It’s Almost Impossible To Coach Anything Today, Without Considering The Mental Health Issue

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Would it be fair to say that résumé writing professionals and career coaches have always been dealing with their clients’/students’ mental health issues in some way, shape, or form?

Back in the 50’s and 60’s, we seldom spoke about it.?Check that… we never spoke about it.?A neighbor, just three houses away from ours, Dicky Reimer, was mentally retarded.?That’s what it was called back then.?“Treat him with compassion and respect,” my mother always reminded us.?But that was it.?There were never any discussions about what it must be like to live with a family member like Dicky.?So loving, yet so demanding of time and emotion.

I was aware of the huge, enigmatic, brick building atop a hill in Danvers, Massachusetts, which housed the mentally ill.?It overlooked a highway we traveled when we visited both sets of grandparents.?Whenever we passed it, my brothers and I would acknowledge the nut house; but I don’t recall a single discussion on the topic of mental illness.?And we were a family that discussed everything.?Well, almost everything.

But today, some 60 years later, it’s hard to do anything without the topic of mental health coming up - in sports, entertainment, business, crime… you name it.?It seems like just about everyone is talking or thinking about the topic, and many are actually experiencing unique forms of mental illness, to some degree.?Like me, for instance!

2 Episodes

#1) Last fall, my boss at a golf facility where I work part-time, handed me five 20-dollar bills, and said, “Please go to the bank and get a hundred dollars in fives; we’re short on five-dollar bills.”?

No problem.?I went to my bank and handed the teller the five 20s and asked for a hundred dollars in fives.?When she returned with a thin stack of five-dollar bills, I immediately knew she had made a mistake.?I said, “This can’t be a hundred five-dollar bills.”?

After a spirited debate, she smiled inquisitively and asked me to put my hand out - palm up.?She began placing five-dollar bills in my hand and counting aloud… “five, ten, fifteen…” up to a hundred.?Suddenly, akin to being hit alongside the head by a demolition wrecking ball, I felt as stupid and humiliated as I ever remembered feeling.?My mind was thinking 100 fives – not 100 dollars in fives. Is my intermittent post-COVID brain fog a form of mental illness??

#2) Last December, I emailed my family and close friends, excited that I was having a unique birthday on 2/2/22, given my favorite number is 22.?My father-in-law, a 92-year-old Frenchman living in Paris, immediately emailed me back and asked, “Is this a test of my memory??Isn’t your birthday in January?”?Was this yet another mental health/illness issue I was suffering from?

What Is Mental Illness?

For many of us, we hear the term so exhaustively these days, we tend to become numb and indifferent to it.?We’re inclined to equate mental illness to homeless people, violent criminals, persons suffering trauma, and those conceived with birth-related irregularities.

But what we tend to under-appreciate is that mental health issues have varying degrees and levels of intensity, which affect almost everyone to some extent - from mild stress to unmanageable overwhelm; from controllable anger to mindless rage; from intense love to ferocious jealousy, and everything in between.??

Then, there’s that emotional perpetrator that creates so much of life’s emotional (mental health) upheavals – worry.?Mild to massive; occasional to chronic; healthy to ghastly unhealthy.?Everyone experiences their daily dose of worry, with many suffering from considerably more than a daily dose.?And this, undoubtedly, would include most job seekers.????

So, what is mental illness?

Mental Illness Definition - American Psychiatric Association

Mental illnesses are health conditions involving changes in emotion, thinking or behavior (or a combination of these). Mental illnesses are associated with distress and/or problems functioning in social, work or family activities.

For job seekers – mental health issues have always been part of the job search process

When you consider the mindsets of job seekers, most are propelled by negative and defeating attitudes, i.e.?pessimism, fear, doubt, pain, overwhelm, stress, and a lack of confidence.?By definition – mental health issues.?

How many job seekers have trouble getting to sleep at night because they’re so excited to wake up in the morning to conduct their job search - to enrich their lives? Have you ever given serious thought to the mental health (mindset) of your clients/students??

Would it be fair to assume that résumé writing professionals and career coaches have ‘always’ been dealing with their clients’/students’ mental health issues in some way, shape, or form?

The military: mindset optimizes skill set

Consider the military.?The primary purpose of basic training (boot camp) for all new recruits, is to strip them of their civilian mindset and rebuild them with a military mindset.?What good are state-of-the-art technologies and strategies in the hands of fearful and undisciplined soldiers???Similarly, what good are state-of-the-art résumés and job search strategies in the hands of fearful and undisciplined job seekers???

Wouldn’t job seekers benefit from some form of boot camp, to re-build them with a success-oriented job campaign mindset??Is this not considered an effective and successful form of mental wellness conditioning?

Varying degrees of mental health challenges

I believe there was a sizable mental health disparity, in terms of emotional intensity and reaction, between my brain fog issues and what Will Smith showcased at the Academy Awards.?Furthermore, I’d contend that the whole world is grappling with an accelerated rate of mental wellness issues… from physical outbursts on planes to emotional bullying on social media; from minor disagreements to major you-can’t-unring-the-bell altercations; and from the inconsequential day-to-day stuff to life-threatening thoughts and actions.?

In terms of the quality of life… emotions matter.?And to the extent emotions matter (and they all do), this governs the condition of our mental wellness.?And this, in turn, determines how well we (and your clients/students), function or don’t function at any given time.?And what we achieve or don’t achieve in life.?

Mental wellness

Not everyone would agree that they suffer from mental health issues, but most might agree they do suffer some form of mental wellness issues.?I’m just fine.?I’m down today. ?I’m in the zone.?I’m depressed.?I’m mad as hell.?I’m as happy as could be.??All varying forms of mental wellness - some high, some low.?When a best friend fired me back in 1992, I had some significant mental wellness problems that were sabotaging my life, and that I needed to get resolved.

In comparison to mental health or mental illness, the term mental wellness is more welcoming, less intimidating and embarrassing, and overall, more acceptable in terms of empowering massive action to achieve favorable outcomes.?Don’t we modify words and phrases throughout society to feel better to achieve more??For example, a stewardess is now a flight attendant; a garbage/trash collector is now a sanitation engineer; a former salesclerk is now a team associate.?Mentally retarded people are now emotionally challenged.?And were you aware that many receptionists now hold the new-fangled title of Director of 1st Impressions?

The fact is, we can’t fix what we don’t acknowledge.?I believe more people would benefit from adopting the phrase mental wellness, first to acknowledge that their mindset would benefit from a reset.?And then, to enthusiastically take the appropriate actions to achieve more with an optimally empowered mindset. ??

3 ways to help job seekers better address their mental wellness issues

?1)????Empowering Terminology.?

When I work with clients, I refer to résumés as hiring proposals.?I explain that networking is nothing more than building your own personal sales force.?Interviewing is an employment meeting, and a job search must not be a haphazard hunt for the proverbial needle in the haystack.?Rather, we transition the job search into a kick-ass self-marketing campaign, to design a better future.?Problems are merely a challenge, unemployment is simply a transitional process to enrich life, and adversities and setbacks are inevitable nuisances on the road to success.?When we change the language and terminology we use, we change how job seekers feel.?And this in turn promotes “healthy” mental wellness – and rapid employment.

?2)????Focus Management:??

If you watch the news on TV and become anxious, stressed, or even depressed – you just need to click the remote control and change to a comedy channel.?Then instantly, you can be laughing, relaxed, and content.?So, a powerful technique to empower optimal mental wellness is to challenge job seekers to 1) focus on all they have, in pursuit of all they want, 2) focus on where they’re going, not where they are, and 3) resourcefully focus on solutions and opportunities, not problems and obstacles.

?3)????Reference Validation: Reference validation instills a new belief - a feeling of confidence - because someone else successfully overcame similar barriers, obstacles, and adversities to those faced by job seekers; not unlike a support group.?When job seekers realize that other job seekers, just like them, successfully landed great jobs, you can use these success stories to instill a high degree of hope – that they too can replicate that success.?Reference validation is a highly effective stratagem that inspires job seeker confidence, by providing “evidence” (articles, videos, blogs, testimonials, etc.) of other job seekers who quickly transitioned from unemployed to employed.?It’s the “if they can do it – I can do it” tactic.

Summary

Today, it’s hard to go anywhere or watch, listen, or read anything without the topic of mental health being covered.?Everyone is dealing with, in varying degrees, mental wellness – from emotional calm to emotional chaos. Coaches, teachers, and trainers do not have to become PhD’s in psychology to meet the emotional and mental wellness issues and needs of most clients/students.?But it will be almost impossible to coach anything moving forward, without considering mental health / mental wellness issues.?

CEMP might be a good place to start. https://parwcc.com/page/CEMP_new