Workplace Mental Health Indicators

Emotional recovery speed, daily behavioral adaptability, self-perception stability, and all remaining subdivided symptoms are essentially external manifestations of these three problems.

A while ago, I just met a young man who works on algorithms in a large factory. He got a performance of 3.75 and came to us for consultation. He said that he felt that he had a psychological problem because he was criticized by the leader for a few words last week. He felt sad for a whole night, "Am I too glass-hearted?" Shouldn’t the workplace be emotionally stable? ”

You see, this is PUA given to PUA by the chicken soup of "professionalism is emotional stability" on the Internet. Different evaluation systems have completely different opinions on this matter: according to the traditional standards of success in the workplace, this is indeed "not mature enough", but the direction of positive psychology we are exposed to Consultants would think it's too normal - no one would feel uncomfortable if a plan that took them a month to come up with was scolded in front of them. As long as they get up the next day and change the plan, change the plan, and drink coffee, they don't spread this negative emotion into their lives, and it's not even an "early warning sign."

To put it bluntly, the first core criterion of emotional recovery speed is never "whether you will have negative emotions", but how long it takes for you to return to the normal rhythm of work and life after being hit by a negative event. How many hours? long time? Or can’t you walk out in three days and a half? There was a To B sales before, and the customer who had been following for half a year was snatched away by a competing product. After a long drink, he still picked up a new customer the next day, which was fine. But if after a week, you pick up the phone and dare not dial the customer number, and your hands are shaking when you think about it, that is a sign that you need to adjust. Oh, by the way, there is also a counter-example that seems to be "especially emotionally stable". I used to know a fast-moving consumer goods sales director. His subordinates messed up tens of millions of orders and could always smile and say "I'll change it next time."

Compared with something too subjective like mood swings, a more accurate signal is whether your own behavior has secretly gone astray.

This is what we call daily behavior adaptation: Is the work behavior you used to take for granted now particularly difficult to do? For example, you used to arrive at work ten minutes early, make yourself a cup of tea and slowly turn on the computer. Now you rush to the office every day and are even late for a week in a row. You obviously didn’t stay up late to watch TV shows, but you just walk downstairs and don’t want to come in. ； You used to have discussions with your colleagues, but now you get annoyed when you see work group messages. When someone asks you a work question, you subconsciously want to retaliate, even if the other person didn't bother you at all. ； In the past, you would have a meal with friends and go shopping after get off work, but now you just want to lie on the bed after get off work. You don't even have the energy to unpack the takeaway. There is nothing particularly bad, but you just can't get excited.

There is quite a lot of controversy here. When many managers see employees in this state, their first reaction is "there is a problem with their work attitude" and they will deduct their performance if they want to talk. The production line leader we met at a manufacturing factory in the Pearl River Delta was an excellent employee for three consecutive years. He missed three batches of goods in one month in a row. It's because the psychological red light has turned on. Later, he was given a shift shift for half a month so that he could spend more time taking care of his family. After he came back, he got excellent again in the second month. To be honest, in more than 70% of the cases we have come across, the so-called "slippage in work attitude" is essentially caused by psychological problems first. Putting the cart before the horse and focusing on attitude is of no use at all.

There is also a more hidden indicator that many people are not aware of, which is whether your evaluation of yourself will completely collapse because of something at work.

That is, the stability of self-perception: For example, if you mess up a project and your boss scolds you, "You can't do this well," will you turn around and feel that you can't do anything, you can't even cook, and you're a waste in this life? Or can you figure it out clearly: I messed up this time because I didn't take the supply chain variables into account in advance. Next time, just make a double plan in advance. The response to the projects I did before was pretty good, so I'm not that bad.

There are also big differences between different schools on this point. Successful tutors always say, "You must always believe in yourself, and criticism from others is an encouragement to you." However, humanistic counselors don't see it this way. Anyone who is scolded will have some self-doubt. This is normal. As long as you can return to objective evaluation within 1-2 days, there will be no problem. On the contrary, people who cannot listen to what anyone says and always feel that they are right are more likely to get into trouble and cause big problems.

In fact, there is really no unified "full score health standard". After all, some people are born with big hearts and can forget about it after being scolded by their boss. Some people are born with sensitivity and have to digest the smallest things for a long time. There is no need to use online scales to label yourself "anxious" or "depressed", and there is no need to insist on saying "I'm fine, I can handle it." You may have also read the survey on workplace psychology released by the Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences a while ago. It was found that 38% of workplace professionals who consider themselves “super-stress-resistant” actually suffer from moderate anxiety, but they are just so used to it that they don’t realize it.

To put it bluntly, it's just a workplace. You're just here to sell your time in exchange for money. Don't tie your entire personal value to that KPI. If you feel uncomfortable, take a break. If you can't hold it anymore, talk to a friend. If it's really impossible to change your job, it's better than holding yourself back from getting sick, right?