Chapter 4

Boosting your Mental Resilience

In This Chapter

Managing multiple, conflicting demands productively

Developing effective strategies for working with difficult people

Maintaining peak productivity while looking after your wellbeing

Looking after yourself

W e all go to work to do a good job, and I’m sure that you’re no exception. Unfortunately, the world of work can be challenging, which can make it difficult for you to perform at your best.

Change is the most common source of pressure at work. In the world of work, change is nothing new. In fact, you can argue that change is the only constant in life. What is different nowadays is that the pace of change is accelerating; uncertainty and instability are the norm in today’s work environment.

Other sources of pressure you may encounter in the workplace include relationships with colleagues and peers, lack of clarity about job roles, work demands, degree of control over work, and support from colleagues and superiors.

This chapter explores how you can overcome work challenges by using mindfulness to boost your mental resilience. You find out how mindfulness can help you deal with work challenges more productively, leaving you with more energy and a sense of wellbeing. You discover strategies to help you flourish in times of change, managing multiple, conflicting demands more effectively. You develop a more mindful approach to encounters with difficult colleagues and bosses.

Recognising the Need for Resilience at Work

Resilience is all about your capacity to handle difficulties, demands and high pressure without becoming stressed. It’s about not wasting energy on little things that really aren't important. It’s about performing well under pressure. It’s your ability to respond flexibly and adapt to changing circumstances (especially important in the present climate of constant change and uncertainty). Lastly, it’s about your ability to bounce back from defeat and disaster.

The more resilient you are, the more quickly you will be able to recover from a setback, make the best of the new situation, and become a ‘new and improved’ version of yourself. From a business perspective, it’s a no-brainer: A resilient workforce is a productive workforce. It’s healthy, energetic, durable and enthusiastic — good news for both you and your company.

The modern-day stress epidemic

Unfortunately most of the world is now facing a stress epidemic. Take, for example, Bob, a busy account manager who works for a multinational company. As Bob’s workload increases he starts to think, ‘There’s so much to do and not enough time.’ This anxiety leads to him making poor decisions. As a result of his poor decisions, he starts to worry about his professional reputation, and the possibility of losing his job. Bob really wanted to shine at work, so he decides to work harder, putting in long hours. He becomes stressed, and makes more mistakes, so he starts taking work home. He gets stuck in a vicious cycle of worrying, working too hard and feeling stressed.

The end result? The harder he works, the more he gets wrong and the more stressed he feels. Does this scenario sound familiar?

Everyone, at some point in their working lives, experiences stress. Work-related stress can be defined as ‘an adverse reaction to excessive pressures or demands’. Workplace stress is common; indeed, in many countries workplace stress is the top cause of long-term workplace absence. It costs businesses billions. In the UK alone, in 2012 around 131 million days were lost to sickness absence.

More people than ever before say that they feel highly stressed. As many as 80 per cent of workers say they regularly experience stress at work, and up to 40 per cent say that their job is very or extremely stressful and is the number one stressor in their lives. Estimates suggest that around 50 per cent of staff say that they need help in finding out how to manage stress.

Understanding fight or flight

So, if change is the norm, and stress is reaching epidemic proportions, how can you become more resilient? How can you bring joy and happiness back to your day, not to mention improved productivity and personal effectiveness?

To answer these questions, you first have to understand a little bit about how the human brain has evolved. Scientists think that in ancient times, when our ancestors were faced with a threat (such as attack by a wild animal), their brain triggered the release of powerful hormones into the bloodstream. These hormones boosted their heart rate, muscle tension and breathing, and helped them to sprint away from danger — the fight-or-flight response. Other hormones worked as natural painkillers, repaired damaged cells and acted as clotting agents. Together, the effect of these hormones helped humans to escape mortal danger and live to hunt another day. After the immediate threat had passed, our ancestors’ bodies probably returned to normal fairly quickly.

Your own brain’s reaction to modern-day pressures (such as a critical boss, a failed pitch, a missed promotion or a missed mortgage payment) is exactly the same as that of your ancestors. When you feel threatened, your brain releases an excessive amount of hormones, which are designed to help you escape from mortal danger.

Under normal circumstances, when you’re not under any great pressure, and you experience a threat, a temporary spike in your heart rate occurs as hormones are released. After the perceived ‘danger’ has passed, your body returns to normal. Unfortunately, many people now live their lives in a constant state of heightened arousal.

The human ability to recognise and quickly react to perceived threats has helped us become highly successful as a species, but is now a danger to our very survival. Mindfulness can help you develop resilience to life’s pressures, and new strategies for dealing with potential stressors in a more productive and less harmful manner, returning your body to a fit, healthy state.

Mindful Working to Enhance Resilience

Work is, and has always been, challenging. The digital age, constant change and the need for ever more efficient, cost-effective ways of working has led to some unhealthy working practices.

Managing multiple, conflicting demands

Do you spend your working life juggling multiple tasks and conflicting demands? If so, you’re not alone. As people take on more senior roles, they’re increasingly expected to multi-task — to work simultaneously on a range of different problems. For decades now, job descriptions have demanded the ability to multi-task.

The only way to do two or more mental tasks quickly and accurately is to consciously do one at a time. The only exception to this rule is routine tasks that you’ve done many times before. As a result, they’ve become embedded deep within the more primitive areas of your brain. In order to manage multiple, conflicting demands more productively, you need to plan your approach mindfully.

Managing tasks mindfully

Mindfulness can help you to become more aware of your mental processes, and choose the most appropriate strategy to deal with the work tasks you’re facing.

Meet Jan. It’s February and Jan has just been promoted to chief editor for an alternative lifestyle magazine. Jan starts her day by working through her emails. She reads, replies to and deletes messages. A couple of the emails prompt her to do some work. Two hours later she still hasn’t started work on the editorial for this month’s magazine, and the deadline is the end of the day. Jan starts working on the editorial, but she finds it difficult to focus. After 30 minutes, she’s interrupted by Frank who is working on a feature for next month’s magazine. She helps Frank, and then refocuses her attention on her editorial. Because she feels pressed for time, she eats a sandwich at her desk for lunch while trying hard to finish her editorial. In the afternoon, she chairs an important meeting about a feature in the Christmas edition. She hasn’t had time to prepare and feels uncomfortable throughout the meeting. The meeting overruns. The time is now 4 pm and she still hasn’t completed her editorial. Jan tries to focus but just can’t think straight …

Have you had days like this? I certainly have! So what could Jan have done differently? Let’s rewind Jan’s day and look at how she could have made her life easier:

Jan entered the office. She knew that she’d face multiple, conflicting demands, so she decided to start her day mindfully with 10 minutes of mindfulness practice in her office before people came in. She started her day by prioritising all the things she had to do.

She identified that her editorial was the most important thing that day. In order to complete this task she knew she needed to use her higher brain (refer to Chapter 1), which is very powerful, but also very energy-hungry. This prompted her to undertake this task early on in the day while still feeling fresh. Frank popped in to ask for help, and she agreed to talk to him in the late afternoon. She completed her editorial by 11 am and then started working through her emails. She felt herself becoming distracted by a couple of emails that demanded her attention. Jan decided to go out for lunch. On her walk to the sandwich shop, she spent five minutes mindfully walking. She sat on a park bench to eat her sandwich, and spent a few moments mindfully savouring its taste and texture. She returned to the office feeling refreshed, with a clear head. She then spent 30 minutes, as planned at the start of the day, preparing for her meeting. The meeting was a great success, and finished early. She completed the work connected with the emails, helped Frank and left the office early.

Mindfulness helped Jan to acknowledge and park all the things that were going around in her head. It also helped her to regain her focus at lunchtime. By prioritising, she got more done in less time.

In the next section we cover a quick mindfulness technique that you can use any time you want to regain your focus.

Using the three-step focus break

This simple technique consists of doing three things for one minute each:

Step 1: Settle yourself into a comfortable, upright position with your feet firmly on the floor — avoid slouching if you can. Although you can do this exercise with your eyes open, most people find it easier with closed eyes. By closing your eyes, your brain has one less stimulus to deal with. Spend one minute recognising and acknowledging all the thoughts going around in your head. As thoughts arise, acknowledge them, and then let them go.

Step 2: Narrow your attention to focus on the present-moment sensation of breathing. Feel the breath coming in and the breath going out. If your mind wanders, that’s fine — it’s just what minds do. Kindly, gently escort your attention back to where it needs to be. Remember, there is no need to control your breathing or alter it in any way. It’s fine as it is — all you’re doing is using it as a kind of anchor to direct your attention to.

Step 3: Spend one minute recognising and acknowledging how your body feels, right here and now. Become aware of the actual physical sensations in your body, including both the pleasant and unpleasant feelings. If you do encounter any unpleasant sensations, try if you can to just accept that they are there without trying to make them go away and without judging them as being bad or irritating. Doing so will evoke an emotion that will increase your tension and make things worse. Accept the sensations as they are in the present moment and accept that they won’t add further fuel to the fire. As a result, the sensations may diminish or change.

This technique can be compressed or extended and can be used anywhere at any time. Creating a short break helps you return to the present moment. Returning to the present moment enables you to put things into perspective, see the bigger picture, make wiser choices and decide how to get the most from the rest of the day.

You may find this exercise difficult at first, but with a little practice it should become easier. Practising this technique helps you to develop new neural pathways in your brain, or strengthen existing ones. The stronger the neural pathways are, the easier it is to recall and repeat the exercise in future. Refer to Chapter 1 for more on neuroplasticity.

Here are a few tips to help you master the three-step focus break:

Grouping tasks

At the start of the day, try to plan how you will tackle work tasks. The tasks that you need to pay most attention to must be done when you’re fresh and mentally alert, so do them first. If you’re feeling tired or sluggish, take a five-minute walk, if possible, or get a quick breath of fresh air. If it’s late in the afternoon and you’re feeling tired, ask yourself whether getting certain tasks done today is critical. Maybe they can wait until tomorrow morning when you’re fresher.

Try to group your tasks into blocks of time, according to the different ways you use your brain to work on them. Remember, routine tasks involving little thought use less energy than tasks that involve decision-making or the creation of a new concept. Schedule time to do the latter when you’re likely to be feeling fresh.

Starting the day by going through emails is a common mistake. Schedule emailing later on in the day in order to use your peak level of performance on the tasks that are most important.

Dealing with distractions

Avoiding everyday disruptions in the modern-day workplace can be challenging. Phones ring, emails and text messages ping, and people unexpectedly appear at your desk.

Switching between tasks reduces your productivity and can increase the pressure you’re working under. Although many of us would say that these distractions are outside our control, in reality we can generally take steps to minimise them.

Ask yourself:

Simple actions like logging off from your email account or silencing your phone can help you complete your most important work tasks more quickly. You’ll be surprised at the results.

Mindfully Managing your Emotions

When you have lots to do, the calmer and more focused you remain, the better. As emotions are regulated by the primitive brain (refer to Chapter 1), remaining rational when in the grip of strong emotions is hard. Mindfulness can be used as a technique for working constructively with intense emotions such as fear and anger that often lead to misunderstandings and conflicts.

A simple mindfulness technique involves sitting with your eyes closed and focusing on your breathing. By concentrating on the rhythm of your breaths, you develop a sense of detachment, which stops your thoughts from spiralling further and further into depression or anxiety. In time you start to realise that thoughts come and go of their own accord, and that your conscious self is distinct from your thoughts. Refer to Chapter 3 for tips on how to practise mindfulness of breath.

How your body affects your mind

When seeking to manage your emotions, you need to recognise that whenever you encounter a situation, your thoughts trigger a physiological reaction in your body. Bodily tensions and sensations have more of an impact on your thoughts and behaviour than you might think. The model in Figure 4-1 can help you understand what’s going on and stop yourself spiralling into over-thinking, anxiety and distraction.

When you understand the link between thoughts, emotions and the body (physiology), you can start to develop more helpful strategies for recognising and managing your emotions.

Mindfulness can help you to better manage your emotions in three important ways:

Trying the ‘Managing emotions mindfully’ exercise

This exercise helps you slow down your mental chatter and reconnect with your body. When practised regularly, you’ll be quicker at detecting emotions as they arise and able to take steps to stop them escalating if they’re unhelpful.

Go to a quiet place for between 5 and 30 minutes (depending on how emotional you are and how much time you have!). Sit in a comfortable upright position with your feet firmly on the floor. Now follow these steps:

Dealing with difficult people

In your home and social life, you usually get to choose the people you wish to spend time with. In a work situation, that’s often not the case. You encounter both clients and colleagues who you may find difficult to deal with. Working with difficult people can trigger strong emotional reactions, which can take up a lot of your mental energy, robbing you of the mental resources you need to deal with your workload.

Mindfulness can help you to respond to these situations in a more resilient manner.

Asking ‘What’s really going on?’

The first thing to explore is what’s really going on. Why do you find this person so difficult or challenging? You need to recognise what responses have been triggered within you when you encounter this person. What are your thoughts and emotions? What has changed in your body? Has your heart rate or breathing increased? Are you feeling tension or even pain?

By recognising your own emotional state and bodily tension, you will be better equipped to deal with the situation. When approaching encounters with difficult people mindfully, you can reduce the pain and suffering for all concerned, and find ways to work together more productively.

You can’t always control the things that happen in your work day, but you can choose how you respond to them.

Understanding whose problem it is

The next thing to ask is ‘Whose problem is it?’

Consider Bob, the account manager described earlier in the chapter. Bob’s boss saw his potential and in his appraisal set him challenging goals in an effort to prepare him for a possible promotion. Bob didn’t know his boss was preparing him for promotion. He thought that he had set him up to fail and that his appraisal goals were an attempt to get rid of him. As a result, he started to hate his boss.

What can you learn from this scenario? Bob’s failure to clarify why his boss had set him the goals made him jump to the wrong conclusions. His reaction to, and behaviour towards, his boss was making the situation worse.

When dealing with a person you find difficult, take a few moments to think about whose problem it is. Is it your problem? Or is it the other person who has a problem with you?

Thoughts are not necessarily facts. Drawing conclusions based on thoughts rather than facts is all too easy.

Bob’s colleague encourages him to take a more mindful approach in future. In preparation for meeting his boss, Bob took a few minutes to practise some mindfulness. When Bob next met his boss, he started with a clean slate. He admitted that he’s finding the goals he was set challenging. His boss laughed and said, ‘They’re supposed to be challenging. I set them to help you get ready for your next promotion!’

By practising mindfulness, Bob discovered that his thoughts are not all facts, and decided to start afresh with his boss. He knew he’d be tense upon entering the meeting, so he practised a little mindfulness to put himself in a more open frame of mind.

Bear these tips in mind:

The ‘difficult’ person may be creating the problem despite your best efforts to work productively with them. Treat this thought as a theory only; remember, this thought is not necessarily a fact. You can’t easily change the other person’s behaviour and attitude towards you, but you can choose your response and behaviour.

If, despite your best efforts, your working relationship doesn’t improve, just accept that you find this person difficult to work with and commit to making a conscious effort not to make things any worse. Use mindfulness to help you recognise and release any physical tension. Become conscious of your own emotional state. Recognise when thoughts start to spiral, and bring yourself back to the present moment. Mentally reward yourself for being more aware of what’s going on, and taking steps to make the best of it.

No magic bullet or cure-all exists. You’re not a machine; you’re human and as such you will from time to time experience unhelpful emotions that impact on your relationships. Living your whole life in a relaxed, emotionless manner is unnatural. But living in a constantly heightened state of arousal is unhealthy and unproductive. Practising mindfulness gradually trains your brain to come back to the present moment and see things as they really are. Then you can break out of life on auto-pilot and respond to life’s challenges (such as difficult people) wisely.

Mindful Ways to Maintain Peak Performance

Some people think that practising mindfulness will subdue you or make you less ambitious and driven. This is a myth. Some of the most productive people on this planet practise mindfulness because it helps them maintain peak performance for longer periods.

Current thought on the psychology of performance suggests that in order to maintain peak performance you need to focus upon the factors that allow you to flourish and to achieve your aims. To do so, you need to practise mental skills to develop the power of your mind. Assuming that you’re clear about your aims at work, you need to be mentally and physically fit to perform at your best. Don’t worry; taking up marathon running won’t be necessary! You just need to work out what ‘peak performance’ looks and feels like for you.

This simple ‘Mindfulness for peak performance’ exercise takes only moments, but can save you hours of time wasted through working in a distracted, pressured manner. You could do this in a few minutes, or extend it if you have more time.

Use this technique to check in with yourself on a regular basis. When practised regularly, you’ll quickly recognise the physical and mental signs telling you you’ve slipped from peak performance.

An excellent way to improve your working life is to consciously make an effort to live more in the present moment. By being in the moment you make better decisions, see things more clearly and become more creative. You can enjoy precious everyday moments with your loved ones, and gain nourishment from the simplest of everyday things.

Being Kind to Yourself

The author Henry James said: ‘Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.’

Authentic leadership, resonant leadership and mindful leadership are new forms of leadership theory. They all emphasise the need to be kind to yourself, and with good reason. Research shows that people who make a conscious effort to be kind to themselves demonstrate greater well-being than those who judge themselves.

When something goes wrong, or you make a mistake, you may be far too quick to point the finger of blame at yourself. As humans we tend to beat ourselves up for all failures, large or small, reducing our self-belief and self-esteem. You may unconsciously poison yourself with toxic self-criticism. In an attempt to anticipate the future, you may make up your own stories and then react to them as if they were reality. Doing so can lead you into a spiral of depression or anxiety.

By being kind to yourself, you can increase your personal resilience to the pressures of life by stopping your brain from jumping to conclusions and spiralling into stress and panic. In turn, you’ll increase your happiness and productivity.

If you, like many other people, struggle with self-kindness, try this ‘Cultivating kindness’ exercise. You may find it challenging at first, but it gets easier with practice. Follow these steps:

Discovering the neuroscience of kindness and compassion

Fear can trigger a threat response in your brain. Your reaction is often disproportionate to the actual provocation. When in the grip of this strong emotion, your capacity for higher ‘rational brain’ thinking is diminished, and you’re likely to revert to rote behaviours stored in the more primitive areas of your brain.

When you’re kind to yourself, and accept yourself as human, prone to making mistakes from time to time, but doing your best, you’re far less likely to trigger your threat system unnecessarily. Self-kindness can help you to enjoy life more, improve your relationships, increase your self-esteem and make you feel happier. All these things are likely to contribute to improved performance at work.

Try this ‘Experiencing self-kindness’ exercise. When you’re upset, give yourself a hug, place your hand on your heart or gently rock your body. Your body responds to the physical warmth and care (just imagining a hug works in a similar way too). Hugging yourself has soothing benefits. Research indicates that physical touch releases oxytocin in your brain — the hormone associated with love and bonding. Oxytocin provides a sense of security, soothes distressing emotions and calms cardiovascular stress.

Rewiring your brain

The more you repeat a thought or activity, the more you strengthen the neural pathway associated with that specific thought or activity in your brain. The stronger the neural connection, the easier it is to repeat. Many thoughts and activities, when repeated often enough, become stored in the more primitive areas of your brain as ‘habits’ — things you do without thinking. Opinion is divided about how long it takes to form a habit. Estimates range from an average of 21 to 64 days.

By consciously making an effort to catch yourself when you’re being overly self-critical, and accepting things as they are, over time you can rewire your brain to become more kind to yourself. Mindfulness exercises always include elements of self-kindness.

The cultivation of self-kindness is something that many people struggle with, finding it easier to be kind to someone else than themselves. Self-kindness and acceptance are important elements of mindfulness. By learning to accept yourself, faults and all, an enormous, self-imposed burden is lifted and life becomes easier. Practising self-kindness significantly increases your resilience at work.

Last, but by no means least …

It goes without saying that the healthier and happier you are the more resilient you will be. Be kind to yourself! Eat well, drink enough water and don’t forget to get some exercise.

Stop for lunch and spend a few moments in the present moment, fully appreciating the act of eating — the flavour, the texture, the taste — and how it feels to eat.

If you can, when you go to work, park a little further away to get a short walk each day. Take the stairs not the lift. At the very least get up and stretch at your desk every hour.

Your body will thank you for it, and your boss should appreciate the positive impact of your improved resilience.