If we take anything away from the Great Resignation, it should be this: employees have reached a breaking point where “just a job” just isn’t enough. Years of pandemic-induced isolation, skyrocketing inflation, and a whole lot of uncertainty have taken its toll both mentally and physically. Employees want to work for organizations that value their contributions, provide true work-life balance, and honestly care about their well-being.
For marketers, these issues are further compounded by a high-pressure job that is often invisible and where the rules of success are constantly changing. As someone who has suffered from high anxiety in a job with high expectations, I know that the pressure to perform can take you down a path of self-doubt, imposter syndrome, and generally negative mental health. One small silver lining from the past couple of years is that others are starting to talk openly about the importance of mental health and taking actions to support their complete well-being. As the saying goes, money can’t buy happiness. It’s up to us to look out for ourselves and each other.
Over the years, I have learned how to cope when these feelings take over. The following are three strategies I use to help keep things in perspective when I start to find myself going down that slippery slope of negative thoughts and self-talk.
1. Mistakes are opportunities for growth
Nobody likes to make mistakes, but I assure you no one has gotten fired for making an honest one. If someone has been fired, it’s likely due to the way the mistake was handled. Hiding the truth and doing nothing about it is the worst way to handle a mistake.
Mistakes should be looked at as an opportunity to learn. As hard as that lesson might be, we are all human and mistakes will happen. And when they do happen the best thing to do is focus on the solution, not the mistake.
Recently, a client was pulling together an SMS campaign. A seemingly minor, overlooked detail ended up triggering quite a lot of SMS text messages to be sent at an inopportune time of day. There was a lot of confusion as to how this happened, and many people involved in the process were kicking themselves for the mistake. But at that point, what’s done was done. The focus should be on resolving the issue and getting things back on the right track — and then making sure it doesn’t happen again.
When dealing with mistakes, I have found the best plan of action is to:
- Understand what happened: Identify the cause of the mistake and the potential impact.
- Find a solution: Come up with a plan to resolve the issue at hand and, just as important, how to prevent the issue from happening again.
- Own the mistake: Alert the proper people about the mistake, the impact, and your plan for resolution — and quickly put that plan into place.
- Learn from it: Though a tough way to learn a lesson, you now have more information than you had before. And the next time you find yourself in a similar situation, you will know what to double-check to prevent the same mistake from happening again.
Sometimes, recovering honestly and as gracefully as possible is the best way to earn back others’ trust — and also learn something in the process.
2. You’ve done more good than you think.
When things don’t go as planned, it’s easy to beat yourself up over it. No one is harder on us than ourselves. That’s because we often hold ourselves to a higher standard than we do others. Unfortunately, perfectionism is on the rise and it’s been linked to a number of negative physical and mental health impacts, including anxiety, depression, and high blood pressure.
For a period of time, I needed some extra help and was seeing a therapist. When I would talk about the pressure I would put on myself, she would simply ask me why. Then, she’d follow that up with, “If the same thing happened to someone else, would you have the same reaction? What makes you so special that you should be held to a higher standard than everyone else?” It would really give me pause and make me think about whether the standard I am holding myself to is even realistic.
Dwelling on the one thing that went wrong makes you forget the hundred things that went right. While it’s okay to give yourself permission to be upset, don’t stay there long. Write down a list of your recent accomplishments. Go through notes from others where you were given praise for a job well done (I will even file away these messages as they come into my Inbox just for occasions like these). Be as kind to yourself as you are to others.
3. Spread the love.
Some days no matter how many lists I make or atta-girl emails I read, I just find it difficult to shake off negative feelings, and that’s okay. It happens. Sometimes, we have those days (or even weeks!) where nothing seems to go right.
In situations like these, I have found the best way to break out of this funk is to share positive feedback about others. At BDO Digital, we have a recognition system where you can award others with Chips that are then entered into periodic prize drawings. On days where I am feeling particularly stressed or negative, I will sit down and start thinking about my teammates who have gone above and beyond to help me out and share those stories with them. Luckily for me, I work with amazing people and can always find something or someone to focus on beyond myself.
And the science backs it up. When you do something nice for others, you get a so-called helper’s high (aka a nice hit of the neurotransmitter dopamine from your brain’s reward center). Brain scans of consistently generous people actually show “a calmer disposition, less stress, better emotional health and higher self-worth.” Get yourself thinking positively by doing things for others, and soon enough you will get yourself out of your funk and back in a good place. And who knows, your kind words might be just the thing someone needs to hear to get themselves thinking positively, too. Certainly a win-win.
(Source: Psychology Today)
If you are reading this today, maybe you are or someone you know is struggling with stress and anxiety in the workplace. I encourage you to talk to someone (I am incredibly fortunate to have a support system at my job that allows me to talk about things when needed). Heck, feel free to reach out to me directly at nkopitar@bdo.com. Not only do I know how you feel, but I am also a pretty good listener — you have to be in my line of work. My hope is that by sharing some of my strategies with you that you know you are not alone and that there are things that you can do to handle things when things become hard to handle.
Nova Kopitar is a demand generation expert, specializing in results-focused lead management, nurturing, and scoring. As a Marketo Solution Architecture Manager, she works closely with clients in areas including program alignment, nurture development, relationship management, resource planning, reporting and more. She is Marketo Business Certified and Technical Certified.
The post Mental Health and the Modern Marketer: 3 Strategies to Help You Cope When You’ve Started to Lose Hope appeared first on DemandGen.
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