Managing Your Mental Health in Turbulent Times

“You still need care and atten­tion to per­form at your best, or you will def­i­nite­ly crash and burn.” — Dou­ble your Resilience, Your Oxy­gen Mask First

Wow. What a week! We went from watch­ing prob­lems far away in Asia and Europe to find­ing our­selves in the mid­dle of the same virus storm, at home.

We are watch­ing his­to­ry in the mak­ing and it’s fas­ci­nat­ing — and stress­ful. We’re all wor­ried about peo­ple we care about get­ting sick. And, like many of you, I’ve pre­pared for the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a home quarantine.

I learned from my men­tor Thomas Leonard about the Prin­ci­ple of Super Reserve: hav­ing much more than you need of the resources you need – time, mon­ey and sup­port (and toi­let paper, which some have tak­en to an extreme!) – so that you are able to be present and to do your best work.

No mat­ter how smart, strong or capa­ble, it’s easy to be affect­ed by the fear that kicks in when soci­ety as a whole is hav­ing a pan­ic attack.

Because of all I’ve learned over the years, I rec­og­nize when my mind­set changes and know how to quick­ly bounce back. After such a stress­ful week — as I worked with clients through­out North Amer­i­ca, Europe and Asia through some very chal­leng­ing sit­u­a­tions; and as the pan­dem­ic moved across the globe – I’m get­ting back to the resilience rit­u­als (get­ting out­doors and writ­ing) that make me feel dra­mat­i­cal­ly bet­ter. I can now focus on what I need to do, in my own world, and to help oth­ers bet­ter. It makes a mas­sive difference.

So, here are my rec­om­men­da­tions for you:

• Look at the Men­tal Health Con­tin­u­um Mod­el to self-assess and under­stand your cur­rent men­tal health. The spec­trum from Healthy to React­ing to Injured or Ill – from red to green)
• Read or review Chap­ter 3 on Resilience Rit­u­als and make sure you’re doing every­thing you can to take care of yourself.
• Talk to some­one if the stress is get­ting to you to shift your mind from watch­ing what’s hap­pen­ing to what you can do. Stay­ing in vic­tim mode can be par­a­lyz­ing, and the soon­er you can get into action, the better
• Take care of the prac­ti­cal issues and think about you can do beyond the sit­u­a­tion to enjoy your life – to make qual­i­ty con­nec­tions and time with fam­i­ly and friends.

Image Source: BC Emer­gency Health Services

It should be the same with your com­pa­nies: make sure you are pre­pared to with­stand the tur­bu­lence, and in a posi­tion to do the right thing for your cus­tomers and your employees.

It’s a time to look for oppor­tu­ni­ties not prob­lems, to scrape away all unnec­es­sary projects and to become more efficient.

It’s a time for action.

The Chal­lenge

• What do you have to do for you and your fam­i­ly to free your­self up to do your best work?
• What are the biggest oppor­tu­ni­ties for your com­pa­ny now?

If you need help to nav­i­gate this stormy time, please reach out. We’re here to help.