Mindfulness & Mental Wellbeing – At Workplace

How individual’s mindfulness, mental fitness and health influence and impacts his/er efficiency and productivity at workplace and beyond? An individual, productive at workplace, efficient in process, skilled at handling jobs, knowledgeable to understand and guide others, energetic to carry with assignments, patient to endure pressures and wise enough to be ethical and loyal – is the best suitable team or leader for an organization. Individual always require self-control to learn, adapt and perform under very challenging and ever changing workplace dynamics in modern days, especially current pandemic situation of COVID – 19 and resultant industrial and economic trajectories as being experiences in all developed, developing and emerging market economies. Human Resources, Leaders, Industrial Relations, Trainers, Mentors & Consultants – would need to take mental health and wellbeing very seriously to save generations now and leave behind a footprint of decent workplace practices as legacy to be followed and referred by generations ahead.

Workplace challenges, bullying, undue pressures, envies & rivalries, toxic culture, micromanaging attempts by line-manager and all those sub-standard practices often lead to loss of mindfulness, diminishing thinking standards and sometimes psychological disorders leading to mental health losses. Most recently we have seen suicidal deaths in famous Bollywood movie industry in India, with whatever reasons but by apparent reason of lack of mindfulness and stable mental health. Protecting mindfulness is individual’s own and foremost important responsibility first and then organizational leadership as shared. Leadership must be more humane, holistic and accommodative to create an environment whereby everybody would work in team with shared goal of work, learn and grow in healthy and friendly work culture. Mindfulness is all about attitude, process of thinking, behaviors at workplace and in society. Mindful individuals take good care of their inner personality, control what and how they think, perceive and react to everything that matter and avoid things that simply do not matter and irrelevant. Aptly termed as self-control in psychology and behavioral science. Self-Control is a choicest selection of better for future than good for present, as attitude by individual at work and in person all the time.

(50% - Work, Learn, Change & Adapt | 30% - Read, Analyze, Reflect | 20% - Networking)

A long term vision with personal attitude for improvement and hard work in present for benefits in future with productivity and efficiency as direct outcome. Why self-control matters and how does it shape an individual’s efficiency and productivity? It’s all about perceptions and attitude towards self and work, as individual would go all extra miles to sacrifice his/er comforts and momentary pleasures of present for greater benefits of future. A productive individual believes in focusing and working hard, with long term goals in mind for future as vision, whereby mediocre would be guided by present comforts, wait for pay cheque, weekends, holidays and clock hours as counts. A judicious action of burning present fuel to navigate though and arrive at desired future destination, a series of selective decisions, efforts, sacrifices, focused approaches with end-result in mind, that is what we need to term as mindfulness and self-control. Emotional Intelligence and maturity go hand in hand with one’s mindfulness. Growing importance of high EQ and maturity as key traits of leaders is clear indicator of how important mindfulness for professional work environment is. 

Avoid through and all:

1.    Do not listen to gossips, negative feedbacks, backbites and rumors.: Negative speeches and words intoxicate our minds, protecting our minds though our ears are very important hence. Listen what is important and retain what matters is the simple and easy method to follow.

2.    Do not engage in unnecessary arguments and discussions.: Save your mouth and speak when required and necessary to. Avoiding loose conversations, gossips and arguments of any sorts are an important responsibility of learned individual. Save your mouth and be valuable.

3.    Do not work late, off-days and during vacations, not check mailbox in odd-hours.: Do you subscribe your work emails in your personal handheld phone? Well, not a very good idea for your personal and mental health then. Work smarter, ethical and responsible, report to work whether at office or work from home on time, windup and leave workplace on time. Over working never does good, until and unless an absolute emergency and must to do kind of situations. Do not work during your holidays and vacations, to do justice with self and others.

4.    Do not procrastination and precrastination: Both these extremes are bad for the organization and for individual. Procrastination is morbid, so is precrastination. Anything overloaded will gradually make your memory cells weaker in long run. Most of employees and leaders would try to read all emails or whole unread mailbox at once and try to handle multiple tasks all at once, and often make series of mistakes and overall things what matters most. The only solution is to tackle issues and jobs at right time and work efficiency without being in haste or late. 

5.    Do not bring your personal baggage at work.: Perhaps, no one is exceptional escape from this phenomenon of indulgence of personal affairs even at work and while being in working assignment. To protect our mental wellbeing and good practice, learning to differentiate between personal and professional matters is stringent. What is person must stay personal and what is professional should never get space into personal. This is for our own good as well as good for the organization we work for.

6.    Do not micro-manage and allow others to micro-manage yourself.: Look at the bigger pictures, focus on what matters most and overlook micro things and minor issues, I know this is hard to do, but this is best for our own health and wellbeing. Over occupation of mind would ruin your mindfulness, therefore, do this for your own sake and for the sake of team and others in the organization. Micromanaging team members would certainly not work in longer run and destroy them and us mentally.

7.    Stay away from naysayers and negative thinkers.: Save yourself and others from negativities of all sorts, especially from those habitual naysayers. They are wired to see failures in everything they come across, and every opportunity they would see as threats. These are the people who will ultimately lead to overall organizational failures as collective. Stay away rather far away from such no makers, negative thinkers and naysayers to protect your mind and mental health.

8. Nothing is too personal at work, take things purely professional and move on.: Protective your own ego is important so is respecting others’ egos and self-esteems. Do not take everything personal and get hurt. Being touchy, and too sensitive do not work at workplace. Nothing is too personal at work, people may argue, quarrel or even fight at work but they are not personal, and we must be matured enough to realize that. Save and protect your emotions for the good of your own metal health. 

Adopt partial and in whole:

1.    Agility matters, practice agility in every aspects of work life.: Agility not just ability is new trend and would rule to workplace domain ahead in time. Agility matters most not just talents, skills and knowledge. Albeit, agility challenges the traditional Taylorism Management Hierarchy, it brings the organization flatters with enhanced engagements and greater collaborations. This is certainly better for mental health and wellbeing of individual to work in agile environment and exceed expectations while crossing all barriers.

2.    Punctual, Focused, Disciplined and professional at work.: Being on time, self-disciplined and ethically professional at work help self and others in the tea, and hence contribute to overall work culture of the organization. Stable and friendly work environment starts with engagement and committed to time-line and schedules which helps everyone to be healthy and happy at work.

3.    Working and Learning must go in perfect synchronization.: A learning at workplace is real, permanent and tangible learning, as effectively opined by experts across the industry and domain. Mindfulness is practiced and exercised on daily basis at workplace. Learn from others, help others to learn and create an environment of learning and development for sound mental health and wellbeing for everyone.

4.    Division of work, setting own time-line and automation of scheduling.: Do not attempt to do everyone and all at one time and in one go. Smart workers need to divide, schedule and program workflows to optimize the efficiencies and deliverables. Thanks to Automations and Software, we can schedule many routine functions. Make good use of those technologies and apps in work laptop and workstations. Take help of daily calendars and organizers to get prompted and alerted on time-line and assignments to handle without failures and lapses. Help yourself to be smart with your work and protect your mind and overall health.

5.    Eat Right, Rest Well, Invest in Health & Wellness.: A sound mind stays in sound body, as conventional wisdom says. Eat healthy, balanced and rich diet on time and rest enough to recharge your mind, rejuvenate your body, have sound uninterrupted night sleep, exercise regularly and think nothing but always positive about yourself and others. They are great enablers for good and permanent health of longevity. While at work take periodic walk break and possible do some light and quick stretching. These are important for our mind nerve system and helps in long run mindfulness. Nothing is more important than your health and wellbeing, as the only assets for your life, hence prioritize your health above all and everything else.

6.    Learning a language, playing sports, practicing a musical instrument.: Only learning mind can stay functional mind, as scientists and learning experts say. Learning a foreign language helps our mind to stay sharp and its proven. Playing sports give our mind the time to relax, stay focused and rejuvenate. Listening to or playing a musical instrument again is clinically proven to be helpful for our mindfulness and sound mental health.

7.    Be eternally Young, partying and socializing occasionally.: Think young and you are younger, the wisdom has been held true for generations. Feel young from mind, think positive and have fun as you would as very younger. Do not skip opportunities to socialize and do occasion partying, as they not only relax your mind but also inspire you to look younger, fitter and smarter. Work hard, have fun, relax and party harder. Life is given once, and you live once and for all, have some time for self and feel younger in those cherished moments. Eat, play, love, learn and work are penchant for self and others.

8.    Staying in right network, surround yourself with good people.: Bad company and evil companions spoil good man and virtues of a man. Surround yourself with people better than in every of at least few aspects of life. Be mindful and live in company of those who are mindful. Forge good relationship and treasure those valuable relationship lifelong. It is the key to successful life to be in right network of right people. Positivity begets positivity only; we must make our choice to be positive and protect our mindfulness and mental health.

Organizations need would need to take Mental Health of employees of all strata, serious to while enabling safe, clean and healthy workplace for everyone. Modern days transformations of workplaces and corporate matrices, with massive re-structuring, downsizing, cost-cutting, industrial relationship re-setup, institutional austerity measures - would make direct impacts on individuals, families and societies across the whole regions of the world. A direct effect on Individuals is Stress and Psychological Issues as aftermath of current pandemic would be there for next couple of years. Business Leaders, Coach and Trainers must consider this issue for their current and ahead training programs to help employees deal with the issues related to workplace stress, pay-cuts, remote working and series of their measures, companies are taking to be able to survive and functional in market. A mindful employee as team member is an asset, which organizations must not sacrifice for short gain and momentary benefits.