Don’t wait. There is no right time.

Are you waiting for the time to be just right? Are you waiting until you feel like it?

One of the hardest facts about mental health recovery is that you are never going to feel like it. There will never be perfect circumstances for working on this stuff. Why? Because it’s hard. Making positive change is hard. Then maintaining positive change is hard too. So the urge to put it off will always be there.

The relationship between our emotions and behaviour is a two-way street. It is true that how we feel can influence how we behave. But crucially, it is also true that how we behave changes how we feel. When you start to do the best by yourself, your feelings will shift too.

So don’t wait for the positive feelings to arrive, make them happen. If you want to experience more joy, start with actions that create joy for you. If you want to experience peace, start with actions that create peace for you. If you are someone who needs more support and guidance to find those things, start with a local therapist or trusted friend. Just start.

There is no perfect time to start improving your mental health. Whatever you start working on today will not be wasted. If you start and fail, you can learn from that and try again. There is always one small action that can get the ball rolling. When you wake up tomorrow, you’ll be glad you started today.