a new year

Like clockwork, the beginning of a New Year is always guaranteed to herald two things - people making unrealistic goals and experts and the media trying to predict what trends are going to dominate over the next 12 months, from food to fashion, marketing to money markets and tech to transportation (one of my NY resolutions is to stop my unhealthy addiction to alliteration). 

One of the consistent societal trends that has been repeatedly mentioned this year is an increase in mental health issues, with the World Health Organisation saying that by 2030, the largest health risk on the planet will be depression, not obesity. 

The pandemic, money pressures, lack of faith in major institutions, climate change; there are so many big-picture things to worry about that it’s hard for people to feel in control of their situation, with their private worries compounding on top of the macro worries.

Anyway, this is not meant to be a depressing reminder of how eff-d certain things are, but more to highlight why good mental health practices are going to be so important for everyone moving forward…

We all need to make mental health, ours, our teams, our families, a priority this year. Schools are considering introducing mental health lessons (which I believe would be a great idea), all exercise trends are pointing towards the combination of physical exercise with mental wellbeing…anyway, you get the picture. We need to protect our minds and work with those minds that live and work around us. 

At Rocket, we describe ourselves as ‘proudly different’ and this is partly because we have a group of people that had or do have our own mental quirks; ADHD, anxiety, we’re a spectrum smorgasbord (there’s that blumin’ alliteration again!). But these mental superpowers are what makes us different and what makes us creative, lateral and in my unbiased opinion, relatable and pretty bloody funny. 

With this in mind, as a small business owner, I intend to introduce a few things this year to help both my own as well as my team’s mental well-being, whilst letting their mental superpowers shine. Nothing unrealistic (see above about unrealistic goals), just little and often steps to make sure we’re all in our best mental states to deliver our best. 

We’re kicking this off with a goals and motivations session, where we will be talking about goals (personal and professional) and also motivators, what is going to keep us motivated through the year, whether that is team outings to look forward to, targeting new clients who team members are keen to work with and team incentives (NB: these don’t always need to be financial says the business owner;-)). 

We’ll be bringing back our ‘Wellness Wednesdays’ where we’ll start the day with a reflection and a manifestation of good things to come. Although we won’t be charging our crystals during this time, it’s the perfect opportunity to evaluate where we are and where we want to get to. 

We’re starting a 300kms team walking challenge, kicking this off in February by taking part in Breast Cancer Trials 57kms Dog Walking challenge, where you need to walk 57kms in the month of February with your fluffy best friend - time with your dog and exercise, that’s got to be good for your mental wellbeing!

We’re making sure that we have lots of micro-joy moments sprinkled into our week, there will be no shortage of sharing funny stories, anecdotes, social videos, celebrity stories and jokes. Sharing the best and worst moments of a week at the end of every week is a quick way to put things into perspective with your team and also maybe have a bit of a laugh about some of the things that may not have gone quite as planned. 

Critical to a mentally healthy workplace is obviously open dialogue. Colleagues need to feel that they can express their views, ideas, concerns without any retribution and we will be making sure that we do exactly that. But also, as the boss, I need to get better at letting them know how I am feeling about things - both from a work and personal perspective. Not only does that encourage open dialogue from the top, but it will also expose them to the trials and tribulations of being a small business owner, an education as such for this bunch of potential entrepreneurs and future business owners that I work with. 

So, we’re going into 2024 mindfully and positively and we hope that you will too…

Also, we’re really keen to work with a mental health charity this year,  so let us know if you know of anyone who wants a bit of healthy, mindful Rocket fuel :-).

Take care of yourselves this year, both in body and mind. Namaste and all that ;-)...