This only bodes well for the future. it is turning down the volume of stress now when we enjoy the time with others. Eventually stress will go up, maybe into the new year. At that point, we will have extra in the bank to deal with this stress and better manage it.

The goal from that point further will be to keep adding to the bank. Like every investment we are looking for a positive return to keep adding to the social bank account. We want additions to always be more than the withdrawls. the more we do this the more mentally healthy and successful we can be as person. So if you are ready to open a new Social Bank Account, reach out to Peak Mental Performance Coaching and we can teach you the skills to build some social currency.