This blog covers all the important aspects related to how to improve your mental health and resilience in the workplace. Discover more about the improvements.
Describe resilience
There are numerous ways to define resilience.
Being resilient in the context of positive psychology means having the capacity to bounce back and adapt rapidly to a stressful situation. It is, therefore, a form of inner strength.
People typically view another person as resilient when they:
- Maintain a constant attitude of optimism.
- Each challenging issue they encounter is handled with ease.
- Avoid expressing yourself negatively in excess when things are tough.
People who are resilient at work can bounce back from trying situations. Additionally, it can promote their development. Data from BetterUp members demonstrates that those going through change also grow.
Employees are better equipped to deal with other situations because they have already dealt with one particular circumstance in part.
It may be beneficial to think about how physical resilience functions.
Your muscles will become more resistant to those activities if you lift weights in the gym every day. You can use that extra strength to lift a hefty package of groceries or in other circumstances.
The way emotional resilience functions is comparable. When you work on your resilience, it’s like exercising a muscle that gets stronger every day.
Why is resilience significant?
Graphic-person-meditating-building-resilience
The development of resilience is a top strategic objective given the changing demands placed on companies.
If they aren’t merely keeping their heads above water, people will perform better.
Instead, the chances for development and self-education that come with change will motivate them.
Let’s use this as an illustration:
Consider yourself to be in middle management, perhaps as a sales manager. This quarter, your team’s performance has been lacking. Your mental health, productivity, and general well-being are being challenged by it.
A boss who lacks workplace resilience in this circumstance is likely to give in to pressure. Employee engagement and workplace culture will suffer as a result of this. Team performance might be further affected.
You’ll probably also see that the team’s resilience is impacted by the manager’s lack of it.
A sales manager with strong psychological resilience will probably handle this task without any trouble.
Their team will be protected from pressure by them (where appropriate). Additionally, they’ll implement more workplace training or organizational changes to help their staff perform at a higher level.
Workplace stress has a significant negative impact on American workers.
It contributes to 120,000 annual premature deaths and accounts for 5-8% of total annual national healthcare expenditures.
Therefore, creating a resilient workforce is crucial for affecting good health outcomes.
Personal Awareness
Increasing your self-awareness is the first step in any personal development programme that aims to promote mental health and resilience. To begin to develop a more conscious understanding of what motivates you to think, feel, and act in the ways that you do, you must first understand your values, beliefs, strengths, and personality preferences, whether you work alone or with a coach. Your capacity to cope with difficulties and stress will consequently improve as a result of this awareness.
Mental and physical health are equally important
The present pandemic has highlighted how crucial it is to pay attention to your mental health in the same way that you do your physical health. A deterioration in mental health can start at any moment and can impact anyone; like physical health issues, it has to be addressed.
Morale and absenteeism are both significantly impacted by mental health disorders.
Therefore, by making investments in your mental health as well as the mental welfare of your employees, you are improving everyone’s general health and ensuring the future success of your company.
Putting together a resilience “toolkit”
You can create a set of tools to improve your resilience once you’ve determined your individual needs. You will feel more imaginative, think more clearly, develop stronger relationships, and be better able to adapt and deal with obstacles with the aid of these skills. As we all know, empathy is a crucial trait for leaders and organizations, and resilience may help you develop it.
Coaching is beneficial
The toolkit that will enable you to dig deep and triumph when necessary can be built with the assistance of a coach. Coaching gives the team time to reflect, either privately in one-on-one sessions or collectively in group workshops, where they can truly listen to one another, comprehend what is going on for others, and discuss their weaknesses and objectives. They can hold one another accountable for taking action while setting concrete goals for their welfare.
Encourage your team to be resilient.
In coaching, we discuss bringing your entire self to the table. This is being made more difficult than ever by the lockdown since so many people are juggling their personal and professional lives.
- How many times have you participated in online meetings when a child, dog, or doorbell is barking in the background?
- How many of your friends have publicly stated that they are having difficulties?
Kim is a fantastic example of how businesspeople may make the deliberate decision to be completely themselves at work. By being honest about her weaknesses and difficulties as a parent, wife, business owner, and lawyer, she creates the path for the rest of her team to do the same.
Problems can be solved by being aware of what needs to be addressed.
Knowing what has to be addressed enables issues to be fixed before they worsen, and honest dialogue and transparency in the end enrich the ties they have with one another.
It’s wonderful to see how Kim is investing in her team through 1:1 coaching as well as group coaching workshops. Kim leads by example and upholds her values to foster an inclusive culture that is a pleasure to be a part of.
Any leader who possesses resilience, empathy, and sound decision-making skills will be able to offer the highest level of assistance to their team members and clients as we come out of the lockdown and move toward a new normal.
