Chapter 11

Ten Ways to Mindfully Manage Work Pressures

In This Chapter

Dealing with unreasonable demands

Regaining a sense of control

Managing redundancy hanging over your head

Reducing your stress levels with mindful exercises

H owever good you are at your job or happy you are in your work, at some time or other you’ll feel under pressure. This chapter looks at some of the most commonly experienced pressures and some ways that mindfulness can help you deal with them.

The UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) identified six factors that can lead to work-related stress if they’re not managed properly: Demands, control, support, relationships, role and change. This chapter starts by exploring these six factors before moving on to some more general pressures you may encounter at some time or another.

Mindfully Coping with Inappropriate Work Demands

In the current economic climate, many organisations are looking at ways to cut costs. Making people redundant is often an obvious solution. Unfortunately for those left behind, fewer staff means greater workloads and increased responsibilities. While some people may thrive in this situation, seeing it as a way to acquire new experience and improve their prospects for promotion, others may struggle to meet the new demands of their jobs.

At the other end of the spectrum, some job roles are being de-skilled. This situation too can be a source of pressure as work becomes less stimulating and meaningful, and fewer opportunities for promotion exist.

When you’re next feeling overwhelmed by your workload, step away from it for a short while. Spend a few minutes practising mindfulness to help put things back in perspective. Doing so will save you time in the long run because you’ll return to the task at hand feeling more focused as your stress level declines.

Spend ten or more minutes practising your favourite mindfulness exercise. Try mindfulness of breath, a body scan or using thoughts or sounds as the focus for your attention. Immediately afterwards, choose something to work on that gives you a sense of personal satisfaction or a feeling of control over your work.

If doing a spot of mindfulness isn’t possible, try giving your full attention to just one task and aim to get it finished. If you catch your mind wandering on to other things you need to do, kindly and gently escort your attention back to the task you’re working on. When you’ve finished the task, acknowledge its completion and congratulate yourself on a job well done. Now you can go on to your next job.

Mindfully Dealing with a Lack of Control over Your Work

Feeling a lack of control over your work can rapidly lead to stress and poor performance. This situation is true whatever your job role — from senior executive to manual worker. Workplace health and safety organisations all over the world agree that having no power to decide on how a job is done is a major cause of workplace stress and frequently makes employees, at all levels in the organisation, unwell.

Try this exercise when your thoughts are whirling or you’re feeling angry or frustrated:

Mindfully Managing a Lack of, or Inappropriate, Support

If you’re offered a promotion, you’ll probably be very pleased won’t you? But a promotion can turn into nightmare if you receive inadequate support from colleagues, peers and senior staff. This situation is true for all staff, from the most senior to the most junior.

Get mindful. Identify the help you really need at this moment in time. If you can’t see the wood for the trees, stop what you’re doing and practise some mindfulness. Don’t worry about the bigger picture — you can fix that later. Ask for the guidance or support you need. Don’t waste energy worrying about what people might think; doing so usually causes more suffering and wastes more time than actually asking the question! If you still don’t get the clear guidance you need, ask in writing via a letter or email. Be polite and concise — keep it short to read and short to answer.

Mindfully Managing Difficult Working Relationships

Whatever your job role, a big part of working life is interacting with your colleagues. For many people, this chance to socialise can be a source of enjoyment, learning and fulfilment. It can transform a dull, low-paid job into something that makes you feel good about yourself and to which you look forward to every day.

On the flip side, some people are subjected to unacceptable behaviour from colleagues ranging from bullying to discrimination in all its forms. If you were treated badly outside work, you’d probably walk away. You’d probably also take appropriate action to stop people from making you unhappy. Unfortunately, things aren’t so simple at work.

Try a befriending exercise such as ‘Cultivating kindness’ (refer to Chapter 4). It may help you see things in a different way or reduce the level of tension induced by the people you find difficult.

If things don’t get easier, practising mindfulness regularly will help ease tension and emotional reactivity. It may also help you stand back and gain a greater perspective. If fixing things or finding a different way to relate to the difficult person are impossible, take steps to regain control over the situation. Speak in confidence to someone in the human resources department. Talk to your boss, or even your boss’s boss. If things can’t be made better, start looking for a new job and, for your remaining time in the company, keep reminding yourself that this problem isn’t forever, it will pass. Life’s too short to remain unhappy.

Mindfully Gaining Clarity about Your Job Role

In most roles, you’re judged based on your ability to do your job to the required standard. But what if you have no job description? What if you don’t understand what your job description really means in terms of expected outcomes? What if your job description doesn’t match the job you’re being asked to do? What if the rules keep changing but nobody tells you?

These scenarios are all too common. We know of many people who have no job description, despite having asked for one. This situation can lead to them missing out work that their managers deem important (despite not telling them so!), or working hard on things that the organisation doesn’t value. We know of other employees who do have clearly defined job descriptions but they’re not updated in line with organisational changes.

If you find yourself in any of these situations, decide for yourself what your work priorities should be and tactfully let your boss know. If you’re unsure, try practising mindfulness. Doing so may help you gain perspective and decide what you really need in the present moment.

Mindfully Navigating the Bumpy Road of Frequent Change

As Chapter 4 discusses, many employees are now subjected to constant, ongoing change. While change may now be the norm, humans dislike uncertainty, and change creates uncertainty. When you’re faced with an uncertain future, your threat system almost certainly kicks in, putting your primitive brain in control (refer to Chapter 1).

Mindfulness can help you reduce your sense of being under threat, and put your higher brain back in control. Use mindfulness of breath on a regular basis (refer to Chapter 3). When your mind wanders and you start thinking, observe the thoughts that arise in a detached manner. After your mindfulness practice, reflect on any patterns or common themes that emerged. Try to bring some conscious attention to what specific thoughts are unsettling you. Reflect on how much of the discomfort or suffering you’re experiencing is self-induced — self-generated by your attempts to predict the future. Make a wise decision on what to do next.

Changing the way you work (even when you really want to!) is often a slow process. Mindfulness can help you to bring conscious awareness to what you’re thinking and feeling, and to recognise how your thoughts and feelings impact on your behaviour. With a little regular mindfulness practice, you’ll be able to more quickly identify when you’re falling into old patterns of thoughts and behaviours, and consciously decide on a skilful course of action.

Mindfully Dealing with Difficult One-to-One Meetings

Other people can be the most challenging aspect of your working day. You might be faced with a colleague who agrees with a plan of action, then goes off and does her own thing. You may experience conflict with a peer over a difference of opinion; this situation can turn ugly and be harmful to working relationships. Maybe you’re one of those people who try to avoid conflict whenever possible? Conflict avoidance is very common in workplaces. Unfortunately, steering clear of disagreement and conflict or leaving things unsaid often results in anxiety and further tension.

Mindfulness can be really valuable when dealing with conflict in one-to-one meetings. Bear these tips in mind:

Mindfully Coping with the Threat of Redundancy

Threat of redundancy can be a very worrying time. While you may not have any control over whether you’re made redundant or not, you do have control over how much you suffer.

Naturally, being under threat of redundancy is a cause of anxiety, but if you step back and think about it, losing sleep at night and worrying yourself sick won’t actually help matters. First and foremost, be kind to yourself. It’s okay to feel worried or frightened — acknowledge that that’s how you feel, and then get on with something else.

Take time out to linger on and appreciate the good things in your life. They may be as simple as a car with a tank of fuel that safely and comfortably gets you from A to B. It may be coffee with a good friend or a hug from your child. Really pause to soak up the good from these moments.

When you do realise that you’re spiralling into negative thoughts, don’t get angry with yourself — it only adds fuel to the fire. Just acknowledge that you’re starting to spiral, bring yourself back to the present moment, and get on with what you need to do.

Mindfully Coping with Redundancy Survivor Syndrome

If you’re ‘lucky’ enough to survive a round of redundancies, you may fall victim to redundancy survivor syndrome.

Redundancies make things uncomfortable for all employees. Many employers make great efforts to support and care for staff facing redundancy. Few plan for the survivors who keep their jobs — assuming that they’re just pleased and relieved to still have a job. Employees who survive redundancy may experience initial relief, but this relief can quickly turn into guilt because they’ve kept their jobs while others have been forced to leave. They can even feel envious of their colleagues’ redundancy payments and their chance to embark on a new life. A few months down the line, the survivors may ultimately feel resentful about the extra work they have to do to cover the work of those who have left.

As in the previous section, just remember to be kind to yourself. Experiencing these sorts of feelings is completely natural (even if they’re unhelpful at times). Accepting your feelings without trying to change them often reduces their grip on you and can provide welcome relief.

Using Mindfulness to Reduce Stress

Some stress is necessary — this stress is what makes you get out of bed in the morning and motivates you to do your best. However, excessive stress is bad both for the individual and in terms of a firm’s productivity. Work-related stress is a widespread problem, and isn’t confined to specific sectors or job roles. Stress can affect anyone at any time in any business. Stress is also a major cause of sickness absence and staff turnover. If you’re very stressed, you may make errors at work and your inability to focus may mean that you waste lots of time.

Mindfulness is proven to reduce stress. A little mindfulness practised daily can reduce your tendency to feel stressed out or depressed. It can also enable you to recognise when you’re starting to feel excessively stressed, and to take steps to get things back in balance. Spotting the symptoms of stress early enables you to take the mindful steps necessary to regain equilibrium. As little as three minutes of mindfulness may be all it takes. If you ignore the early warning signs, it may take you much longer to return to peak performance — you might have to take time off work or even use medication. Suffering from stress at times is inevitable, how long you suffer for is up to you. Mindfulness puts this choice in your hands.