Workplace Mental Health Indicators

There is no need to look at professional scales with dozens of questions to judge whether your current mental state in the workplace is healthy. There are only three core indicators that can be implemented - whether you can completely withdraw from work after work, whether you dare to express your demands normally when encountering conflicts, and whether you will be excessively self-attacking when you make mistakes.

Many people may not believe it, but in 90% of the workplace psychological warning cases I have come across, the first problem to arise is the "withdrawal from get off work" level. Xiao Zhou, a girl who took over the operation position of an Internet company last year, has only been working for half a year. How involved is she? She puts her mobile phone on the waterproof stand in the shower room even when taking a shower. Customer messages are always answered instantly. It is common for her to take out her computer to change plans during dinner meetings with friends on the weekends. Leaders and colleagues praise her for being "dedicated and promising." However, last winter, she missed a customer's temporary request because of poor signal in the subway. She squatted on the platform and cried for half an hour. When she came for consultation, her hands were shaking, and she said, "How could I miss the message? It would be all my fault if this order went wrong." Of course, different viewpoints need to be mentioned here. Many positive psychology researchers who now advocate "work-life integration" will say that people who have truly found a career they love do not need to deliberately withdraw from work. Work itself is a source of satisfaction. This is true, but the premise is that you are really working for your own career, rather than adding bricks and tiles to the boss's villa. For 95% of ordinary working people, "being able to mute work WeChat with peace of mind after get off work, going out on weekends without having to report to the boss in advance, and not having to think about 'what if someone comes to me' at all times" is the healthiest sign of psychological boundaries. To put it bluntly, if you think of yourself as a mobile phone, you always turn it on high-performance mode and never charge it. No matter how good the battery is, it will swell after half a year. What is the difference between a human and a machine?

Compared with those metaphysical standards on the Internet such as "100 EQ in the Workplace", whether you have enough psychological security in this environment is never about whether you can get things done or whether you can make your boss happy, but whether you dare to express your demands normally. I once met a 98-year-old girl who worked as an administrator. She worked in a start-up company for a year. She had to do all the chores in the company. She even had to take her colleagues' personal express delivery on the way home from get off work. She was always blamed for the department. She never dared to say no. When she came for consultation, she was diagnosed with moderate anxiety and said, "If I refuse, will everyone dislike me, and will the leader fire me?" There must be some people who want to use the tactics of those who learn from thick and thin in the workplace, saying, "If you dare to make demands in the workplace, you have low emotional intelligence and you are likely to be outsmarted." Of course, the "normal expression" we are talking about does not mean that you will explode at the first moment and argue with the boss, but that when you make a reasonable request, you don't have to spend three days in advance and write seven or eight drafts. Even if you are rejected in the end, you will not regret what you said, let alone scold yourself in your heart, "Why am I so useless? I don't dare to say such a small thing." Let’s take the administrative girl just now, who later switched jobs to a state-owned enterprise that specializes in new energy. She sent me a message last month saying that she told the department director that she wanted to get an A rating for her performance at the end of this year and a salary increase of 500 yuan. The director agreed on the spot, saying that she usually worked a lot more and should have received a raise long ago. You see, it’s not that you don’t know how to express yourself, it’s just that the environment is often too bad for you to speak properly.

The external state is explicit, and your own private psychological activities are the more core early warning signals. There used to be a boy who worked in a research and development position. There was a minor bug in the version when it was launched. During the review, it was obvious that the coverage scenario was missed during the testing process. He hid at home and cried for three days. He even wrote his resignation letter, saying, "Why am I so useless? The whole team will laugh at me. The leader must think that I am incompetent." This is a typical form of excessive self-attack, and it is also the problem that many professionals tend to ignore. Nowadays, many bloggers who advocate "extreme improvement" always say that people must learn to self-reflect in order to make progress. This is okay, but you have to understand that normal reflection is "how did this bug appear and how can I avoid it in advance next time", while excessive self-attack is "I am a garbage person and can't do anything well." These two are essentially the same thing. I have a very intuitive feeling after doing consulting for so many years: for many people who are PUAd in the workplace, the first sign is that they blame themselves for every fault. It is obvious that there is a problem with teamwork, but in the end it all becomes "I am not good enough."

By the way, don’t use those messy self-evaluation forms on the Internet to judge yourself blindly. The idea that "emo more than three times a week means you are depressed" is pure nonsense. When I was working on a project last month, I stayed up for three days and nights in a row. After get off work, I squatted on the roadside eating kebabs and scolded my boss. Then I slept for 12 hours and came to work in high spirits the next day. Occasional mood swings are too normal. As long as there are no problems with the three core indicators, it is not a big deal at all.

If you hit all three indicators, don’t panic. Don’t deny yourself in a hurry. The high probability is not that you have poor mental endurance, but that there is something wrong with the place where you stay. I have seen too many people lie at home for half a month after leaving their jobs, and their anxiety and depression are all cured, which is more effective than any medicine they take.

After all, the workplace is a place where you earn living expenses. Your own mental health is always more important than KPIs, more important than a word of praise from your leader, and more important than the evaluation of your colleagues. Don't get it the other way around, really.