“Your mental health matters and should always come first” – Antonio Stevens
Chapter Mental Health Tip – Smile
The next time you are having a rough challenging day. Considering forcing a smile. Many years ago, I learned the power of acting as a leader. Acting to be in a great mood to deliver unwelcome news, unrealistic project goals with poor scopes, and just trying to be optimistic and boost morale when internally I was struggling. From that, I learned the power of smiling. Smiling when I was not actually happy or amused. There is a mass inside of our hemispheres in our brains called the amygdala. The role of this mass is to regulate emotion. By forcing a smile, you will activate the amygdale, which in turn will release neurotransmitters to enhance a positive mindset. With that in mine, consider holding a smile for twenty seconds, the next time you need a mental boost.
Now, before we start down this journey of learning, looking at oneself, committing to change, and acting on those decisions. It is important that you realize just how important your mental health must be to be successful, happy, and be able to move forward with determination and joy each day of your life.
Caring about what others think used to really matter to me.
However, if you asked me at that time. I would have said they did not. They did. Tremendously. I thought about how they considered how dressed. Did my shoes match my outfit? Did my socks match my shirt? Wait! Is something on my face? How was my performance on my job last quarter? How did I help on the team? Why can’t I make that one person like me? Its 3am and I am awake trying to determine why my boss seems to not care about my existence.
Why?
I do not personally know when it happened. One day, as I was having all the thoughts above and more, I started thinking to myself. Why am I letting all of this affect me? I could not sleep normally. How I acted around my friends started to change. My uneasiness would come out around them. I was not able to uphold my act. My close family friends could feel something was wrong with me. Accused if I was acting when I was around them. Well. Yes, I would think. Work was always on my mind. Me seeking approval from others, mentally always dancing around in my brain. Dealing with adulting daily, which is just household maintenance, I had a second layer of self-induced stress of me worried about others. Then on top of that, I was constantly thinking about “what if” events.
What if I lose my job today?
What if my car suddenly has a problem?
What if my woman decides she no longer wants to be with me?
What if the people I lead at work, decides to go against me?
Constant what ifs trickled my mind. Along with worrying about how others felt about me. My mind was talking, chatting away nonstop with these thoughts. I found it hard to think. Hard to function daily. It got so bad, that I stopped enjoying watching my favorite shows, playing computer games, talking to my best friend, listening to audiobooks, and anything that I formerly found joy in thoroughly. Instead, I would just sit there thinking, stressing, wishing I could stop it.
At one point, I decided to start tracking my heartbeat and found it would race during these high mental marathons. One night, I awoke stressing about the next conversation with my boss, with nothing wrong. My heartbeat was equally rapid. Acting as if I was running a sprint, despite just staring at myself in the mirror in my bathroom. Again, nothing was wrong at work.
All of this continued to grow into a bigger problem which put me on the path for medication, seeking professional help, and tearing myself apart. This journey will be detailed in this book. My mental health was in bad shape. I was not happy. I was never allowing my mind to rest. My mind gave me no boundaries of work, management, and living my personal life. It was nonstop fear management. My mind had decided that I was on the verge of impeding death at every moment. Physically my body took the hit. I was always tired. Nervous and feeling on constant edge. I had a feeling of anger that I could not place. Nor could I stop. This went on for a long time. I felt hopeless and I considered suicide.
Something I thought I would never do. A thought I’d never consider. But I thought about it as a solution. I was losing a war that no one knew about but me. Daily I acted like all was well. Leading my direct reports and trying my best to get our business on the right path forward. Putting time aside to focus on them and their careers. Trying to give them a way to talk about their mental health and careers. Often getting compliments about never having a boss that cared about them, their careers, or them as actual people.
All of that was great. It made me feel good. But what about me? Why wasn’t anyone or anything helping me?
One’s mental health is extremely important. Just as important as your health, your cardiovascular endurance, how your lungs function, and any other critical system in your body. Our society does not put as focus on the critical importance of mental health. This should get equal attention with other injuries. It should be first in our personal and work lives. I have always felt this way. Things I picked up from youth and raised by a man who understood this and at the same time some would shun mental health as a weakness. Maybe simply told to simply, “go pray.”
Well guess what? Your mental health and you… matter. Your presence and existence matters.
Please take a deep breath.
Now smile.
Good.
Your mental health is one of the most important things about yourself that you should manage every day of your life. Feeling down, fighting depression, being sad, angry, etc. is not a weakness. Those are symptoms of a struggling mental state. It is your responsibility from this moment forth to act when your mental health needs it.
So, is your mental health important to you?
Hopefully, you said yes because it is. You matter. Your thoughts matte. For anything to help you get better, for you to raise your mental defenses, and to better heal from those challenges mentally, you need accept that your mental health is especially important. I would like you to start asking yourself mentally, “Is this worth my mental health?” “Is this conversation worth a mental scar?” “Will this heated discussion hurt my mental wellbeing?” When faced with challenges from here going forward. This book is going to teach you approaches and techniques to focus on this along with being a better leader. A leader for yourself, others, and your career.
But firstly, you need to drive your staff into the ground, here and now, and declare, no further. No longer will you let your mental health get no focus.
Start asking yourself the following questions:
Is that argument or debate intensity worth your mental health?
Is this current job worth your mental health?
How about this toxic environment or relationship?
Please start putting your mental health first. Acknowledge to yourself if those items or events are worth it. If they are not, then adjust accordingly. I can tell you from experience that once you start putting your mental health first, you will notice a level of freedom that you have never experienced.
Again, is your mental health important to you?
I had lost my job. The company was downsizing. I took a break and decided to start looking for a new role. After months of looking and interviewing, I landed three leadership roles. All at once, all offers in the same week. I was excited and overjoyed. It was an amazing feeling to have options.
Each role had differences.
1. One role paid the same as my last position but had a fast-track system in place so that I could move up 4 to 6 months.
2. The second role paid a bit more, but the team had been in place for decades, but it looked like a very secure job with no history of layoffs.
3. The last role, which was the most interesting to me, paid almost double what I was making before, a large team I would be managing, had monthly bonuses, and it was an executive leadership position.
I was conflicted, but because of only one reason. The third option was clearly the best offer, but from the interviews, I could clearly tell there were obvious red flags. The person I would be reporting too was quite rude and extremely aggressive. From the interviews, I could tell my would-be peers seem to work a lot and were proud of it. They did not seem to have any work boundaries. Meaning they would work late daily, cut days from planned vacations, and work even on holidays.
Despite all that, I wanted the pay. I wanted to role. It took my fiancé to make me realize that I was walking into a mistake. I knew it was, but I was only thinking about the money and other upfront benefits. I was not considering my mental health. I was not looking at going into a toxic environment, a place with high turnover, a potential rude boss, working 50+ hours a week, and most importantly knowing myself. Knowing I would go in trying to put my people fist. Watching them stress and not being able to get ahead. Not being able to balance their own boundaries. Most damaging she told me how I looked day to day when I was stressed and allowing my mental health to take a back seat to life. How I treated her and our families. How I treated my mom, sister, and my daughter. Sadly, how I treated myself. All of that for a job. About to allow my mental health to be torn apart for something I already knew was bad for me. I took a deep breath and ended my decision on a smile. She was right. I knew then, for the first time in my life, I was going to put my mental health first and I declined the role.
Now I am going to ask again. How important is your mental health?
If you want to be happier, enjoy your life more, and take charge of your life, it needs to come first. But this cannot happen until you commit to yourself to not internally allow anything to tear you down mentally. Taking steps to tactically maneuver around the daily challenges of stress and be happier. This chapter is me seeking a commitment from you to start putting it first. Make it come first. Base decisions on your mental health. Take breaks for your mental health. Step back and regroup for your mental health.
As I looked at my beautiful intelligent fiancé helping me with my decision. I thought about my highly intelligent daughter. My best friend who I’ve always viewed as a son. My fiancés wonderful boys. Then the painful reality struck me. In a vastly different harsh way.
Life is very fleeting and one day, you will lose everything you love.
Wait? What?
It feels like the people close to you, those you adore, the items you have acquired that bring you joy will all last forever. They will not. We all take all those people and life’s moments for granted.
Why?
We allow things to taint our mental health which in turn makes us make bad decisions to affect our lives. Making us neglect things that will not last forever, including ourselves. Often the reason our mental health is poor, is because we focus on the wrong things. We allow tough elements of life to ruin us internally, which takes away the things that really matter to us. We then neglect those things we love by suffering and struggling with stress, anxiety, and depression. Its time to make a change.
As you continue forward with this book, please put your mental health first going forward. Making this commitment and promise to yourself is the first major step to positive change.
Please say and repeat the following:
My mental health is important to me, and I am going to put it first going forward. Please commit to that and let us move to the next chapter.
One last time.
Does your mental health matter to you?