Harnessing the Power of Emotional Resilience in the Workplace
I’m tired. Aren’t you?
Ever since the pandemic, I’ve been working from home full time. I’m tired of being on my computer all day where even social calls are meetings. I’m tired of feeling guilty every time I step away from my computer to buy groceries, prep lunch, pick up prescriptions, or discipline my dog for barking during my calls. I’m tired, and I don’t even have kids where I need to make sure they’re calling into their school sessions and paying attention to their teachers. (Bless you, parents.)
And what do I do with all this tiredness? Well, I’m less productive, less motivated, and more likely to seek vacuous entertainment from Netflix and my phone. The days tick by, and I try to grasp for some kind of control, some kind of normalcy. It freaks me out, yet I persevere. How? I talk about all of these things — I make it known to myself, my peers, my friends, and yes, even my boss.
Because to get through these emotional uphill battles, we need resilience. We need the tools to help us understand what we are feeling, what we want to create in the world, and how we can focus and accomplish something amazing even when the world around us feels like it’s falling apart.
I’m about to get real with you: I have clinical depression and anxiety. Have you ever cried at work? I used to have a favorite bathroom stall I could always run to. But know this: you don’t have to have a clinical mental illness to have emotions impact everything about you. Have you ever gotten so mad at work, that you misplaced that anger towards your friends, spouse, or kids? Is it happening even more now? We often hide these “extreme” emotions from our coworkers and peers. Those feelings are bottled up to deal with during our commutes (hello road rage), venting to our friends and family during happy hours and dinner times, and we go to bed upset knowing that we have to wake up in the morning to face the same problems.
We often hide these feelings for the sake of professionalism. However, professionalism isn’t about hiding who you are and what you truly feel. It’s about having the skills to direct those feelings into constructive, helpful, and useful actions.
I am not encouraging you to tell John where to stick it when he mansplains your own job to you. I’m not encouraging you to respond out of these fear-based emotions because you’re never going to make the right decisions if you do. However, what you can do with any emotion is simply name it. Naming an emotion allows you to build self-awareness and that resilience I mentioned earlier. Naming an emotion allows you to bring to the surface what you are feeling and understand how that may affect your actions.
Studies show that the practice of naming your emotions and building emotional self-awareness improves overall mental health. Because when you build that self-awareness, you are able to apply tools to work through and embrace those emotions — you can more consciously work through sadness and anger and have more appreciation for happiness and peace.
Once you name an emotion, it gives you power. Power you can harness into reflection, motivation, and action. For example, by naming anger, you can take a moment to feel that anger. Then ask yourself why you’re feeling that way. What triggered that emotion? Do a quick 1-minute breathing exercise until you feel calmer, or maybe love or confidence shows up for you. Now what are you going to do? My money is going into the scenario where you provide clear and constructive feedback to John that his tone came across as condescending, but you understand that it wasn’t malicious. You can explain how you prefer to communicate and share information. Maybe it flies over John’s head, but maybe, just maybe, John learns from the situation like you have learned how to turn your feelings into powerful motivators.
How good are you at naming the emotion you’re feeling right now? I mean right now. Take a second to reflect inward. Are you happy? Bored? Upset? Peaceful? Can you name the emotion? If you can, that’s great — you are already on the path of emotional resilience. If you can’t name a specific emotion (maybe you identify yourself as feeling “okay” or “normal”), you are ready for the path of emotional resilience.
Try this: grab a journal or a piece of paper. Write down the dominant emotion you’re feeling right now. Tomorrow, do the same thing. Do this multiple times a day. You can add more context to the emotion like details about what you’re doing at the moment or what just happened to make you feel that way. After a week, look at this piece of paper. Are there trends? Are there clear triggers? Use this information as input. Are you blocking yourself from truly being productive or focused? Are there ways to mitigate or work through what you were feeling at the time?
There is much more we can do to build upon this resilience. Those tips are saved for other articles, blog posts, and trainings. For now, I wanted to impart this one key tool that can make a great impact and change, especially in the workplace. The steps towards emotional resilience are logical but difficult. They sound easy, yet we tend to skip the work. I encourage you, especially if you’re feeling as tired as I am, to try this work. I promise you, it creates a positive change. Today, I feel less tired. I feel ready to tackle the challenges of the day. And like with any fitness program, because I’ve been training, I’m stronger than I was before.
