For Morra Aarons-Mele, author of The Anxious Achiever, stress is a constant in today’s workplace and, if we ignore it, the anxiety it creates can seriously impact our performance. But anxiety is fundamental to leadership – if we have the tools to manage it, harness its power, and turn stress into strength. There is also a strong organizational imperative here: as her latest book, Boundaries, Priorities, and Finding Work-Life Balance, points out, a mentally healthy workforce brings a significant return on investment, with employers seeing a $4 return for every dollar invested in employee mental health support.
Alyson Meister is quick to point out that the mobile phone is a key delivery system for stress. “Tech is activating our systems the second we look at our phones – even the presence of our smartphone is reducing our attentional performance,” she explains. Studies show this “problematic” mobile phone use is connected to the experience of addiction.
Meister identifies four ways in which mobile phones can cause us psychological harm, beginning with loss of control. This is the feeling that you can’t control your phone usage, even when you don’t want to use it – “it’s getting lost in those rabbit holes.” The next issue is dependence, which can lead to withdrawal. Then there is emotional coping, using your mobile phone to “numb yourself.” This not only limits our emotional intelligence but our ability to develop other emotional regulation skills. The final problem stems from the negative life consequences that any kind of addiction can have. Does it make you feel bad? Do you feel impostor syndrome, fear of missing out, shame, loss of motivation, or harm to your social relationships? These feelings all relate to stress and burnout at work.
Jon M Jachimowicz, who researches the experience, antecedents, and consequences of passion at Harvard Business School, believes that passion – a character trait that leaders value highly – is strongly implicated in workplace burnout. “We all love being fired up at work and loving what we do,” he says. “It drives us to new heights and to perform better.” But, he argues, there is a downside. “Contrary to the myth that if you’re super passionate you will never burn out, our research shows that higher levels of passion can make you more prone to it.” So, what are the solutions?
Contrary to the myth that if you’re super passionate you will never burn out, our research shows that higher levels of passion can make you more prone to it.
Jachimowicz advises leaders to proceed with caution when managing passionate people: “Rather than giving into our instincts, which might prompt us to give that person more work or lean into that passion, we could say, ‘You’re really fired up right now. Are you sure you don’t want to take a break?’”
In other words, it might be psychologically healthier and more productive in the long run for the individual to step away from their desk (or mobile phone) and consider what might better serve their needs in the moment. “Think about the day-to-day and how things that seem to be good for us – like the passion that drives us to work harder – can also backfire and lead us to burnout.”
His solution is to put “guardrails” in place in your schedule. “Try to make it a habit [to do something enjoyable] and that you like literally cannot say no to.” This could be a commitment to see friends “come hell or high water” and which would cause you great pain to cancel, so the costs of saying no outweigh the effort of committing.
Basima Tewfik, whose main stream of research examines the psychology of the social self at work, believes impostor thoughts (or impostor syndrome) – the idea that other people think you’re smarter than you think you are – is strongly associated in our minds with workplace burnout, but that this may be to misunderstand the syndrome, as her research has shown: “I don’t find a consistent causal effect between having imposter thoughts and burnout.”
What her studies have shown is that impostor thoughts can help us rise to the challenge when we have a lot on our plates – we tend to be very reactive when it comes to managing burnout and we need to start being more proactive about it. Her remedy is not to give way to imposter thoughts or think there’s something wrong with us when we feel burnout but consider how we can best prioritize and task-shift. “The next time your manager gives you another task, try saying, ‘Ok, I already have tasks X, Y, and Z on my plate. This task that you’ve just added seems important. How do you want me to prioritize it? Can we shift something that’s already on my plate to someone else, or put it on the back burner if it’s less important?’”
In effect, Tewfik says, this is about thinking about what’s going on in the workplace and in your relationships with your manager or your peers that you can have a direct conversation about, because that might be the thing that is causing you to report that you’re experiencing burnout, rather than thinking that you’re the one who’s deficient in some way.
When I’m checking my email and I’m on my phone, getting calls and texts, and feeling overwhelmed, I just stop and breathe and look at nature.
Jachimowicz has another valuable piece of advice when it comes to self-esteem: don’t compare yourself to others. While we love being surrounded by other people who are passionate and can draw great energy from being in a highly motivated team, we also feel a sort of social pressure to be just as passionate as everybody else – which can be “really exhausting” because the practices and behaviors that may work for them might not work for us.
Moreover, we are likely not privy to all the things that other people are feeling on the inside, which takes on particular importance in the workplace. “Not only do we see only what’s happening in the workplace, we also don’t see what’s happening outside it and what people are doing to show up at work and be their best selves,” he says. Instead, Jachimowicz uses an age-old maxim as his touchstone: “Don’t compare your insides to other people’s outsides.”
Meister has an equally anthropocentric solution to the problem of all-pervasive technology. “I try to focus on what it means to be human and try to constantly connect to my body, to my emotions, to my breathing.” This, she says, takes work: “One skill I’ve had to actively learn, and actively practice, is the skill of [active] breathing. When I’m checking my email and I’m on my phone, getting calls and texts, and feeling overwhelmed, I just stop and breathe and look at nature. For me, that strategy has made a huge difference throughout the workday. I highly recommend the power of breathing.”
This article was developed in collaboration with Thinkers50 from their Mind Matters series of conversations between leading experts in the field of mental well-being at work.
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