Key elements of mental health in the workplace

Self-awareness with clear boundaries, practical channels for emotional relief, and career value ranking that matches personal needs—all other methods of coping with workplace stress and interpersonal conflicts are just practical skills extended from these three.

Not long ago, when I was doing an EAP on-site interview for a local Internet company, I met a girl who had just graduated two years ago and worked in an operations position. She took on three poorly completed projects from her colleagues for three months in a row. In the end, she broke down in the conference room in front of the whole team because she wrote a wrong data in the weekly report, crying until she couldn't breathe. People around her advised her that "it's a blessing to do more as a fresh graduate" and "young people have poor ability to withstand stress." Only she kept saying one thing over and over again: "I just don't think so. ”

In fact, her problem is not that she has poor stress tolerance, but that she has not established clear self-awareness boundaries at all. The Seligman school of positive psychology has always emphasized the division of "controllable area-influence area-concern area". You should firmly focus your energy on things that you can completely control. Needs that are not within your own scope of responsibility should not be imposed on yourself no matter how extravagant it is. ； However, some scholars of existential workplace psychology have put forward a more down-to-earth view. You don't have to force yourself to "think positively". You should first admit your true thoughts such as "I just don't want to wipe others' butts" and "I just can't do overtime without a bottom line." This is much healthier than a concave "generous and careless" persona. Later, the girl made a strict rule for herself: all requests that are not in her KPI list must be signed and confirmed by the immediate leader before being accepted, even if they are approached by senior employees in the same group. She was originally afraid of offending others, but after a month of implementation, she found that no one was giving her work casually anymore, and she no longer had to work overtime to catch up on other people's projects while cursing herself for being useless.

But it's not enough to know "what I should do". When you really encounter something bad that you can't avoid, holding it in is the most hurtful thing. Many people in the workplace still only have the correct impression of "meditate, exercise, and keep an emotional diary" when it comes to emotional relief. When they work overtime until three in the morning and need to change to the eighth page, how can they still have the energy to lay out a yoga mat? Traditional clinical psychology indeed recommends structured, long-term emotional regulation methods, believing that immediate venting can easily cause people to fall into emotional inertia. However, in the EAP service for the new generation of professionals, we instead recommend that everyone find relief channels that are “available immediately and at zero cost”. There is no need to force yourself to “digest rationally”. I've seen Byte programmers go downstairs to feed stray cats for 10 minutes after fixing bugs. I've seen real estate salespeople record customers' weird requests into 40-second voice strips and send them to their girlfriends to complain about. I've even seen a product manager put a screaming chicken in his desk drawer and hold it for three minutes after every quarrel with a developer. No one in the entire team thought it was strange. Later, everyone in the team had one, and the atmosphere in the office became much more relaxed. To put it bluntly, there is no high or low level of emotional relief. If you think that foot massage is more useful than meditation after get off work, then foot massage is the most suitable method for you. As long as you don't spread your emotions on your colleagues, you will feel better.

But after all is said and done, there is another premise that is most easily overlooked - you must first figure out what you want to do when you go to work, otherwise no matter how you draw boundaries and relieve emotions, you will still be in trouble. Traditional career planning theory has always emphasized that "personal career values ​​must match the company culture." However, in recent years, Generation Z job seekers have long reversed this logic. When looking for a job, they first do "reverse background checks": Is there a culture of forced overtime? Can annual leave be taken normally? Is overtime pay sufficient? Essentially, you need to prioritize your own needs first and then find a job that suits you, rather than forcing yourself to adapt to the company. I have a friend who works as an administrator in a provincial state-owned enterprise. Last year, she had an opportunity to be promoted to deputy director of the department, but the premise was that she would be stationed abroad for three years. At that time, her child had just turned one year old, so she rejected the offer without even thinking about it. Colleagues around her thought she was stupid and said that if she missed this opportunity, she would have to wait five years for her next promotion. But she knew it well: in her career value ranking, "being able to go home with her children every day" was already ranked before "position promotion", so she had nothing to regret. If you go to work just to make quick money, then as long as the money is enough, it doesn’t matter if your boss scolds you or your colleagues give you some work. ； If you originally want a stable 9-to-5 job, then don't be jealous of others who get promoted quickly and earn much more. People who want everything are the most likely to suffer from internal friction in the end.

To be honest, there has never been a standardized answer to mental health in the workplace, and there is no need to force yourself to be a "perfect workplace person with zero emotions." Some people are born with sensitive minds, and it takes them a long time to think about a casual comment made by others. ； Some people are born to be careless, and if the boss scolds them, they can just turn around and order a cup of milk tea and drink happily. No one needs to imitate others. As long as you figure out where your bottom line is, don't worry about bad things in your heart, and know what you really want from work, you will actually win over 90% of people in the workplace. As for those chicken soups that feed you "treat the company as your home" and "be grateful to your boss for giving you a job" every day, just go in one ear and out the other - you are here to sell your labor in exchange for money, not to survive the tribulation, right?