A few years ago, my morning routine would start like this:
Kev would bring me a cup of tea in bed, and we’d turn on the TV and watch the news together in bed.
Nothing unusual about that.
I expect millions of people across the world do the very same thing, or some version of it.
However, I realised that it was the equivalent of a stranger walking in my bedroom in the morning and saying, “Look at this - it’s terrible! And this is awful, too. And you’d better get scared about this, and angry about that…”
I basically started my day with someone I didn’t know chatting to me (before I even got out of bed!) about the most depressing things the world had to offer, because good news like brilliant technological breakthroughs or acts of human courage or kindness are hardly ever reported.
In recent years, I’ve decided to almost never watch news bulletins or read newspapers and I feel a whole lot better for it.
If anything important happens in the world, I always hear about it because someone will tell me either in person or through social media, or I’ll walk past a newspaper stand and see a headline.
At that point, I might choose to keep myself updated periodically as I did when Brexit, Coronavirus or the war in Ukraine hit the news, and even then I often reflect on what a waste of my bloody time it is to watch wanker politicians lying to us on TV.
Regular news consumption drains me.
The only thing it equips me to do is to join conversations with other miserable people moaning about how awful the world is, and to be honest, I’d rather talk to my dog.
I generally choose to learn about the world through books, magazines, documentaries and podcasts rather than what the BBC news team decides I should know about.
Don’t feel too sorry for me because I still know there’s a cost of living crisis, the war in Ukraine has been going on for over a year, there’s a flurry of strikes, and people have been murdering their babies!
I’m simply not wasting hours of my life absorbing negative input, just so I can feel as if I have my finger on the pulse of the nation.
You might think I’m not a proper adult because I’m not dutifully joining the queue for my daily dose of misery and despair, but I truly believe I can’t afford to watch the news regularly any more.
If I sat and watched the news before speaking to clients, I’d turn up with a very different energy on my calls, and that’s not fair to them.
I need to keep my head in a good place every day.
You may not be a coach, but unless you’re a journalist or a politician, you probably don’t need to be first in line for the National Misery Rations.
You’ll have more energy and feel more positive about life if you decide it’s OK to hear about world events a few hours later than others, and check them out on your own time if you decide it’s something you want to know more about.
If you’re a news gobbler, I suggest you go on a negativity fast for a while, and see what happens to your general mood.
I very much doubt you’ll get more sad, angry or afraid…