Resilience is one’s capacity to recover quickly from difficulties or setbacks. It’s not only an essential skill for dealing with a minor setback – such as hearing bad news or not getting a call back after an interview - it’s essential for recovery from a major setback – such as losing a job, getting a divorce, or recovering from a pandemic.
According to Psychology Today, resilience is “that ineffable quality that allows some people to be knocked down by life and come back stronger than ever. Rather than letting failure overcome them and drain their resolve, they find a way to rise from the ashes.”
One way to establish more resilience is through the adoption and practice of mindfulness. Research shows that mindfulness helps to create more resiliency as well as to maintain a positive stance, both of which are essential during these unprecedented challenging times.
In this white paper, you’ll find evidence-based research and cited articles that demonstrate how the adoption of mindfulness in the workplace helps people increase equilibrium, reduce stress, and enhance well-being, as well as develop skills essential to mental health and productivity.
In a recent article on Entrepreneur.com, Malachi Thompson states that mindfulness is “finally starting to receive recognition for its effectiveness in creating a peak performance mindset. Widely used by elite athletes, it is increasingly being adopted by C-suite managers as a contemplative skill to increase resilience, reduce stress, and regain clarity and focus.”
The time is now for a new approach so you and your organization can flourish.
Introduction:
In this unprecedented global crisis, business experts have repeatedly said that new skills and new mindsets are needed to adapt to the “new normal”. And this requires resilience – an ability to manage stress while navigating the current reality with hopefulness, compassion, and clear thinking.
“Research into resilient employees found that what makes them stand out is the ability to manage stress by actively engaging in self-care and nurturing themselves after a stressful incident… Recent studies have supported the role of mindfulness training on psychological resilience.” Training Journal, Oct. 2019
Today, stress levels are as high as they’ve ever been, and mindfulness has been identified as one of the best antidotes for stress – and there are no negative side effects.
Mindfulness in the workplace has increased in popularity over the years. It is a secular practice comprised of several techniques aimed at helping the practitioner develop essential skills including increased mental focus, increased emotional intelligence, ability to remain calm under pressure, increased empathy, and increased creativity.
Nathan Klarer, CEO of Bridgecrest Medical, explains why mindfulness works at work:
“Mindfulness is the practice of observing the body’s physical and mental state. Recognizing your state and making intentional responses to situations is an invaluable skill. A leadership team that uses this skill is better able to assess the competitive landscape, make necessary business change, and set effective goals.”
Background:
Employee burnout was a serious issue even before the pandemic, one which costs companies money and lost productivity. It also can have a devastating effect on an employee’s health. But today, with the looming uncertainties due to the COVID 19, along with the confinement, the monetary losses, and additional responsibilities, the chances of burning out or experiencing chronic stress are off the charts. Organizations are facing an employee burnout crisis.
A 2018 Gallup study of nearly 7,500 full-time employees found that “23% of employees reported feeling burned out at work very often or always… the hard organizational cost of burnout is substantial: Burned-out employees are 63% more likely to take a sick day and 2.6 times as likely to be actively seeking a different job.“
Some employees such as those in healthcare, retail, and grocery stores, are having to work longer and harder just to keep up. Some are facing higher levels of stress than normal, including those who are afraid of getting sick or losing their job.
And we can only imagine that burnout has increased with the varying circumstances and their impacts on workers including telecommuting, increased responsibilities, homeschooling while working, unemployment of spouse or partner, sickness, or being a caregiver for someone who is sick.
Finally, employees can become bored or disengaged while working from home, as they miss human contact, or their supervisor is not as supportive as they could be, or they are not getting enough challenging work.
Being in the Flow
There is a middle ground between being stressed out and not feeling stressed at all. It’s called being in the flow. In his book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says that being in the flow happens when you are being challenged enough to stay engaged, but not so much that you burn out.
While the reality is more complex, being in the flow is a path. It’s when you are engaged in an activity where you just want to keep on going and going and going. Any slight deviation – such as too many uncertainties or too many distractions can quickly move the needle from being in the flow to feeling anxious and overwhelmed. Also, a lack of challenge may drive people to boredom and disengagement.
COVID-19 has the potential to throw off the balance in either direction.
The good news is that the practice of mindfulness, along with the right amount of challenge, can help people get back into the zone and experience flow.
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