5 Practices to Support Our Mental Health at Work

During stressful times on the job or if you’re an entrepreneur and feeling the heat it is critically important to take care of your mental health. Neglecting our mental state leads to fatigue, emotional outbursts, bad decision-making, and more.

But don’t wait until something is wrong before you think about your mental health. By then the damage to your job or career can be done, and in some situations, irreparable.

Implement the following practices to maintain your mental health and to enable you to effectively manage the stresses that will inevitably come.

Develop connections. It is vital to our mental health to engage with others. We are social beings and gain support and energy from our friendships and relationships with colleagues. Schedule regular time to meet with friends, develop new relationships with co-workers, attend networking events, and seek out meet-ups with others who have similar interests. 

Manage expectations. It’s easy to compare our work performance with others and get down on ourselves for failing to measure up but it is important for our mental health to be realistic and focus on our own strengths and weaknesses.

Take vacation time. In addition to ensuring that we get adequate sleep each night, we need to take advantage of our vacation time to allow ourselves to reset and focus anew on the big picture. Stepping away and getting a change of scenery can do wonders for the soul and help a frustrating or cloudy situation become clearer.

Work with a coach or therapist. Sometimes it is necessary to work with a coach to maintain our mental health. A coach or therapist can provide a different perspective and can help us be more effective in our work. Talk to friends or colleagues to get a referral or recommendation.

Find other sources of joy, fun, and satisfaction. Our lives should not just be about the office. We need hobbies and other interests to better enjoy life and to help us maintain our appreciation for the work we do. Often, by engaging with our curiosity for the world outside the office we can gain new insights that we can apply to our working lives and bring new enthusiasm and purpose to our career.

Paying attention to our mental health and applying practices that support us will reduce the stresses in our job, help us manage the inevitable surprises that accompany change, and help us bring consistent energy and intention to our working lives.

5 Tips for Finding Work-Life Balance with the Start of School

It's that time of year already! The end of summer and the start of a school. And, if you have children, you've likely noticed that your daily routine has become a bit out-of-whack over the last two months.

Not to fear. You can take some basic steps to get back into the swing of things so your work and personal life return to balance.

Here are a few tips to consider as you prepare for your kids to return to school.

1. Manage your expectations. Yes, there will be stress and everything will not go perfectly. Understand that there will be difficulties: you might oversleep, or the kids will oversleep, or you'll just be plain cranky in the morning and everything will bother you. These difficulties do not prevent you from having a good day, effective, and productive day, though, and do not allow them to prevent you from enjoying your children.

2. Get back into a routine early. Don't wait until the Sunday night before school starts to begin getting back into a routing of going to bed earlier, or waking up earlier to get that morning workout in. Start your new/old routine at least a week before school starts and he won't feel like such a shock.

3. Be prepared. Do whatever you can to make your mornings proceed smoothly. If possible make lunches the night before, have everything you need to take to work already organized and ready to go. Don't get into your car to discover you have no gas. All of these little things add up to bring great stress so do what you can to minimize inconveniences.

4. Watch your schedule. You might find that no more how organized you are something always comes up to make you a few minutes late for work. Prepare for this by ensuring, as much as you are able and have control over it, you do not schedule meetings first thing in the morning or have important deadlines to meet immediately. Give yourself a break and ease into the most demanding parts of your day.

5. Accept help. This tip might even be more effectively to "ask" for help. Perhaps a neighbor or grandparent can take the children to school, or pick them up. Even if this is done only one or two days in a week it can go a long way toward reducing your stress and helping you achieve a sense of work-life balance. There is no shame in seeking and accepting help.

Finally, be sure to enjoy this time. Before you know it, you'll miss these opportunities with your children. Take some time to sit back, relax, and experience some joy for the good things in your life.

4 Steps to Developing an Effective Working Relationship with Your Boss

A key to your job satisfaction is developing an effective working relationship with your boss. If you have a difficult or negative relationship with your supervisor you are unlikely to enjoy your work and it can seriously impact your work quality and, therefore, your opportunities for moving up.

You have the ability, however, to improve this relationship and here are 4 steps to help build a good working relationship with your boss.

1. Understand your boss's working style. It is important to understand how your supervisor likes to work. Is she detail-oriented, driven by deadlines, or does she make decisions slowly and deliberately? You need to understand how your manager likes to work in order to best meet his or her expectations.

2. Speaking of expectations. What exactly does your boss expect of you? The clearer you can come to understanding this the more effective your working relationship will be and the more effective you can be in your job. Try to get these expectations in writing so all parties can reference them if necessary.

3. Develop a communication plan. When you've done the work to understand your manager's style and know what her expectations are then you should have an indication of how best (and how often) to communicate. If he or she is a micro-manager then you might need to provide daily updates on a project and if you know your supervisor prefers face-to-face meetings then you likely don't want to provide these updates by email. Work with your boss to develop a communication plan that works for you both.

4. Maintain a positive attitude. There still might be times when your supervisor frustrates you or handles a situation or project in an unexpected way and in those times it's important to take a step back, realize your boss is human too, and maintain a positive attitude toward him or her. Avoid falling into the trap of bad-mouthing your manager to colleagues or other managers.

Implement these four steps and you'll likely see improvement in your interactions with your manager.  

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: 5 Career Questions to Ask Yourself

This is our weekly roundup of some of the best career-related articles, interviews, blogs, etc., we've read during the week. We share them so you have some great resources to prepare you for the coming week. Enjoy!

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• 5 Career Questions to Ask Yourself: "You first need to decide what sort of life you want and what role work will play in it. You can then adjust your expectations and needs regarding your career."


• 3 Keys to Being Fully Charged: "It is easier to improve your own happiness — and the well-being of others — when you focus on doing it right now. Taking small, meaningful actions today is the best way to make changes."


• 10 Ways to Become a More Confident Person: "Confidence-building is a virtuous cycle. No one but you is in the driver’s seat. All you have to do is buckle up and try something you've never tried before."


• Purpose is Good for You and for Business: "We believe that if more institutions—from work places to educational systems—were to embed programs and policies into their work that consciously cultivate purpose-directed individuals, we would see more passionate, engaged and flourishing employees."


• 6 Ways Your Significant Other Can Boost Your Career: "It always seems to mean more when your significant other tells you that you are smart, capable and skilled at what you do."

Expectations: Not Just for New Hires

How would you define 'success' in your current position? Now, reflect upon your answer...is that what your supervisor would say?

Are you sure?

Job roles and responsibilities are not as black and white as one might think and the work world is complicated by divergent, conflicting, and unknown expectations. Some positions call for results to be met, period. Others call for results to be met but by a certain method. Where does your work fall within this spectrum, and what have you done to align your behaviors and output with what is being asked of you?

Like a relationship between you and a significant other, the relationship between you and your employer should be a dynamic of open communication and as free as possible from assumptions. To ensure that you are in alignment with expectations, partake in some self assessment by answering the following questions below:

How do I see my current work contributing to department priorities?

What metrics am I using to measure my success, and how does my work compare to those metrics?

How do my work methods support the teams that I interact with?

What upcoming problems or opportunities do I need to be prepared for?

These four questions are the beginning of a conversation between you and your supervisor to ensure that you are not just performing to standards but that you know what the standards are. In a meeting with your supervisor, modify the questions slightly to ask them to him/her. Share your responses and see how well both of yours correspond with each others. It could be that you are on track, but it could also be that you need to make adjustments. Regardless, you will be rewarded by demonstrating your proactivity and initiative.

Take the guesswork out of your performance and help drive expectations of you to feel better about the work you produce and what you contribute to your organization.