By Jenni Leonard

We are always up for a challenge here at Lincolns (not to mention a bit of healthy competition). And we are passionate about staying healthy, maintaining good mental health and supporting each other when we experience the impacts of mental health.

So we’ve signed up for the “Push-up Challenge”, a national initiative to get fit, have fun, learn about mental health throughout the month of June. Our push-ups will be raising much needed funds for Headspace Albany who provide support to 12-25 year olds in the community with mental health concerns.

With our collective focus on mental health this month, we thought we’d open a conversation about mental health and, specifically, how to start a conversation with someone you are concerned about.

Start a conversation

Conversations about mental health are important but many of us find them difficult to start.

The first step is noticing that someone is having an issue. For people who you know well, you can usually tell when something isn’t right.

We like these simple tips from Headspace for starting a conversation with someone you are concerned about:

Be ready to listen
Be aware of your non-verbal communication, eg body language, tone of voice
Think about where you’ll have the conversation
Start with general and open questions, eg “How are you getting on with …”
Focus on specific thoughts and feelings with “I” statements, eg “I’ve noticed …”
Take the person’s feelings seriously

So be on the look out for people around you who don’t seem quite right and be prepared to start that sometimes sensitive conversation with them. You won’t regret it.

Look after yourself

Now, over to you. Don’t forget to look after yourself when you are supporting others through mental health challenges. This simple analogy from Headspace says it all: “In plane travel, passengers are advised, in the event of an emergency, to apply the oxygen mask to themselves first so that they can assist a fellow passenger.” The same applies to looking after yourself so that you can continue to look after others.

Here are 4 things that Headspace have recommended you can do to look after yourself:

Accept care from others
Don’t let go of what grounds you
Be kind to yourself
Be informed

We’re still pushing

Spare a thought for our arms as we keep pushing our way to our team goal of 20,000 pushups. Our arms will never be the same, it’s any wonder we can type!

To donate to the Lincolns push-up team, click here.

For more information on mental health, visit the Headspace Albany website.

A Coffee With... our own Gary Philpott

We are down to a matter of days now until Gary retires as a Partner of Lincolns on 1 July. Although this is a very exciting time for Gary as he embarks on a new post-partnership life, this is a very emotional time for the entire Lincolns team as well as his clients.

Increase to the Superannuation Guarantee

After a number of years at 9.5%, the superannuation guarantee (the proportion of wages that employers must contribute to their employees’ retirement savings) is set to increase to 10% from 1 July 2021.

It will then increase by 0.5% every 1 July until it reaches 12% on 1 July 2025.

If you employ people, the increase will create cost and people management challenges. You need to plan how this increase will be implemented and communicated to your employees. For example, if your employees are on a packaged salary, will you pay the additional superannuation on top of current salaries or reduce your employee’s take-home pay to cover the increase?

Call us on 9841 1200 if you need help.

Lincolns Podcast - would you tune in?

We are considering starting a podcast series. But first we want to hear from you as to whether you would listen to our podcasts and what subjects you would want to hear about.

Complete our short survey to let us know - we promise it will take less than 1 minute.

Lincolns is pushing for better mental health