The Importance of Mental Health - How to Succeed

In an article published in Psychological Review, Carol Dweck tackles questions about our personality. She answers question such as: “How does our personality develop?”, “How do our experiences affect our personality?” and “What happens once our personality is developed?”. Overall, she proposes that our personalities develop around three basic needs: the need to predict our world, the need to gain competencies that will help us act in the world and the need of acceptance from others, because at the end we are just another social being.

That last need, is of course linked to what Maslow added right in the middle of his very well-known “Maslow’s Pyramid”, the “Belongingness and Love Needs”.

Human Needs

By Androidmarsexpress - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=93026655

As human beings we are programmed for community. We are the only specie that strives to collaborate with others in an intentional and intimate way. We need to feel that we belong somewhere and interacting with others is crucial to that. Building experiences with other human beings is crucial to our happiness. To put that into some perspective, a 2015 study: Loneliness and Social Isolation as Risk Factors for Mortality: A Meta-Analytic Review, found that loneliness is as dangerous to one’s health as obesity, inactivity, smoking, excessive drinking, or heart disease.

With all the restrictions in place today due to the Coronavirus pandemic, we have been forced somehow to significantly limit our social interactions with others in the ways we were used to. We spend more time at home, meeting with only a small number of people occasionally and not participating in any social activities that otherwise would offer us a sense of joy and relaxation. No more big parties, no more in-the-field experience of football matches, no more live festivals and no more social events that would give us the opportunity to meet with other people.

For some, these may sound as small little things that could be easily replaced, but for others, socializing with other people is crucial to their level of happiness. To add, many of us today do not visit our workplaces anymore. We work remotely and we do not have these “coffee moments” or “stairs walks” anymore; We have to keep focused on our work continuously.

Today more than ever, we need to pay attention to our mental health. This form of isolation we are going through can easily affect our well-being. Some may be hesitant to discuss around the topic of mental health, but it is important to raise awareness and explain why paying attention is crucial. In 2020, it is believed that close to one billion people suffer from mental disorder and up to 80% of all people will manage at least one mental health condition in our lifetime. And while these facts are dramatic, many people and companies do not do anything about it, but expect others surrounding them to action on their behalf. That is an even bigger problem.

Mental health is crucial to keeping motivation, happiness, and engagement levels high. It is also crucial to lowering stress levels and improving yourself in any direction that allows you to perform and function in the best possible potential. Therefore, we individually, but our companies as well need to invest more on mental health practices. Below, I am presenting you with some very practical actions we can all take to ensure our well-being. But before reading those actions, one should know that everything starts with self-awareness. Everything starts by identifying where stress or any other mental health issues comes from. Everything starts with trying to identify where pressure comes for you.

Psychological Safety

As an Individual

Be mindful and be aware of the present moment – Realize where you are and what is going on around you. Feel the heat and the cold. Practice mindfulness and meditate. You do not always need to be on top of the rock or the mountain and stare into the space to meditate. It can be this easy practice of just being aware of what you do.

Practice reflecting thinking – it is a way of processing your day before going to bed. It allows you to continually connect with life; It provides you counsel and direction regarding the future, and it gives you perspective within any context. The goal is to reflect so you can learn from your successes and mistakes, discover what you should keep doing and determine what you should change so you can live a more effective life in every area.

Ask yourself “How am I doing?” – Are you sleeping enough? Are you eating at the right time, the right portion? Are you exercising? Are you meeting (in-person or virtually) with other people? Are you setting boundaries so you can have enough time to re-charge? If the answer to any of the previous questions is “No”, then please start doing so. They all play a tremendous role on your well-being.

Set realistic goals - Decide what you want to achieve academically, professionally and personally, and write down the steps you need to realize your goals. Aim high, but be realistic and do not over-schedule. You will enjoy a tremendous sense of accomplishment and self-worth as you progress toward your goal.

As an Employer (or Manager):

Make it stand out

Feeling comfortable to speak up. Be the role-model for your employees.

Before talking actions, let me be very clear here and say that mental health is not a topic that HR only should deal with. Any check-the-box solutions, employee assistance programs or just placing a “mental health” policy will not be enough on its own. I am not going to focus on those. This is all a diversity, equity, and inclusion topic together. Given its prevalence among all populations, this is a category on its own and is linked to every single act we as individuals or as a company perform. Therefore, companies and people managers should:

Start from the top – to change the culture, you need to take a top-down approach. Make your leaders show empathy and resilience and share their stories with the rest of the organization. Harvard Business Review supports that: “modeling disclosure and vulnerability as strengths, not weaknesses, goes a long way toward reducing the stigma and setting the tone for transparency.” Therefore, “when managers describe their challenges, whether mental-health-related or not, it makes them appear human, relatable, and brave. …authentic leadership can cultivate trust and improve employee engagement and performance.”

Build a culture of connection through check-ins – throughout this pandemic, with so many people having to work from home, it has become more difficult to notice the signs that someone is struggling. Intentionally checking in on a regular basis, can help you be proactive. However, do not just ask “How are you?”. Go beyond that and ask your people what would help them feel better. Wait for the answer – be there and listen to understand, not just to answer. Be present yourself and let them finish all they have to say without interrupting them.

Share your healthy routines – More than ever, managers today spend lots of energy and time on ensuring their team’s well-being and on getting the work done. Doing so, you forget to take care of yourself and thereof your employees take the wrong example. Just saying you support mental health is not going to be enough. You need to act as a role-model and share with your people all kind of activities you perform to stay mentally healthy. Tell them that you take 20 minutes of walk at the park after lunch each day to relax; tell them that you put your phone on “airplane mode” for x amount of hours so you can really disconnect; tell them that you follow a therapy if you do so. In general, be vulnerable and lead them by example.

Be inclusive and show understanding - do not make any assumptions that you know what your employees want or that everyone is the same. Like you, everyone is unique in their own way. That means that everyone has different needs, and everyone expresses themselves in their own way. You need to offer flexibility to your employees on the same way that you offer to your customers or your own boss. As a manager you need to show empathy and take a customized approach while offering solutions to your people. One might need to start at 10.00 after bringing their child to school, and someone might need to finish at 15.00 to visit their doctor. You need to be as generous as possible, but at the same time build realistic expectations from your people.

Fact Nr. 1: Mental health symptoms are just as common in the C-Suite as among individual contributors.

Fact Nr. 2: Sharing your own mental health challenges and modeling healthy behavior are two of the most important steps you can take.

Fact Nr. 3: An open and accepting culture can prevent mental health issues.

Fact Nr. 4: Mental health issues cause lack of motivation and engagement and therefore, lower performance.

Fact Nr. 5: Exercising, eating healthy and regularly, sleeping enough and on schedule, and talking to someone you trust about how you feel, can help you improve your mental health.

As October is officially the month of “Mental Health Awareness”, I hope this article helped you realize its importance and its consequences in case you neglect the signs.

Thank you for reading to the end! Take a big smile now 😊 and go out there and rock it!

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