5 Common Workplace Obstacles that Impact Well-Being

A little quiz: What gives you energy at work? Odds are strong that an answer quickly sprang to mind. Maybe it’s collaboration, a new creative challenge, or an uninterrupted chunk of time to focus. Now consider, what drains your energy? Likely a mix of people, places, and scenarios come to mind, since there are so many things that sap our energy at work. Why does this matter? Because our creative and productive energy is what fuels our best thinking and makes us feel connected to our jobs. When that energy is diverted, blocked, or drained away, not only are we far less effective, we’re usually not very happy. Here are five common energy zappers in the workplace:

1) Drama

You might be attracted to it or you might create it—either way its purpose is to distract from and avoid unpleasant issues. As a way of dealing with fear or uncertainty (or putting off dealing with it), it’s common for people to invent “stories” to fill in missing details. For example, people create their own theories about why changes are happening in business strategy or personnel. The next time a little melodrama comes your way, try to see the story and return to the facts. Ask yourself, or the people involved, “Is this true?” This question can interrupt the downward drama spiral that can kill productivity and morale.

2) Perfection

This is the belief that there’s no room for mistakes. When people feel they’re working in an environment where their best is not good enough, it’s not only demoralizing, but it also limits innovation: no one wants to take a risk for fear of “doing it wrong.” The way to redirect this energy is to be honest about both what you know and don’t know and what your strengths and weaknesses are. For example, “I’m great with content, but I need help with images to communicate my words for presentations.” Letting go of the idea of perfection and being open to failure is how we learn.

Letting go of the idea of perfection and being open to failure is how we learn.

3) Glass-Half-Empty Outlook

When your focus is always on what’s going wrong, it’s downright exhausting. And if you linger in that mindset for too long, it can cause hypervigilance (and trust me, this is not a productive use of your energy!). Instead, make a daily effort to recognize and celebrate what is working. This doesn’t mean avoiding or ignoring the issues and challenges that need to be addressed. It means starting with the wins first.

When your focus is always on what’s going wrong, it’s downright exhausting.

4) No Boundaries

Without clear boundaries about what’s acceptable, comfortable, and tolerable in your worklife, there’s always going to be confusion (for you and for the people dealing with you). If you have a family commitment on a given day of the week, let the people you work with know, so they have context for why you’re not free that day. Setting and communicating boundaries—for yourself and for your team—lets everyone know what is and isn’t expected and permitted. It keeps the energy flowing in a positive direction.

5) Control

This shows up as a compulsive desire to know everything and control outcomes. (Hello, micromanaging!) When we rely on controlling behaviors, we are likely fearful—either of the outcome not going our way or of being “exposed” as not good enough—both of which can deplete your energy by focusing on incomplete or false data (aka drama). You can avoid this drain by allowing the action to occur as it would naturally, without your interference. Take a step back and reflect when you notice the urge to force an outcome to be what you want it to be. Releasing control doesn’t mean you stop caring. It means you are able to see things from many points of view and assume everyone means well and is acting with the best of intentions.

This article appeared in the June 2017 issue of Mindful magazine.

4 Ways to Mindfully Prevent Office Burnout

Five Ways to Find Time to Pause

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How Many Different Human Emotions Are There?

Make a Friend out of a Foe

I like to watch nature shows; there’s something very calming about seeing animals devouring one another.

No, but really: The wild kingdom offers us a glimpse of our animal nature in action. These shows are like metaphors for the dog-eat-dog competitive quality of daily life. But along with capturing what life looks like when you’re at the wrong end of the food chain, nature shows also depict animal communities whose behavior reminds us of our own species in other, less harrowing ways. Your friendly neighborhood meerkat, for example, relies on cooperation, agreement, and a kind of friendliness to survive. Like meerkats, humans are pack animals that derive pleasure and safety from social interactions. When we smile at each other we release natural painkillers, boost our immune system, and lower our blood pressure. By the same token, baring our teeth at one another floods our nervous system with cortisol, which is linked to heart disease, diabetes, and depression.

Even when unfriendly attitudes feel locked in place, friendliness and camaraderie can show up. Look at any sports event, for example, and you will find that people of all stripes bond together in a friendly way in their desire to root for the same team. At least for those moments, communists and conservatives, city-folk and outliers, millennials and senior citizens can lay down arms and cheer together. Go Team!

Outside the stadium, though, being friendly can feel like a tremendously brave act. What if others don’t smile back? Once you start to courageously cultivate friendliness, you will discover that friendliness is its own reward—regardless of what comes back. Not to mention that when your habit is to be on the watch for the negative, you may forget to open yourself to the many benefits of being on the watch for the positive. Warm and even neutral moments are also a key part of everyday life, even if we don’t always notice them. Taking time to register that things are often OK can have a tremendous impact on your brain. Way back in 1949, Canadian neuroscientist Donald Hebb succinctly said, “neurons that fire together, wire together.” This means that when we return to certain ideas or repeat behaviors and reactions over and over, the brain creates a fast-track response called “automatic pilot.” Autopilot is a two-edged sword. It can cause us to mindlessly repeat harmful behaviors or lose attention to what’s important. But if you can build a habit of seeing the good in others, and of approaching people with warmth and openness, over time your whole outlook could shift. Then you can relax into the adventure of being in this interconnected world.

What might it look like to be friendlier to “Me”?

Friendliness toward yourself could be as ordinary as remembering to carry a bit of food with you to keep you and your blood sugar on friendly terms. Or it might look like giving yourself a break from email for an hour, or scheduling some regular time to sit and do absolutely nothing.

What does it look like to cultivate friendliness toward a friend, family member, or kind stranger?

Remember: This person will only be with you for a limited time, and that makes your time together far richer and more poignant. Interactions between people bring depth, color, and joy to life. When you actively relate to the world in a friendlier way, you open up opportunities to bring warmth and curiosity to each and every encounter.

Remember: This person will only be with you for a limited time, and that makes your time together far richer and more poignant.

What does it look like to be friendly to someone who scares or angers the hell out of you?

You believe you are right. Who doesn’t? Remembering that we all have inherent biases can help us soften our approach to others. We don’t have to like a person’s opinion (or even their personality) in order to be friendly; we can choose to be respectful and appreciative regardless of our own preferences. Friendliness can become the common ground that brings us all—yes, all—a little closer together.

This article appeared in the August 2017 issue of Mindful magazine.

Could You Connect More?

The Power of Empathy (and One Surefire Way to Know If You’re Missing It)

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Inside Mindful: Blog #1 – An Introduction

Welcome to the first post of Inside Mindful, the new blog about what we’re up to here at the Mindful Foundation. You might know about us from Mindful magazine and Mindful.org, our flagship publications. Equally important, though far well less known, the Mindful Foundation works quietly behind the scenes supporting the champions in the field and the work they’re doing to bring mindfulness into society. In this blog I’ll be bringing more of that work to light, but first I want to tell you about why I decided to start it and my vision for it.

Inside Mindful is an opportunity to peek inside the mindfulness field, and inside the Mindful Foundation.

No, it won’t be a first-hand “reality blog” account of the food fights around the office and everyone’s missed mindfulness sessions. (Well, maybe we’ll have the occasional expose, and certainly a lot of mini-rants about the dumb stuff going on in the mindfulness world. I mean, let’s get real.) This blog will be a deep dive into how this grand mindfulness adventure is going, a glimpse at some of the conversations I have while I’m on the road, and how we can do more to bring about change in our society through advocating for mindfulness.

I want you all to know more about what the Mindful Foundation is doing, what concerns we think our projects are addressing, and how the work we do delivers benefit to you and the many others working to bring mindfulness into your lives, families, workplaces, and society. I want you to see us.

A few basics:

Before we get into that juicier stuff, though, let’s get a few basics in place. I won’t repeat all of our Mindful Foundation values or our theory of change here —you can take a look at the slide deck for those. But it will be helpful to outline a few things we do:

• The Mindful Foundation isn’t just a media operation; we use our media expertise as the means to activate social innovation.
• Our fundamental work is promoting authentic mindfulness to foster enduring social change—in people, their relationships and in society.
• The time is now! Mindfulness is entering the mainstream, it’s scalable, and it brings its own benefits as well as activating a slate of good health practices—The Mindful Foundation is the voice of the movement.
• Our goal is to help create a world that fosters resilience, better health, more caring relationships, and a more compassionate and caring society

The Mindful Foundation does this by being an activator of projects that help enhance mindfulness in society at critical leverage points. We are the trusted, credible voice of the movement—gatekeeper and curator presenting high-integrity content.

What the future holds:

In five years, Mindful has reached millions of people with Mindful magazine and Mindful.org, and worked closely with field champions and leading organizations as a key activator of the mindfulness revolution. But there’s so much more to do.

Here are some of the projects on the horizon:

• The Mindful Cities Project
• A Mindful TV series
• The Annual Mindfulness in America survey
• Mindfulness in Translation (Spanish, Syrian, etc.)
• And many more emerging projects…

I look forward to getting into the details of some of these projects over the next few months.

But right now, I’m sorry, I can’t talk. I have to get back to the weekly office food fight.

Jim

Questions or suggestions? Send them to Insidemindful@mindful.org

 

 

 

 

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Basic Trust – Part 1 - Tara Brach

Basic Trust – Part 1 –

One of the expressions of an awakened heart-mind is a basic trust in reality. These talks explore the severed belonging that gives rise to mistrust, and two primary pathways to realizing and trusting the indivisible field of loving awareness that is our source (a favorite from the archives).

“To love without holding back – to really sense with the wisdom, the reality, that it’s right here – to live from wholeness. We have this capacity.”

“Who would you be if you trusted the basic goodness and beauty is living through you? How would your life be different if you trusted that spirit, love, awareness is what you are?”

photo: Janet

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Meditation: Choosing Living Presence (22:40 min) - Tara Brach

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Meditation: Choosing Living Presence –

A meditation on being present with our living, breathing life (includes chanting the Om’s – a favorite from Tara’s Wednesday night archives).

photo: Janet

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True Resilience – Part 2: Awakening through All Circumstances - Tara Brach

True Resilience – Awakening through All Circumstances – Part 2

Spiritual resilience enables us to deepen compassion and wisdom as we navigate life’s difficulties. In this two part series, we will look at the conditions that incline us towards or away from True Resilience, and explore practical and powerful practices that nourish this precious capacity.

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