This week, I had a bit of a melt-down. It was a very real, embodied experience of what some of my clients and friends are struggling with on a more regular base: challenges to mental health and overall wellbeing.
What happened?
A couple of weeks ago, I celebrated my 'a-knee-versary' - meaning: one year ago, I broke my left knee and temporarily lost my ability to walk. It has truly been a life-changing injury - on many levels. And I know now that it has been a blessing in disguise. Believing all health care experts, I have done extremely well with my rehab. My walking is not perfect yet but good enough to again do most things that I love doing. Overall, my physical wellbeing is better than before.
Most of my time-consuming rehab happened in a specialised functional health gym. They are brilliant and without my fabulous personal trainer Lewis, I would not be strength-wise and mentally where I am now.
Now two months ago, I decided to participate in a 12-week-strength and conditioning-challenge at that gym. On Monday this week, we did the re-testing and… I injured myself trying to deadlift about 1.5times my body weight. Interesting… we discovered a new weak area in my body.
A day later – while being in quite a bit of pain – I realised what this new injury might mean: limiting my physical activities again and more rehab. From one moment to the next, I found myself mentally challenged. My mood went down very quickly. And even though I know all the things you can do to pick yourself up again – it didn’t work. I couldn’t finish my work for that day. Resulting in productivity of zero. I went to bed early, hoping the next day would be better. Which it was: my performance went up again. Sometimes pausing and resting is the best activity.
A good reminder for everyone:
To perform well, you have to be well first.
How is this relevant for you?
Sustainable performance needs holistic wellbeing – especially in times of uncertainty and change.
Leaders can create ideal conditions for wellbeing. Health is at the core of leadership. However, health is a term that is often misunderstood and seen too narrowly. Mental health sounds even more specialised but it is much more than just “mental”. People are wasting time, money and energy looking in the wrong spots for solutions to create healthy results and wellbeing – for people and planet.
October is Mental Health Month. The Australian Bureau of Statistics tells us in their 2009 National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing that mental illness is widespread in Australia. Unfortunately, it is as bad in other developed countries, and has substantial impact at the personal, social and economic levels.
One in five (20%) Australians aged 16-85 experience a mental illness in any year. The most common mental illnesses are depression, anxiety and substance use disorder. These three types of mental illnesses often occur in combination. Almost half (45%) Australians will experience a mental illness in their lifetime.
In business, chances are high that one in five of your team members, peers, bosses and other stakeholders are mentally not well. It might even be that you are not feeling fully well.
I believe we have got our focus wrong. The word “illness” often means that there is a focus on fixing symptoms in one area. Think of all sorts of medication and lengthy psychotherapies. What we need is a more systemic approach. We need more integrative and preventative approaches – especially in the workplace.
In many cases, mental “illness” and declining health is a CONNECTION issue. In his book “Lost Connections” Johann Hari describes nine different disconnections – only two are related to genes and brain changes. The other seven causes for mental health issues can be influenced by either self-leadership or by consciously leading others.
What you can do….
Different ways of living based on ancient wisdom have been proven to support wellbeing. Stephen Ilardi, associate professor of clinical psychology at the University of Kansas, came up with the Caveman Therapy. He looked at our hunter-gatherer ancestors and what we can learn from them. Nicholas Kardaras in his book “How Plato and Pythagoras Can Save Your Life” explored ancient Greek prescriptions for health and happiness.
Both came up with similar recommendations – in their simplest form:
eat well
sleep well
move well
get outdoors
be social
participate in meaningful tasks
Usually, you will find these basic recommendations in any well-designed workplace wellbeing program. The challenge is then how to implement them fully. Each of the recommendations represents a connection to either self, other people or nature. The more connections are missing for people, the less we are able to function in a healthy, fully human way. “Illnesses” and their symptoms, as described before, show up.
Leaders play an important role in connecting and re-connecting people to these essentials of wellbeing. Without these, productivity and performance will suffer.
However, leaders have to put their own oxygen mask on first – before they support the people around them.
“You can only give what you’ve got.”
SELF-CARE is not selfish. It is a very much needed leadership skill.
Self-care allows leaders to be able to show up as their most effective self. Only with enough self-care, they will be someone who is truly energising their teams and stakeholders. Even if people wouldn’t talk about it, they feel it subconsciously if someone is holistically well or not – and they unconsciously respond to this.
Besides the six recommendations from above, leaders have to lead themselves and others in these three areas:
AWARENESS:
Self-awareness of healthy boundaries
Energy management
Systemic thinking considering ALL connections
Knowledge of signs and symptoms that something is not ok
APPRECIATION:
Self-compassion as refuge from our inner critical mind
Respect and acknowledgement
Communication with curiosity and compassion
ACCOUNTABILITY:
Self-trust and trust
Transparency
Integrity
The more leaders apply these, the more they will lead from a place of love and not fear. They support others to more easily create and re-create connections to themselves, other people and nature.
Eventually, health and wellbeing will be seen as a holistic system that supports everyone. Focusing just on a few parts won’t give you the full performance potential.
What is the part of your self-care needs that you have been ignoring for too long?
…go and do that.