Use resilience to improve workplace performance!

….a 5-step brain transformation that might make you like your job.

“Ughhhhhhhh” sighed Neal as the dreaded Sunday blues started creeping in while he thought about his approaching workday. Neal worked in the HR department for almost a decade, and it seemed that each day was becoming more and more stressful. The company Neal worked for fostered a toxic work environment filled with unrealistic expectations and a demand for extended work hours. It was causing him to burn-out.

It turns out Neal is not alone in his struggle. 65% of US employees view their jobs as the number one stressor in their lives (APA, 2017). The sad truth is that health can be affected by a stressful work environment. If gone unchecked stress can lead to depression, anxiety, and even physical problems such as high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity, and diabetes.

“Honey, I hate seeing you so stressed out! There has to be something we can do,” Neal’s caring girlfriend Alexa was starting to get concerned. Lately, Neal wasn’t acting like himself, and Alexa felt like she was slowly losing him. It was time for a change, but what could they do?

Luckily, there are skills and programs that cultivate a resilient mind and a healthy workplace. These initiatives are filled with tools that can be used to strengthen mental fitness. Taking the first step towards mental freedom starts with new skills and making a personal commitment.

5 ways to Boost your Resilience at Work

1. Exercise mindfulness – Mindfulness relates to decision making and insight-related problem solving. Exercising mindfulness can be practiced through awareness of our breathing, going for a walk, embracing silence, and trying to focus on one thing at a time.
2. Compartmentalize your cognitive load – In this era, we are trapped in a continual fast pace of data, information, and requests. Our communication channels have gone from a simple telephone call to emails, calls, texts, chats, dm’s etc. We receive 11 million fragments of information every second, but our brains can only process 40 fragments at a time. Since we can’t decrease the amount of information, we must compartmentalize our cognitive tasks to improve the way we process the information. This means staying on one task at a time and trying to organize schedules to allow for focussed work instead of bouncing back and forth between tasks.
3. Develop mental agility – Mental agility is the ability to process stress with an intent to respond to rather than react to any difficult situation/person. To effectively manage stressors, we must practice our ability of decentering stress. Decentering stress is not denying the fact that we feel stressed — but is the process of being able to pause and observe the experience from a neutral standpoint to try to solve the problem.
4. Cultivate compassion – Compassion for both ourselves and others. Compassion increases positive emotions, and creates constructive work relationships, which in turn increases cooperation and collaboration. Through resilience training, it has been proven that compassion cultivation practices boost happiness and reduce stress.
5. Attend and complete Resilience Training – Now we can appreciate resilience skills in the workplace as crucial for mental health and productivity. There are resilience training programs that have been proven effective by using long-term scientifically researched exercises aimed at developing new neuropathways in the brain. These neurological changes are what foster a more stress-resilient mind. It is also important to use a reliable training program such as The Resilient Mind Project who has achieved positive results backed by science.

After learning how to boost his resilience, Neal started to become proficient in adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, and stress. Both Neal and Alexa took resilience training, and what really shocked them was that although their work-life was becoming more enjoyable, their relationship was also getting stronger.

“I feel like after everything we have been through, and all the growth we have done together, I have never felt more in love. Alexa, will you marry me?” Neal asked on bended knee.

“Yes, yes, and yes!” proclaimed an excited, and smitten Alexa. Now, she felt as though she could tackle anything life could throw her way.

For a printout version of these tips and tricks to keep handy at your desk feel free to print the “Resilience and Workplace Performance” guide developed by The Resilient Mind Project. Click Here, for the guide.

For more information on The Resilient Mind Project, visit www.TheResilientMind.life or get in touch with Lise Hill at Lise.Hill@TheResilientMind.life  If you want to improve your communication skills, learn more about resilience training, the 10-week program we offer is a virtual experience like no other that will transform your relationship skills and heighten your social awareness.