During exam season, it can be a struggle to build and maintain momentum in the final weeks of preparation for the big exams. Stress levels can be at an all-time high and while some stress can help keep you motivated and focused, too much can be unhelpful. Here we look at tactics and strategies to help you focus your efforts and build study resilience in the weeks ahead. The Art of Distraction With a mammoth task like exam preparation, it can be easy to fall into the trap of procrastination – we’ve all been there!  However, the more you procrastinate the worse you feel and the greater your anxiety might become. The psychology profession outlines two types of procrastination – active and passive. Active procrastinators deliberately decide to procrastinate as they believe they work better under pressure. Whereas passive procrastination is seen as the more negative of the two where people are paralysed by indecision or lack of confidence, loading them with anxiety causing even further stress and inaction. Passive procrastination is usually a sign of something bigger – performance anxiety, fear of failure or simply to avoid negative feelings.  At its core, procrastination is about emotions, not productivity. Therefore, it is important to identify the reason why you are procrastinating and try to address it. There are ways to beat the procrastination bug if it’s really impacting your focus, here is where your study schedule and a reward system will come in handy. Blocking out chunks of time for study will help you concentrate on the task in hand. Don’t bite of more than you can chew either though, quick burst of 30-40 minutes study might work best for you to help keep your focus.  Reward yourself after completing a task whether that’s a quick cup of tea and a treat, a scroll through your social media or half an hour of your favourite show. Tap into and regulate your emotions with mindfulness techniques, mediation or breathing exercises to better manage your feelings around studying and exams. Time Management Time management is key to exam success and helps you gain control. Use a day planner or a weekly schedule to help you determine your available time. Managing and mapping out your day can bring structure to your study without it feeling too overwhelming. However, be realistic with your schedule and don’t overload your day. For maximum efficiency, determine and prioritise the subjects you find most difficult and focus on them first. Certain subjects may also warrant more study time than others. Get to know your body clock, there may be times throughout the day or week where you feel more alert or sluggish than usual and use these times to your advantage. Track your progress and by the end of the week you will feel a sense of accomplishment with all the work you have done over the past few days, and it will help shape your schedule for the next week. Most importantly, schedule time for relaxing activities and exercise too - your body and mind will thank you for it! Studies have shown that exercise improves cognitive performance so consider it as part of the exam preparation. Meet up or chat with friends and family to help you reset and have time away from work and study for some fun. Think of the Bigger Picture! When caught up in the stress of study and exams, it can be hard to motivate yourself and gain perspective on why you are actually doing it. Studying to be a chartered accountant is challenging – the personal sacrifices you have made, the unattended social gatherings, the copious amounts of exams and years you have already put in etc. But if you look to your goals and the end game you can find the motivation to carry on. Think of why you decided to become an accountant in the first place, the career goals you want to achieve and where you want to be in a few years’ time. These exams are leading up to something bigger and are a means to achieving your goal. By keeping this in mind, it can help you attain the self-discipline and encouragement you might need when you feel your efforts and motivation begin to wane. Wishing you all the best for the weeks ahead. Happy Studying! If you need more advice on preparing for your exams, Thrive has a dedicated student hub to help you navigate student life. Alternatively, you can contact the CA Support wellbeing team in confidence on mobile: (353) 86 024 3294 or by email: thrive@charteredaccountants.ie.

When it comes to mental wellbeing, you often hear the term resilience. But what is it and why is it important? Resilience is your ability to cope with change and adversity. By strengthening your resilience, you’re better able to maintain your mental wellbeing through all of life's ups and downs. Being resilient doesn’t mean that you won't ever feel overwhelmed, under pressure or stressed. But it does mean that your behaviours, habits and emotional health allow you to handle that pressure more effectively, reducing its negative impact on your overall wellbeing. The good news is that resilience is something we can all learn. We’re all capable of establishing new behaviours and habits that promote resilience and empower us to remain calm, confident, healthy and effective in the face of new challenges. Here are 5 ways to boost your resilience: 1. Find a new perspective As humans, we have a natural negative bias, which means we tend to assume the worst about every new situation. This was a useful natural survival instinct thousands of years ago when dangers and predators lurked around every corner. Nowadays however it can mean we’re more likely to feel anxious or stressed about new situations and makes it difficult to see or make the most of new opportunities. The next time you find yourself dwelling on the negatives, ask yourself the following questions: Is there another way of looking at this situation? Do I need more information? How will I benefit from the way I am thinking/feeling/behaving? You might find that when you allow for a more positive interpretation of events, things naturally feel a little easier. 2. Get the rest your body needs Without sufficient sleep, we find it more difficult to challenge our natural negative bias. We’re also more likely to make poor decisions, be irritable and struggle with poor concentration. It’s not hard to see why a good night’s sleep is crucial for a more calm, considered and resilient approach. But it's not just sleeping that matters. It’s important to take regular breaks throughout the day. These brief pauses allow your brain space for more creative thinking, help you retain and process information and improve your focus. This clarity and productivity helps you to feel in control and reduces stress. As little as 5 minutes away from your computer or phone every 90 minutes or so will make a big difference to how you feel. 3. Fuel your brain and your body What we eat and drink can have a big impact on our resilience levels. Simple things like staying hydrated, reducing your caffeine intake and eating three balanced meals each day can help. But it’s also important to pay attention to changes in your blood sugar levels, which can affect your mood and your energy levels. Eating slow-release carbohydrates such as oats, brown rice and quinoa help to stabilise your blood sugar levels, meaning you’ll avoid the energy slump, loss of focus and irritability that often accompanies fast food and snack fuelled sugar crashes. Top tip: Dark leafy green vegetables, nuts and seeds contain high levels of magnesium, which helps to regulate the production of the stress hormone cortisol and assists with the release of GABA, a calming neurotransmitter. 4. Celebrate your success Noting down your achievements or things that have gone well and made you happy has several benefits for your emotional health. Reflecting on our successes improves self-confidence and helps us to feel positive about ourselves. Writing down your achievements can also serve as a tangible reminder of your personal strengths whenever you feel insecure about a new situation. 5. Practice mindfulness The underlying principle of mindfulness is that we can simply observe and notice our thoughts and feelings without letting them impact our wellbeing. This focus on emotional regulation and self-control is essential for resilience. With regular practice, mindfulness can help you approach new and challenging situations with a sense of calm and clarity. Article reproduced with the kind permission of caba, the organisation providing lifelong support to ICAEW members, ACA students and their close family around the world.

Self-compassion is the ability to treat yourself with the same care and kindness as you would a good friend who was going through a difficult and stressful time. 'Unlike self-criticism, which asks if you're good enough, self-compassion asks what's good for you, what do you need?' Kristin Neff Showing compassion to others When we are compassionate to others, we have an intention to be with them through the difficulties they are experiencing and to alleviate their suffering and stress in some way. This can often be very different to the way we treat ourselves through the challenges of life. How often have we provided support for someone we care about and yet end up criticising ourselves endlessly for our various perceived inadequacies or shortcomings. Many of us have been taught to put others first. But neglecting ourselves in order to do this isn't an effective or sustainable long term strategy without considering what we need to keep emotionally well. Maintaining the inner capacity to be there for our family, friends and colleagues is reliant on looking after ourselves well. Self-compassion means you are understanding and kind to yourself when confronted with personal failings and mistakes – after all, whoever said you were supposed to be perfect? Why we need to be compassionate towards ourselves Feeling stressed and being hard on ourselves is very common, especially in a culture which is increasingly performance and target focused. Loneliness and isolation are also increasing in our ever digitally focused world. If you are finding it difficult to manage the many challenges, threats and distractions of our modern world, you are not alone. With current figures of one in four people developing a mental health difficulty in any given year and the rising levels of distress within young people, many people are struggling to align life with their deeper values and needs. A self-critical and unkind stance towards yourself when you are going through testing times will only serve to activate the fight or flight stress response, clouding the minds ability to remain calm. Some people may feel reluctant to develop self-compassion as they might feel the notion is self-indulgent or self-pitying. But developing the ability and strength to face and manage our difficulties, without isolating ourselves from others and becoming absorbed in our own pain is the essence of courageous living. Being able to attend to your own difficulties and challenges wisely will enable you to have the spare emotional capacity to engage with others and life in a more helpful way. According to Kristin Neff there are three key elements to compassion: Self-kindness An ability to relate to ourselves with warmth and kindness. Common humanity The appreciation that we all suffer at times and you are not alone in these feelings. Mindful awareness The ability to view our difficulties in a balanced perspective so that we can keep engaging in life. How to develop emotional resilience There has been much interest in the effects of developing compassion within ourselves from a scientific perspective. Research has shown that people who score high on self-compassion: Cope better with adversities Take more personal initiative and responsibility Are less fearful of making mistakes and being rejected Are more emotionally intelligent, happier and more optimistic Take better care of themselves physically and emotionally The good news is that our compassionate self can be developed and enhanced through training and practice so that we become more attuned to supporting ourselves through the difficulties of life rather than sabotaging ourselves and making situations more unmanageable than they need to be. How to be kinder and more compassionate to yourself Be aware of your internal voice Becoming aware of how we talk to ourselves, the tone of voice we use and language we use gives us the opportunity to move from harshness to supportive tendencies. Noticing the good Being able to notice and celebrate moments of the day and our good qualities is an essential part of managing and balancing difficult times. Each day ask yourself: When have I been at my best today for someone else? What has been my best moment of today? Give yourself encouragement It is more effective to become your own internal ally and support system rather than your own harshest critic. Written by: Kirsty Lilley Kirsty has delivered mindfulness and self-compassion courses to a wide variety of workplaces during her career and is also a trained psychotherapist and coach. She has worked at a strategic level within organisations developing wellbeing policies and been responsible for developing training courses on improving mental health and wellbeing. Kirsty is committed to an integrated and compassionate approach when helping others to fulfil their potential. Article reproduced with the kind permission of CABA, the organisation providing lifelong support to ICAEW members, ACA students and their close family around the world.

Embracing a positive perspective is a key ingredient for personal wellbeing. Aaron O’Connell asks you to consider whether you’re a glass half full or glass half empty person, and he provides a useful exercise to help you view life with a different filter and to boost your well-being. Some questions for you to consider Do you have tendency to see things positively where you are focusing on the good things that happen around you, or do you focus on the negatives, those obstacles and problems you face?  If you have a to-do list and you manage to successfully complete 19 out of 20 things, are you happy about the long list of things you’ve accomplished, or are you upset about that one thing that you didn’t get to finish? It’s your choice A hundred good things (little highlights) and one bad thing (a little low-light) might happen during your day. You have the opportunity to appreciate and remember all the good things, or to focus only on the bad things. You can look at life through a different filter. Embracing a positive perspective One useful exercise I recommend to the athletes, students and business people I work with, and indeed practice myself every night at bedtime, is to recall seven positive things that happen during the day. It’s something I picked up from internationally acclaimed sport psychologist, Dr. Terry Orlick. Before you sleep, look back over your day chronologically and highlight those good things that happened. They don’t have to be major events. Little highlights will do. “I had a lovely breakfast.” “The sun was shining today.” “I got a call from a good friend.” “I went for a lovely walk today.” You could begin this exercise by recalling three positives and increase by one each time after a few days. Look for different ones each day. As Dr. Orlick would say, it’s like “using a yellow magic marker to highlight all the good things you do, see, hear, taste, feel, and learn in a day.” Even better, write them down in a journal or on your phone. You’ll get a buzz out of revisiting and re-reading these when you’ve had a tough day. Using a different filter and living with a positive perspective is like becoming your own best friend. It’ll change your outlook in life for the good. Challenge yourself to look for seven highlights a day. Once you start looking for them and finding them, your day and your life immediately become better. You’ll experience a boost in wellbeing along with an increase in gratitude. Aaron O’Connell is the owner of Mind Your Performance. He provides consultancy and training in mental skills, mental well-being, and performance enhancement for the education, business, and sports sector. Thrive is the Institute’s dedicated wellbeing hub which provides emotional and practical support to our members, students, and their family members for life. Should you find yourself in a difficult situation, the team at Thrive can help steer you through life’s ups and downs.  Talk to us today on mobile: (353) 86 024 3294 or email us.  

Happy International Women’s Day!  Yesterday (March 7), Thrive and the Institute’s Member Experience team welcomed over 100 guests to our Step into your Power Sparkling Lunch in celebration of International Women’s Day.   In the wonderful surroundings of the Dean Townhouse, we were joined by members and students of the chartered community who had travelled from all corners of Ireland to attend the event.  In her opening address, Dee France, from the Institute’s Thrive Wellbeing Hub, outlined the importance of shining a spotlight on some of the key challenges women continue to face in the workplace and at home, while celebrating the many advances made in recent times.  Guests enjoyed a keynote speech from Aoife Hughes, founder of FRAZZLE, entitled “How to run your home like a business” where attendees were encouraged to manage their time and boundaries more effectively while outsourcing and delegating the workload to give themselves more time for self-care ultimately leading to “calm in the chaos”.  Aisling McCaffrey, Director at Grant Thornton, facilitated a panel discussion covering some key issues of the day namely how to build confidence in the workplace, the importance of male allyship and how leaders can champion inclusion, and childcare reform and what the Institute is doing in this important area.  The panellists, Charlotte Rose Keating, founder Act on it Coaching, Andrew Keating, CFO at Musgrave and the Institute’s Tax and Public Policy Lead, Cróna Clohisey, shared many important insights into how they navigate their own personal challenges and successes both in their professional and personal lives.   The final segment of the afternoon was a fireside chat with President, Sinead Donovan and CASSI Chair Caelainn McGonigle.  Sinead outlined that, despite the many highs and lows in her 33 year career as a Chartered Accountant, the Institute had been the one constant during that time.  She shared her passion for sport and running and the importance of having a “release valve” when times get tough. Asking for help and leaning on the allies around you, was her parting advice for the #nextgen leaders of the future.   The event was also raising funds for two very important charities, CA Support (the Institute’s in-house charity and benevolent fund), and Women’s Aid, who had recently supported the Institute in the launch of its Domestic Violence Policy.  Brian Murphy, chair of CA Support, outlined the importance of donating vital funds to CA Support as the majority of the cases the charity support are families – mothers and fathers who have encountered adversity and are in dire need of assistance.   The final thoughts of the day were summed up by President Sinead Donovan, who implored anyone in the family of accountants who is struggling to seek out support from those around them.  Dee France, in her closing remarks, reminded all attendees of the Institute’s Thrive Wellbeing Hub and that the confidential service is open to all, whatever stage of their chartered journey.   Thank you to all who attended.  View photos from the event here.

Paul Guess explains what work-related burnout means and outlines the pivotal role managers can play in prevention and recovery Many people think of ‘burnout’ as solely related to how much they work. They believe just taking some time off will relieve feelings of overwhelm and pressure and that they can quickly return to work feeling refreshed and renewed. Several factors can cause burnout, however, and it is unlikely to be resolved by taking a break. One of the most important contributors to a person’s well-being at work is their relationship with their manager. As burnout has been classified as an “occupational phenomenon” by the World Health Organization, support at work is essential to curb the rising tide of overwhelm at work.  The manager's role is critical in assessing and addressing employee burnout. Here are some tips to support leaders in preventing and managing burnout in their teams. 1. Be knowledgeable about the factors that contribute to burnout  Research has indicated the six areas that, when left unchecked, can lead to burnout. Recognising how these areas impact a team can give leaders a better idea of how to improve.  Workload Do staff have a clearly defined job description, and are their responsibilities reasonable? Additionally, do they have the resources they need to fulfil the duties assigned to them? Perceived lack of control When people feel they have a say in the decisions being made that are related to their job, it can positively affect well-being and reduce feelings of disengagement and cynicism.  Appreciation and reward When people feel the extrinsic and intrinsic rewards of their job don’t match their effort and time, they can become disengaged and unmotivated – a key indicator of burnout. Fairness Ensure that people receive fair and equitable treatment. Transparency and trust are the foundations of psychological safety within the workplace, and innovation and creativity flow from this. It is essential to effectively communicate the thinking behind decisions that impact them. Community It is vital that people feel a sense of belonging within the organisation. Develop opportunities to bring teams together and keep connections strong to build positive relationships, as loneliness and isolation are often drivers of poor mental health and well-being. Values Do the leadership’s behaviours create an environment in which people feel that it’s okay to look after their well-being? Role modelling and recognising their own management style and how it contributes to an employee’s experience is an important piece of reflective work that will lead to improved relationships. 2. Pay attention to the warning signs of poor mental health There are common indicators of burnout that managers should be aware of: poor decision making; reduced concentration levels;  feelings of overwhelm;  withdrawal; procrastination;  inability to prioritise tasks effectively;  poor timekeeping;  relationship difficulties;  expressions of anger and frustration; and  increasing cynicism and disengagement. If a manager notices these behaviours in a team member,  they must be aware of how to manage burnout in an employee. There are several steps they should take:  Start supportive conversations  Managers should use one-on-one opportunities to start exploring what might be driving any difficulty. Some people will need a little encouragement to open up, so actively listening to what they say, creating space and responding sensitively will help to reassure them that their manager is there to support them. If they feel stressed or overwhelmed by their workload, guide them on how to handle pressure. Set clear goals and spotlight progress When people don’t have clear goals, they either become stuck because they are unsure where to invest their energy or frantically churn out work in the hope it will be valuable. Good leadership involves setting clear goals that contribute to the team’s success. It’s also important to recognise progress and highlight any accomplishments or achievements by individuals or the team. Protect the team’s time A manager must protect their team’s time, especially regarding their well-being. Ensure that people take time off in light of illness, bereavement or other notable situations. Encourage people to take their annual holiday allowance and have some protected time to rest and decompress during periods away from work. Managers should always be practising the behaviours they encourage, so they must be sure to take their own time off as well. Paul Guess is a mental wellbeing expert at caba, the occupational charity supporting ICAEW