The Confusion of Resilience with Safety

The searches above suggest that many people believe there is a link between resilience and safety. However, this is a misconception. Resilience can be considered a person’s ability to recover from some type of adverse situation. The term safety, by comparison, means living free from any risk of injury, danger, or loss. To put it another way: resilience is a response to adversity, while safety is an avoidance of it.

A Concern for Self-Discipline

As we consider the importance of mental health, there’s also a need to think about self-discipline. Since the changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, people seem to be chasing safety but have not necessarily worked concurrently to improve their personal strength of character. It is plausible to believe that the pandemic’s prompting of isolation, attacks on social norms, and forcible changes in environments forced people back to the drawing board. That could indicate that people are not set up for disaster because they’ve lowered their guard.

Mental Health and Learned Helplessness

Consider learned helplessness. When animals are subjected to repeated stresses that are out of their control, they give up and “take what’s coming,” even after they are removed from that situation. Martin E.P. Seligman, PhD and Steven F. Maier, PhD creates a study called “Learned Helplessness” in 1972 through the Department of Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. The study was on a group of dogs, where one set has a lever to stop shocks while the other does not. When moved to an area allowing them to avoid the shocks, one group moved out of the way to do so, while the second group, the group that didn’t have the lever, laid down and whined. This shows that, when one is in a situation where they lack control over negative stimuli, they not only suffer mentally, but they can continue to perceive a lack of control once their situation has changed, thus leading to learned helplessness. Given the world situations of recent years, there’s been a lot of big stressors that seem too big for an individual to contend with. This could account for the spike in suicides, especially among younger generations. In the U.S., for example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that suicide was the 12^th leading cause of death in the USA in 2020. It accounted for the loss of 45,900 lives.

How to Improve the Mental Health of Your Workplace

Workplace mental health is an invaluable tool, and the status of it in your office cannot be avoided. How can we build this into our day-to-day work life?

Controlled Non-Avoidance

In a workplace where a diverse group of people works together, adversity and conflict are inevitable. Rather than running and hiding, you embrace it. Make sure to give the parties involved control over the outcome they have. This can directly impact workplace mental health.

The Safety of Strength

Instead of building an isolated fortress to hide inside, we should expose ourselves to uncomfortable or unfamiliar, but not untenable, situations that help us build our inner strength. Sit down with employees and have a frank, honest conversation about workplace satisfaction. Encourage them to be open and honest. It will be uncomfortable, but if everyone approaches it with the goal of building personal strength, everyone will find some benefit from it. That betters workplace mental health.

The Push and Pull of Motivation and Self-Discipline

Motivation is our thirst to achieve something. The end result is often some type of reward or benefit. It’s a North Star, pulling us in a given direction. But motivation wanes over time. When motivation gets tired of driving, that’s when self-discipline takes over. Self-discipline links us to powerful drivers like ego, character, reputation, and personal values. I can recall many times during my military days when my motivation had all but dwindled, but self-discipline begrudgingly kept me going, along with the desire not to let myself or my team down. Most people aren’t going to be motivated about everything they do, and that’s okay--as long as they are disciplined enough to keep moving forward.

Conclusion

What I can say with absolute assurance is that this investigation has shifted perspectives on workplace mental health. Perhaps I will conduct more research about how personal strength and self-discipline can be refined and incorporated, including their role in workplace mental health. If this prompted one person to do the same thing, then it’s successful. As a business leader, it’s critical to foster a sense of learning and growth. Check out our online courses at The Eighth Mile to learn more about how to improve the mental health of your workplace."