Finding situational truths leads to good mental health

It’s fairly common for negative thoughts to occur at work. If left unchecked, however, these thoughts may lead to inappropriate behaviors such as wasting time, acting out anger, completing assignments inaccurately, taking revenge on someone, choosing not to be a team player, making unsound decisions, deciding you have a personality conflict with another person, sabotaging your success or that of someone else, and/or spending too much time on a task to make sure it is perfect.

The key to good mental health is analyzing each thought and determining the truth. If that determination is made, behaviors will be appropriate because you will be acting based upon facts. 

Making a choice

Making the decision to perform a suitable or unsuitable behavior at work actually starts when a situation occurs. A situation involves other people, and you do not have control over the general state of affairs.

As a matter of fact, if you did try to control the feelings, thoughts and behaviors of individuals, you would be a control freak, which is a dysfunctional behavioral choice. 

Based upon your prior knowledge, expertise and deep core beliefs, a thought will enter your mind when the situation happens. This thought is automatic and is not the truth. So many people do not challenge a thought and then behave as though it is the truth, but a thought is never the truth. Sometimes a thought is close to the truth; other times, it is far from it.

A thought is a definite lie if part of it includes an absolute word, such as should, shouldn’t, never, always, can’t, won’t, do or don’t. If you identify the thought as a lie, simply replace the thought with the truth. You will increase your mental health and your reaction to the situation will be appropriate.

‘Fight or flight’

If left unchecked, a negative thought will generate uncomfortable feelings such as fear, nervousness, sadness or anger. Additional thoughts will reinforce and increase the level of those feelings, leading to a misperception of a threat and a thought that some catastrophe will occur. At this point, you will discount positive information and jump to negative conclusions.

Such feelings will activate your automatic nervous system, signaling to your brain that you are in grave danger. The “fight or flight” response begins and involuntary physiological changes will begin to occur in your body. You will experience tense muscles, shortness of breath, an increased heart rate and numbness in your extremities. Oxygen will rush from your brain and extremities to your heart, readying you to fight or physically run from the danger.

Logical thoughts will tell you not to initiate a physical fight in the workplace because you will be fired. Physically running from your supervisor, customer, co-worker or subordinate is not a viable option either.

The best choice at this point is to tell the person you will get back with him and leave the area. 

Inability to communicate

In most workplace situations, however, you must stay until the issue is resolved. You will find it very hard to think and speak intelligently. So much oxygen has left your brain that it is actually physically impossible to do so. Your mouth will be dry, making it hard to talk and causing you to clear your throat often, both of which result in the inability to communicate effectively.

All of these automatic physical reactions will increase your uncomfortable feelings. If you are passive, you will probably remain silent and agree with everything the other person is saying. If you are an aggressive individual, you are more likely to explode in anger and try to reduce your perceived opponent to rubble. 

Neither passive nor aggressive responses are suitable for the workplace.

If you go back to the beginning, the first time the thought entered your mind, proven steps toward better mental health will enable you to accurately understand the situation and behave appropriately and effectively.

The next installment of this series will address six verbal and nonverbal communication methods that will foster success in the office environment.

Lynne Haggerman is president/owner of Haggerman & Associates, a firm specializing in management training, retained search, outplacement and human resource consulting. She can be reached at lynne@haggermanandassociates.com.