These five pillars are key to your success at work — and your mental health

This year, Mental Health Month — and its theme of “Tools to Thrive” — comes at a pivotal time when the world is collectively facing a new set of stressors brought on by COVID-19. None of us were individually prepared, leaving many struggling to keep their mental health in check.

This challenging time touches every part of our lives, including our work. Mental health has always been part of our lives at work, but this moment is making that fact as tangible and clear as it’s ever been.

At Bravely, one conversation after another with customers and People leaders has affirmed that companies, forced to think about the impact of stress on their teams at a larger scale, are investing in their people’s mental health and wellbeing more than ever. We’ve written about Bravely’s intersection with wellness before, as well as about how emotions are a fact of life in the workplace. The 2020 Mental Health Month theme of “Tools to Thrive” presents an opportunity to look more deeply at how professional coaching supports mental health.

Bravely’s approach to coaching provides people with the support and tools they need to stay resilient and create a plan to move forward positively during this challenging time. We’ve identified five critical pillars that support and increase mental wellness and success at work:

1. Balance

Finding balance means being able to manage stressors and experience emotions in a healthy way, and to take new challenges in stride. Balanced individuals counter the tendency to get overwhelmed by a single emotion, because they get energy from a variety of sources in their lives. Balance is about understanding the value of negative emotions while knowing how not to dwell on them, and is the key to getting “unstuck” when you find yourself in a rut or locked into a negative emotion.

2. Resilience

Resilience is the capacity to recover from a setback. Resilient people embrace the idea that failure is human and doesn’t reflect their value. The support systems they’ve built around themselves, the self-confidence they’ve developed, and their strategic use of their energy all protect them from the potential damage of a crisis.

3. Agility

An agile person can move quickly and skillfully in the face of change. They’re comfortable acting without all the information. They have a growth mindset, understanding that the most effective learning often happens in the hardest moments. Agility helps you to accept change as normal, and to appreciate that thoughtfully changing paths is sometimes the right decision.

4. Vulnerability

Vulnerability can feel uncomfortable and is often associated as a sign of weakness, but openness to connection and authenticity are powerful skills. Vulnerable people remove the masks we so often wear at work, setting themselves up to push further, build stronger relationships, and get their needs met. And it’s contagious — showing your vulnerable side gives others permission to do the same, building a culture of trust and honesty.

5. Emotional intelligence

Finally, emotional intelligence is the ability to identify, manage, and express emotions, in and out of interpersonal interactions, and it comprises five elements: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. Together, these elements form a powerful skill set for navigating the emotional aspects of our lives.

All of these skills are learned over time and built with practice. That’s why we’ve launched a hub of resources for Mental Health Month to help people get started, including our brand new “Bravely Daily Moments” email series for daily inspiration and exercises in your inbox to develop micro-habits and practices, and access to free coaching sessions.

Here’s to working with wellness this May and beyond.