Mom in flames, revisited
Remember the story we started with in Part 1: a mother, back from maternity leave and struggling, ready to leave her job because she couldn’t see a way forward. She got a coach.
Understanding and self-compassion helped me find room to breathe. With my coach, I found ways to be more physically healthy but also ways to pay attention and interpret situations more healthily.
I only had Coach Donna for a few months. To be honest, I could have used 6 more months. But it was a start. I didn’t quit my job. I didn’t quit my spouse. I got excited about my work and my team again.
I had found my footing on a small island of stability, a new mindset, and insight into how I worked — my coach gave me operating instructions and a set of tools for myself. I was learning how to work on my own mental strength.
Did my company have other ways to support me? Maybe. In any big company, you go looking into employee benefits and find a huge menu. It can be overwhelming. Especially when your problem is … overwhelm.
We had an EAP: but I wasn’t ill. I was exhausted, going through the motions and struggling for air amid a lot of change and stress. Besides, the idea of taking time to find a therapist who could grasp all of the work-related concerns felt beyond the pale. I had a “career counselor” but she represented me in performance reviews so… no. We had a meditation app. But I couldn’t seem to sit still. We had a fitness benefit, but I hadn’t found a new gym since I moved. There were discounts on ski passes and an employee help-line. Nothing really seemed to fit.
When we talk about supporting people’s mental health and well-being, we’re talking about mental fitness. Mental fitness is way beyond self-care. Sometimes you do need a break, a rest, a massage, a mediation. But you typically can’t get a massage or a nap on-demand in the middle of a busy work week. Even if you can, the effect is temporary relief, like a bandaid.
Strong mental health means you have the skills and people around you needed to improve, and maintain, your well-being. When you have high well-being, you are thinking, feeling, and performing at your best no matter what the day brings.
For example, one of the core skills to strengthen is resilience. BetterUp found that individuals with the highest resilience had higher overall well-being throughout the pandemic, by 6% on average. Not only that, when the resilient took a hit to well-being, the size of the rebound was bigger by 1.2x. By building resilience, you build a stronger capacity to manage change and grow through challenges.
The hard part is that everyone’s needs and journey to mental strength and fitness are unique. No one size fits all. That’s a big reason why the market for wellness products is so active and fragmented and why we all have at least 3 or 4 abandoned well-being apps on our phones.
The reason we’re so passionate about this is because we’ve seen that this whole curve can shift significantly to the right with personalized support. Of the people who start out “stuck” (low well-being), 77% will significantly improve their well-being state by 3-4 months.