We all learned resilience. The pandemic has taught us at least that. We learn to get back up after setbacks, keep going, put in the time, do the work, and keep moving forward. This is no longer enough.
Think back to the weeks before your last vacation. Before you head out, you’re trying to get a million work projects done while also juggling shopping, travel plans, and maybe even feeling sick. When you jump from task to task, your attention is divided. You may lose your temper, forget recent conversations, or have poor sleep quality.
This happens to many of us all the time—year-round.recent McKinsey Health Institute Survey Studies have found that one in four workers experience symptoms of burnout. Nearly one-third are experiencing pain. For many people, short-term memory is in overdrive. Without enough time to recover, nothing has time to be processed into long-term memory, which can lead to feelings of being overwhelmed. In response, we enter a protective mindset rather than one that is open and ready to learn.
This protective mindset may be okay when we are familiar with the challenges we face. Yet many of the issues we face today—supply chain challenges, economic uncertainty, accelerating technological change—may be unfamiliar. We need to be able to think with an open mind, tap into the executive functioning parts of the brain, innovate, and learn to succeed in high-stakes, unfamiliar situations.
according to scientific research, it’s easier for us to stay calm and ready to learn when our brains predict that we’ll stay safe. However, if our brains anticipate danger, we’ll want to find refuge in things we already know have worked for us in the past. As stress increases, the prefrontal cortex, involved in executive functions such as planning, working memory, emotional processing, and cognitive flexibility, may be challenged. In the moments when we need to learn and adapt the most, our bodies can’t.
The good news is, there’s a way to break this cycle, make better decisions under pressure, and reduce your experience of burnout: intentionally stay calm. “Intentional” means you can choose how to act experience and reaction to any given situation. “Calm down” means staying focused and present amidst pressure and fluctuations, and not being swept away by instinctive reactions. Deliberate calm improves your ability to act resourcefully and purposefully in the most stressful and unfamiliar situations imaginable.
If you learn to practice intentional calmness, you first learn to achieve double consciousness—understanding your inner thoughts, feelings, and experiences, as well as what is happening around you and externally. You’ll learn to view situations objectively to determine what is most needed in each situation and avoid falling into the trap of conditioning.
Over time, by regularly practicing staying calm, you will develop emotional self-regulation skills and learning agility, even during stressful times.
This approach goes beyond the familiar (and important) The idea of resilience (the ability to bounce back) and focus on adaptability, which is more about taking a challenge and turning it into an opportunity for advancement– Bounce forward.Higher level of adaptability at the office and Better performance, confidence and creative output.In fact, adaptability may be The single most important predictor Individual performance and potential.Adaptability is also critical to mental and physical health and is associated with higher levels of overall life satisfaction and reduced Burned out. In our work with multinational companies, we see exactly these results.
Even so, employers seem generally content to value adaptability rather than foster it. Nine in 10 employers we surveyed believe adaptability is a top workplace skill, but only one in 10 offer relevant competency building. Through deliberate calm, we can transform adversity into action and achievement.
Jacqueline Brassey is co-leader of the organization McKinsey Institute for Health Research and senior knowledge experts in the Luxembourg office. Aaron de Smet is a senior partner in McKinsey & Company’s New Jersey office.They co-created with Michiel Kruyt Staying Deliberately Calm: How to Learn and Lead in a Turbulent World.
The views expressed in Fortune Star review articles represent solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the following views and beliefs: wealth.
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