Most of us have seen the most recent reports stating that we’ll be seeing some of the major effects of the Climate Crisis by 2040. Lots of cities are at risk of flooding such as Miami, Osaka and Shanghai which will displace millions of people, the poorest of which will likely be the most affected; and this is only thinking about a small part of how HUMANITY will be affected, the amount of other creatures that will suffer though this is quite frankly inconceivable!
The future of the planet are pretty bleak, and it’s understandable that so many people find this news contributing negatively to their mental health. Children and young people are particularly affected by this as many end up feeling like “what’s the point! My future is horrendous!” and you can completely see where they’re coming from. Therapists are in fact struggling to deal with the amount of people who have what’s been coined “Climate depression” or “Environmental Melancholia” as the overwhelming evidence of how awful things are going to be is a hard thing to enable someone to deal with.
What really gets to a lot of us is the loss of the environment, the utter powerlessness that most feel toward the ‘inevitable end’ and the feeling of guilt about how we ourselves have been living. I would wager that you probably have felt a number of these things about climate change too.
But enough about how bad things are, we all know that and there’s no point in writing yet another article going on about it. Being more in the biz of pro-activity and moving forward I’m only interested in writing about something if I can talk about what we can do about the issue at hand, and so that’s exactly what I’m going to do: In this world of bad news and shitty situations with the environment, having only a few decades left before we really start to see the effects of climate change, the best thing that we as individuals can do (assuming you’re not the owner of multi million dollar fossil fuel company and if you are just fucking stop it! Do something else for your millions!) is to work on our personal development, and there are a variety of reasons for this:
1. If it really is the end of society in a few years, might as well spend it doing something you love.
Seriously guys, in the book The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, Bonnie Ware, a carer to people who are dying, talks about what the biggest regrets are that she often hears from people, the biggest by far is “I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me”.
The best way to find out what it is that you love to do is to really invest some quality time into your personal development.
Take some time to think, just think and to visualise what you want in you life (see a blog I wrote here about visualisation), whatever you’re drawn to try it out, that’s how you develop as a person and find out who you are and what you really care about. Hire a coach if you really have no idea where to start. You can get a lot out of just one session with a coach and one session won’t set your bank account balance too far, you’ll be pleased you did!
Also shameless self promotion moment: I’m actually about to release a super workbook that’ll enable you to figure out where to start when you have no clue, so watch this space!
2. Doing things that you love will make you happy, happy people naturally find it easier to make healthier lifestyle choices.
Combating the guilt we often feel for living unhealthy lifestyles which contribute to global climate crisis is a toughie. If you’re exhausted from working a job and living a life that you don’t currently get much joy from then it’s really hard to eat healthy, cut down on meat and processed food, walking/cycling instead of driving a short distance, washing the dishes by hand instead of using the dishwasher etc. Willpower is a finite resource and if it is drained from living a life you don’t enjoy you don’t have any more willpower left for decisions like the ones mentioned above. It’s exhausting!
Essentially I have come to see personal development and having the courage to live a life true to who are as a responsibility we have not just to ourselves, but to the planet, and even to other people. It makes us better people overall when we live a life we enjoy and will give us the energy we need to go against the grain and make more healthy decisions for both ourselves, others and the planet!
3. The happier people are, the more they want to work together, the more likely we will be to be able to work together to prevent the climate crisis from getting any worse!
This is literally the reason why I got into writing these blogs and starting a career as a coach. Something that we all crave as human beings is the need to contribute and work together toward a bigger cause, something bigger than ourselves. As above, this is also something that is hard to do when we are exhausted from working a job that we hate and living a life that’s not true to who we are.
I really care about the planet, and when I was thinking about what skills I had at my disposal to try and do my bit to help prevent the climate crisis, I realised that the best thing I could do would be to encourage and help people to live a life that makes them happy, because happy people contribute to problem solving! This is why I have my catchphrase “The World Needs You to be You” because I truly believe that living a life true to you will encourage you, and anyone else doing the same to band together and do what they can to solve the planetary problems created by us!
When you’re living a life true to you and doing things that makes you happy, you are energised! When you are energised you naturally have more energy to spend. When you have more energy to spend you start to work on things that you really care about, volunteering is a great way to meet people who are living in their elements because they have the energy to give back to the community.
So do yourself, your community, our society and the planet a favour! Take some time, do what you need to do to find out who you are. To find out what you love. Then do the things that you love. You will then have the motivation and the energy to contribute to the solving of the planets problems! Let me know what you’re going to do to find out what makes you happy in an email or a comment! I would love to know how you’re going to make the world a better place just be being you (and believe me, being yourself is all it takes!).
Remember, the world needs you to be you!
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