HOW LONG CAN YOU HOLD YOUR BREATH?

Work needs to work better for us.

I asked a couple of friends what they think is wrong with our culture at work, and it sparked some great conversations trying to get to the root cause of the problem. For too long now, we have been holding our breath and waiting for something to change. Even though we are constantly experiencing a changing environment, how we deal with the uncertainty and stress that comes from it is not changing; we stay resilient and keep pushing through, hoping for the day to come soon when we can exhale and give ourselves a break.

How long have you been holding your breath, trying to deal with a turbulent sea by not rocking the boat? And yet we all know that work is not working for us, and taking more time off isn’t going to fix it either. 

Work has a systemic flaw: it doesn’t understand human power. 

We might think that our human power is our ability to bite down and keep going without food, water and sleep when the going gets tough, and we can. But not for very long and not very well. That’s an emergency solution to working through a crisis. But that’s not our human power; that’s just our human strength. 

Our human power comes from care, not from pressure. We are very good at being resilient, but it’s time we rethink resilience because times of uncertainty and change are not going away, and we cannot keep holding our breath with anxiety building up inside us any more. 

Not only is it not fair that work is breaking us down instead of building us up, it’s not how work is supposed to work for us in these modern times. 

HOW DO WE CHANGE THE FUNDAMENTAL ISSUE? 

At its core, culture needs a makeover. Too many companies have a bandaid culture where we patch up the cracks and potholes instead of fixing what’s causing them. Yes, we need more access to well-being programs and more pauses throughout the day to reset and recover our focus and attention. Our minds are under constant attack, and it's no wonder we disengage to get a break from thinking and worrying. Power-Pausing is an essential tool to stop our minds from spinning the same thoughts repeatedly, which is what the mind does if we let it. That pause, that moment in time, is how we reclaim the power of choice over how we best respond. That pause is essential for change and the foundation for creating a culture where people work better because one of the systemic issues we must address is the pressure being put on us just to keep working faster instead of recognizing that to do good work that matters, we must give space to think, engage, and act with more mindful discernment. That means we have to stop thinking of people as worker bees that are just working for the Queen and instead recognize that “The purpose of the beehive isn’t to make honey. The honey is the by-product of a healthy hive”, as Seth Godin wrote in his latest book: Songs of Significance. 

In 1926 Mr. Ford proved through studying his workers that working more is less productive. And that was the assembly line workers. How do you think the pressure on your mind is affected by working more, longer, and harder without any pauses? Yet working more and being resilient is still what we call performance. We also know that we need to focus on working smarter instead of harder, and even though that message has been on repeat since 1930, we still need to accept it as truth. 

We need to recognize that our human value is not that we can do more; it’s that we can pause, listen, engage, and care better. Our human worth should not be tied to work. It's not how fast we work that makes us great, it's who we are that matters. To unlock our human potential is not something we find out there; it’s inside every single one of us. 

It’s about time that we exhale and start including our mental health, emotional intelligence, and our heart wisdom in how we think of cultivating a healthy culture where people do good work together, not only on an individual level but on a collective level. 

I invite you to share the tools of The Self-Care Mindset with everyone because when we have the tools to pause, listen, and engage with C.A.R.E. – curiosity, acknowledgment, respect, and empathy, – we can change culture together.