Investing in Mental Resilience

In the period since World Mental Health Day last week (on the 10th of October) I’ve been reflecting on mental health and resilience.

Resilience is your ability to cope with difficult situations that arise in life, and your ability to recover from them. I remember coming across this concept in some externally run workplace training many years ago and feeling at the time like it was a cop out. It felt like a passing of the buck from the workplace (which I felt should be working to reduce stress on its employees) to the employees themselves, effectively saying they should simply learn to cope better with difficult situations!

Over the last several years, however, I’ve realised that in practice the responsibility must be on both parties – the employing organisation to support by trying to reduce workplace stress, but also on the employee themselves to work on their own mental health and resilience. Since this revelation, I have been intentionally investing in my mental health and mental resilience. I think this is an investment that has become increasingly important in our constantly changing world in both work, and life in general, particularly emphasised in recent years by massive, global changes like the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mental and physical health are equally important aspects of overall health, and I’ve taken to thinking about my weekly training as an equal balance between activities that keep me physically fit and those that keep me mentally fit. Some of course do both! Whilst I might be doing a mix of long, slow runs, short fast runs, medium tempo runs, strength and conditioning, and yoga for physical fitness, I might factor in some gentle walks in the fresh air, some LEGO building, painting, or spending time with friends to help me stay mentally fit. These kinds of activities help keep us in good shape, but of course, extremely difficult situations do crop up, so how do you help yourself to handle those and be able to recover?

A few years ago, I decided I wanted to try a marathon, after having already run 13 half marathons, a similar number of 10Ks, and countless 5Ks. After doing a fair bit of research on preparing for your first marathon, I concluded that whilst you did have to train your body to run further, and get nutrition sorted for the run, it seemed that the biggest challenge would be handling the mental difficulties over the 26.2 miles. Experts in running tell you to focus on breaking down the massive challenge of the marathon into smaller, more manageable milestones. Just think about getting to the next tree, split the distance into 5Ks, or percentages. This absolutely helps, as does visualising the finish before you start the event, but there will always be a period in a marathon, or maybe multiple periods, where it gets properly tough, and you have an intense temptation to panic or simply give up. This quote from one of my favourite running authors, Vassos Alexander (sports reporter, presenter, author, and endurance runner), sums it up nicely:

“Overcoming that temptation is as much an achievement as the actual running, and life has taught me that no good ever came from giving up.”

One of the brilliant tips that a friend of mine within the Ely Runners club (Justin Smith) shared with me during marathon training was to intentionally plan a long, looped training run which would pass by the door of your house multiple times. This would actively tempt me to stop and give up every time I ran by with the temptation increasing loop by loop. Whilst extremely difficult at the time, in hindsight this was fantastic resilience training and showed me that I could keep going despite the temptation. Having a group of friends around me, particularly ones that had been through similar experiences, during the training was also extremely important to be able to talk through the issues and how to handle them, or just simply listen if I needed to vent.

I think mental resilience is equally important in product management, if not more so. The role of a product manager is to evaluate product opportunities and determine which should be progressed based on value, usability, feasibility, and business viability. Product management sits at an intersection between business, user experience, and technology, and requires constant communication and collaboration with diverse people. People in product management roles often must handle setbacks, challenging stakeholders, highly complex decision scenarios, and intense, high-pressure periods particularly in the lead up to a launch.

As in running, there is a lot of value in visualising what you are aiming towards (i.e. define and continually revisit your product vision), and breaking things down into smaller, more manageable milestones that will deliver meaningful progress along the way. From experience you will still encounter tough times where things get difficult, and you may be tempted to panic or give up. In the build up to a major launch, or another key milestone, there is often some kind of crisis. I have had many conversations with product teams in this kind of crunch time about what to do, and someone would often ask “how can you be so calm when XYZ is happening?”. I think the key is to have faith in the vision, don’t give up, but use the diverse group around you to talk through any issues. There will be a solution, it’s just staying calm, not panicking, but getting the input from your diverse and brilliant team, then applying it. As Marty Cagan says in one of his SVPG articles:

“And [be] persistent – as in pushing companies way beyond their comfort zone with compelling evidence, constant communication and building bridges across functions in the face of stubborn resistance. Being a great product manager means having extraordinary grit.”

To finish, here’s one more excellent quote recently shared here on LinkedIn by Kate Leto that I found really powerful from Michael Caine – “use the difficulty”. This is Michael Caine’s life philosophy, and it highlights that whatever difficult challenges or changes you go through, there’s always something there that you can learn from. As Michael says:

“There is never anything so bad that you can’t use the difficulty. If you use a quarter of 1% to your advantage, you’re ahead."

I don’t think there is a perfect set of advice that will work for all situations, or all people, but I do think that both physical and mental health can be improved with active investment in them. When tough times do come, use the people around you for support, try to stay calm, and afterwards use the difficulty to learn and grow. How do you invest in your mental and physical health? What tips would you share with others?

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References

1. No Good Ever Came From Giving Up – Vassos Alexander
2. Behind Every Great Product – Marty Cagan, SVPG
3. Use The Difficulty – Michael Caine (YouTube)