Harlan Coben believes that if you’re a writer, you’ll find the time; and that if you can’t find the time, then writing isn’t a priority and you’re not a writer. For him writing is a 1 job—a job like any other. He has 2 it with plumbing, pointing out that a plumber doesn’t wake up and say that he can’t work with pipes today.

3 , like most writers these days, you’re holding down a job to pay the bills, it’s not 4 to find the time to write. But it’s not impossible. It requires determination and single-mindedness. 5 that most bestselling authors began writing when they were doing other things to earn a living. And today, even writers who are fairly 6 often have to do other work to 7 their writing income.

As Harlan Coben has suggested, it’s a 8 of priorities. To make writing a priority, you’ll have to 9 some of your day-to-day activities and some things you really enjoy. Depending on your 10 and your lifestyle, that might mean spending less time watching television or listening to music, though some people can write 11 they listen to music. You might have to 12 the amount of exercise or sport you do. You’ll have to make social media an 13 activity rather than a daily, time-consuming 14 . There’ll probably have to be less socialising with your friends and less time with your family. It’s a 15 learning curve and it won’t always make you popular.

There’s just one thing you should try to keep at least some time for, 16 your writing—and that’s reading. Any writer needs to read as much and as widely as they can; it’s the one 17 supporter—something you can’t do without.

Time is finite. The older you get, the 18 it seems to go. We need to use it as carefully and as 19 as we can, that means prioritising our activities so that we spend most time on the things we really want to do. If you’re a writer, that means—20 writing.

Your social life is defined as “the activities you do with other people, for pleasure, when you are not working”. It’s important to have a social life, but what’s right for one person won’t be right for another. Some of us feel energised by spending lots of time with others, 1 some of us may feel drained, even if it’s doing something we enjoy.

This is why finding a 2 in your social life is key. Spending too much time on your own, not 3 others, can make you feel lonely and 4 . Loneliness is known to impact on your mental health and 5 a low mood. Anyone can feel lonely at any time. This might be especially true if, 6 , you are working from home and you are 7 on the usual social conversations that happen in an office. Other life changes can 8 periods of loneliness too, such as retirement, changing jobs or becoming a parent.

It’s important to recognise these feelings of loneliness. There are ways to 9 a social life, but it can feel overwhelming 10 . It’s a great idea to start by thinking about hobbies you enjoy. You can then find groups and activities related to those where you will be able to meet 11 people. There are groups aimed at new parents, at those who want to 12 a new sport for the first time, or networking events for those in the same profession to meet up and 13 ideas.

On the other hand, it’s 14 possible to have too much of a social life. If you feel like you’re always doing something and there is never any 15 in your calendar for downtime, you could suffer social burnout or social 16 . We all have our own social limit and it’s important to recognise when you’re feeling like it’s all too much. Low mood, low energy, irritability and trouble sleeping could all be 17 of poor social health. Make sure you 18 some time in your diary when you’re 19 for socialising and use this time to relax, 20 and recover.

There are many understandable reasons why you might find it difficult to ask for help when you need it. Psychologists have been interested in this 1 for decades, not least because people’s widespread 2 to ask for help has led to some high-profile failures.

Asking for help takes 3 . It involves communicating a need on your part—there’s something you can’t do. 4 , you’re broadcasting your own weaknesses, which can be 5 . You might have 6 about losing control of whatever it is you are asking for help with. 7 someone starts to help, perhaps they will take over, or get a credit for your early efforts. Yet another 8 that you might be worried about is being a nuisance or 9 the person you go to for help.

If you struggle with low self-esteem, you might find it especially difficult to 10 for help because you have the added worry of the other person 11 your request. You might see such refusals as implying something 12 about the status of your relationship with them. To 13 these difficulties, try to remind yourself that everyone needs help sometimes. Nobody knows everything and can do everything all by themselves. And while you might 14 coming across as incompetent, there’s actually research that shows that advice-seekers are 15 as more competent, not less.

Perhaps most encouraging of all is a paper from 2022 by researchers at Stanford University, in California, that involved a mix of contrived help-seeking interactions and asking people to 16 times they’d sought help in the past. The findings showed that help-seekers generally underestimate how 17 other people will be to help and how good it will make the help-giver feel (for most people, having the chance to help someone is highly 18 ).

So bear all this in mind the next time you need to ask for help. 19 , take care over who you ask and when you ask them. And if someone can’t help right now, avoid talking it personally. They might just be too 20 , or they might not feel confident about their ability to help.

Most of us strive for self-respect—to see ourselves in a positive light, to be 1 of who we are. Any comments or experiences that undermine those feelings of self-worth can be uncomfortable and it’s only 2 to want to avoid them. But the thing is, 3 your self-worth really is being undermined is, to a large degree, subjective. Much of it comes down to your 4 of what someone said or did.

When you take things personally, you’re interpreting these situations as saying something significant and negative about you as a person. Say your boss picks holes in your sales report, and you come away feeling like this means she thinks you’re a 5 member of staff. Or, two of your friends cancel your 6 get-together at the pub and you interpret this as meaning they’re bored of you. Psychologists have a 7 for this way of thinking: personalisation.

But the 8 is that your boss might view you very highly. It’s just you made some 9 in the report and she wanted to point these out so that you do better next time. 10 , in the case of your friends cancelling, perhaps they both felt unwell that weekend or they just 11 their minds.

In both 12 —and others that we all experience—there’s another 13 at work that psychologists call mind reading. This is when you assume to know what other people are thinking about you, when you can’t really know without 14 them directly.

One simple way to avoid 15 in personalisation and mind-reading is to challenge your negative assumptions of what’s 16 . When you find yourself taking a situation personally, try to think of other interpretations that are less focused on you—especially in the sense of saying anything deep or 17 about you.

When you do this, it might help to try to put yourself in other people’s shoes. The fact your boss took the time to give you 18 at all means they care enough to want to help you 19 . When it comes to your friends—maybe it’s because your friendship is so 20 that they felt able to cancel at late notice.