As a career development and mental fitness coach, I have witnessed countless leaders navigate the demands and pressures of their roles. One recurring theme that emerges from my conversations is the lack of fun in their day and the significance of injecting it into their daily routines. Often, you as a leader, get caught up in the pursuit of juggling the multitude of tasks on your plate, the desire to succeed, and the intense levels of stress in your life. You may overlook the importance of maintaining a healthy work-life existence and nurturing your inner wackiness and mental well-being.

This blog post explores the transformative impact of sprinkling and integrating fun into a leader’s day and the profound effects it can have on your mental fitness.

The Leader’s Journey: A Balancing Act

Leadership can be both exhilarating and demanding. The pressure to excel, be a role model for your team, stand out and create your unique special brand, make tough decisions, and meet objectives can lead to stress, burnout, and a host of mental health challenges. In a quest for professional growth, you as a leader may inadvertently neglect your own happiness. However, it is vital to remember that your well-being as a leader directly affects your team and the organization’s overall productivity.

In my blog post, MOJO for Leaders, I shared, “Your self-care probably takes a back seat. You are depleted and zapped of your energy because so much of it is going to others. It takes a lot of stamina to be there for your team, especially when you are supporting their emotional challenges and issues. The mental power required can be taxing. And if you do not have a good routine and practice of ensuring that your bucket is filled and gets refilled often, you will have all your juice sucked out of you.”

The Science of Fun and Health:

Studies have shown that incorporating fun activities into one’s daily routine triggers the release of endorphins and dopamine, the “feel-good” chemicals in the brain. These neurotransmitters enhance mood, reduce stress, and promote a positive outlook. Engaging in enjoyable experiences can help combat feelings of anxiety, depression, and emotional exhaustion that may arise from leadership responsibilities.

The article Laughter is the Best Medicine notes the following physical and mental health benefits:

· “Laughter relaxes the whole body. A good, hearty laugh relieves physical tension and stress, leaving your muscles relaxed for up to 45 minutes after.

· Laughter boosts the immune system. Laughter decreases stress hormones and increases immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies, thus improving your resistance to disease.

· Laughter triggers the release of endorphins, the body’s natural feel-good chemicals. Endorphins promote an overall sense of well-being and can even temporarily relieve pain.

· Laughter protects the heart. Laughter improves the function of blood vessels and increases blood flow, which can help protect you against a heart attack and other cardiovascular problems.

· Laughter burns calories. Okay, so it is no replacement for going to the gym, but one study found that laughing for 10 to 15 minutes a day can burn approximately 40 calories—which could be enough to lose three or four pounds over the course of a year.

· Laughter lightens anger’s heavy load. Nothing diffuses anger and conflict faster than a shared laugh. Looking at the funny side can put problems into perspective and enable you to move on from confrontations without holding onto bitterness or resentment.

· Laughter may even help you to live longer. A study in Norway found that people with a strong sense of humor outlived those who do not laugh as much. The difference was particularly notable for those battling cancer.”

Fostering Team Cohesion:

Now “fun” can be personal and subjective. What is deemed “fun” to one person may be in direct conflict with what is considered “fun” to someone else. As a leader it is incumbent that you learn about each of your team’s likes, dislikes, preferences, sense of fun, etc. There are many folx who have the adage and belief that work is work and work is just for work. It is important that what is cultivated, valued, and respected are all diverse perspectives and preferences.

At the same time, injecting fun into the workplace can foster a culture of camaraderie and teamwork. If you encourage moments of lightheartedness, you can foster a welcoming environment where employees feel valued and appreciated. A team that shares moments of joy and laughter is more likely to bond, collaborate effectively, and be resilient during challenging times.

Boosting Creativity and Productivity:

Fun and creativity go hand in hand. Encouraging playfulness among team members can unlock fresh perspectives and innovative ideas, leading to more creative problem-solving. If you as a leader promote a fun work environment, you may often witness a surge in employee motivation and productivity.

Leading by Example:

Your actions set the tone for the entire team. Demonstrating a healthy work-life balance and incorporating fun into your daily routine not only benefits your own well-being but also serves as an inspiration for your employees. Seeing their leader prioritize self-care and joy sends a powerful message about the importance of mental health and encourages others to do the same.

Simple Ways to Inject Fun into Your Day:

· Morning Greetings: Start the day with a warm and enthusiastic greeting for your team, creating a positive atmosphere from the beginning.

· Celebration Rituals: Acknowledge achievements, work anniversaries, and birthdays with a short celebration or a small treat.

· Themed Dress Days: Organize casual Fridays or themed dress-up days to let employees highlight their creativity.

· Team-Building Games: Incorporate short, fun team-building activities or games during meetings to build camaraderie.

· Flexible Breaks: Allow employees to take short, unstructured breaks to recharge and have fun.

· Lunchtime Activities: Organize occasional group lunches, picnics, or potlucks to encourage social interactions.

· Creative Workspace: Add some fun decorations, plants, or art to the office to make it a more enjoyable environment.

· Music in the Workplace: Play uplifting or soothing background music to create a relaxed atmosphere.

· Personal Achievements Sharing: Encourage team members to share their personal achievements, hobbies, or talents during team meetings.

· “Thank You” Notes: Send personalized notes or emails to recognize and appreciate outstanding contributions.

· Brainstorming Sessions: Conduct brainstorming sessions with no judgments, where ideas can be freely expressed and explored.

· Workplace Contests: Organize friendly competitions with rewards for achieving certain goals or milestones.

· Workplace Challenges: Set up challenges that promote healthy habits, such as fitness challenges or reading challenges.

· Surprise Treats: Occasionally bring in surprise treats like snacks or desserts to brighten up the day.

· Creative Projects: Encourage employees to work on creative projects that align with their interests and skills. Incorporate gamification elements into tasks or projects to make them more enjoyable.

· Volunteer Activities: Organize volunteer opportunities for the team to give back to the community.

· Inspiring Guest Speakers: Invite motivational or inspiring guest speakers to share their stories and insights such as a career development coach.

· Flexible Work Hours: Offer flexible work hours or remote work options to accommodate individual preferences.

· Personal Development Support: Provide resources for personal development, such as online courses, access to learning platforms or career development coaching.

· Gratitude Wall: Set up a gratitude wall where team members can express their appreciation for each other’s help and support.

As a career coach, I passionately believe that fostering a healthy work environment that prioritizes fun and mental health is essential for effective leadership. Injecting joy into your day as a leader not only enhances your own well-being but also creates a positive ripple effect on your team and the organization. By embracing moments of fun, laughter, and playfulness, leaders can cultivate a more engaged, creative, and productive workforce. So, let us all take a step back from the seriousness of our roles and remember that incorporating fun into our daily lives can be a powerful tool for personal growth and professional success.

Today, you as leaders, whether you are an intrapreneur or an entrepreneur, are facing incredible challenges both personally and professionally. To meet those challenges, you must be mentally fit. You must train your brain to tackle life’s challenges in the healthiest and most positive ways. So how do you do it? How do you as a leader navigate all the demands and responsibilities of your role and maintain your own mental fitness?

This article will start to share some ways that you can increase your levels of empathy and decrease burnout. We will look at some fundamental skills to increase your mental fitness muscles so you can lead from a growth rather than a fixed mindset.

You may want to do so because you are a leader and want to build up your tool belt.

You may be a leader who is struggling with being present and grounded to support your teams.

• You may be a leader who is wrestling with overwhelm, burnout and fatigue.

• You may be a leader who wants to build your mental fitness capacity to manage stress and overwhelm in a healthier and more positive way.

• You may be working towards a leadership role and want to best position yourself for promotion.

Whatever your reasons for reading this article, I am certainly glad that you are here.

Oprah said, “Leadership is about empathy. It is about having the ability to relate to and connect with people for the purpose of inspiring and empowering their lives.”

So, let’s start with what is mental fitness. According to Shirzad Chamine, CEO of Positive Intelligence, he says, “Mental fitness is your capacity to respond to life’s challenges with a positive rather than a negative mindset”.

Let’s use the analogy of physical fitness and as we know physical fitness is on a continuum.

Monday, April 17th was the 127th running of the Boston Marathon. I know that because when I moved to Boston to go to school many moons ago, I used to watch it. And then in 2006, I ran my first Boston marathon and in 2012 I ran my 3rd. and the last Boston marathon.

The reason I use the analogy of a marathon is that they are long. They are all 26.2 miles in length. And there are not many people that I know who can get up on any given day and just run 26.2 miles without some significant training. I am sure there are a few but they are unicorns.

The same is true for mental fitness. To respond to life’s challenges, large or small, with a healthy mindset, we must train our brains and our bodies. So, when we are met with those “marathon events” in our lives, we can handle them with better ease and flow. And manage the smaller ones too.

Mental fitness is on a continuum and is more the equivalent of the training of going to the gym and having a personal trainer.

When you start to focus on and strengthen your mental fitness skills you will see the positive impact that comes from it.

· You can achieve peak performance,

· You will achieve greater peace of mind and a sense of wellness and

· You will improve the relationships you have both personally and professionally.

According to the U.S. Council for Mental Well-Being, “the statistics may shock us into realizing how our mental health and mental fitness levels are the foundation of our human functioning.

The following statistics are for the U.S., but international trends are similar:

• 1 in 5 adults (52.9 million adults) experienced mental illness in 2020.

• 40.3 million people aged 12 or over had a substance use disorder in 2020.

• 32.1% of adults with mental illness also experienced a substance use disorder in 2020.

• Suicide is the second-leading cause of death among people aged 10-34.

• 1 in 3 young adults (aged 18-25) experienced mental illness in 2020.

• 1 in 6 adolescents (aged 12-17) experienced a major depressive episode in 2020.”

As I mentioned, as leaders, you have an incredibly tough job these days. The workforce priorities today have really shifted. It was noted in an SHRM article, that “one of the focal points for managers is to be mindful of, pay attention to, and support their employee’s financial and emotional well-being.”

What is interesting is that I have worked in the behavioral health arena all my professional life and we were always keyed into these areas, such as everyone’s emotional health and wellbeing and healthy boundaries for example. Now it seems as though “mainstream” businesses and organizations are recognizing the importance of mental health and mental fitness.

And we know that the pandemic was a major catalyst.

So, what does that mean for leaders and what does that look like? Today, according to a WTW survey “two out of three U.S. employers (67%) plan to make employee mental health and emotional wellbeing programs and solutions one of their top three health priorities over the next three years.”

Accessible mental health services and well-being programs are certainly important offerings that an employer must consider but how do the levels of stress, overwhelm, and burnout impact you as a leader? If your job is to concentrate on your team’s well-being, who is looking out for you?

How does your self-care become a priority?

I bet the short answer is that it doesn’t.

I am curious, how well does your organization prioritize your emotional wellness? If you are an entrepreneur, how well do you prioritize your own self-care? Give yourself a rating.

On a scale of 1-10, 1 being the least and 10 being the most, how well do you prioritize your self-care daily?

I, personally, have instituted prioritizing self-care each day. And it is the small things that I inject each day throughout the day. For example, I can clear my head and reinvigorate myself just by being outside and being in nature, whether it is walking, hiking, or just sitting outside in my backyard and listening to the birds. Breathing, smelling, and feeling all the sensations when I am outside can energize or calm me down.

I have a client who is a remote worker. She shared with me that she sits at her desk all day, rarely has lunch, often doesn’t get up to walk her dog, and virtually takes little to no breaks throughout the day.

She also says that she is highly stressed, overwhelmed, and on the verge of burnout.

Microsoft Human Factor Labs used EEG caps to measure the beta wave activity, associated with levels of stress in the brain of meeting participants.

“They had a group in the study who all attended four consecutive meetings throughout the day.

One group was given breaks between the meetings and the other group was deprived of breaks after each meeting.

The study results showed that for those given breaks, the average beta wave activity remained largely steady over time and their levels of stress were low.

For those deprived of breaks, the average beta wave activity rose as time passed over the course of the day, suggesting an increased buildup of stress.”

Does that surprise you? Or does that sound about right?

When your self-care takes a back seat, you will most likely be depleted and zapped of your energy because so much of it is going to others or other things. It takes a lot of stamina to be there for your team, especially when you are supporting their emotional challenges and issues. The mental power required can be taxing. And if you do not have a good routine and practice of ensuring that your bucket is filled and gets refilled often, you will have all your juices sucked out of you with little to give yourself.

As a result, I imagine that your ability to show empathy decreases, and your levels of burnout increases!

So, where do we begin? We hear over and over that it starts with us. It starts with prioritizing yourself and developing your levels of self-empathy. For many of us exuding and showing empathy for others may be natural and in fact, that is just what saps our resources, our energy.

How do you inject the oxygen mask theory and take care of #1, before you take care of others?

What can you do each day to keep yourself present, focused, and optimally mentally fit and do so to live as fully and in your zone as possible?

I remember one of the tips that I used to share with new managers regarding ways to recognize their workforce was to acknowledge folx right away and do things that were easily accessible, free, and did not require you to jump through any hoops.

I believe the same is true for self-care. What are things that we can do that are right at our fingertips, that are free, and that do not require permission from anyone else or the need to jump through hoops? Self-care is also going to look different for each of us.

So, if you have a solid daily practice that centers on self-empathy and self-care. BRAVO!! Keep it up. If you need to dial it up a bit, then consider where you can inject it and add it to your tank throughout the day. And if you score low in this area, consider one or two things you can start to do to focus on yourself.

Here is a great link that has 40 fabulous self-care ideas: Check it out!

I especially love “read a joyful story every day”. We hear so much negative noise that I find it important to focus on the good that is happening in the world!

I hope this was helpful and I appreciate you.

I will leave you with a quote.

“Never give from the depths of your well. But from your overflow.” Rumi

Coach Jackie here. I am in the last stages of recovering from bronchitis. Ugg! Right? No fun!

Here is the thing. I rarely get sick. I am one of those unusual New Englanders who venture out in all kinds of weather, especially during the winter, and play outside in the cold. My favorite time of the year to hike is yes WINTER! I lead a hiking and social Meetup group for the LGBTQ+ community in Litchfield CT. Just as an example.

But I am not immune from getting sick and these past two weeks were a doozy!

Initially:

• I worried about not being available for my business.

• I felt guilty about not taking care of household stuff.

• I felt restless and wanted to move.

• I was concerned that I would lose the levels of fitness I had gained over the last several months after diligently going to the gym 4 times a week and hiking every weekend and so on ….

The upside is that those concerns lasted only about a couple of days. Not bad. With a lot of encouragement from my partner, family, and friends I received these reassurances:

My body needed rest to recover! PERIOD!

Yes, I could step away from work, exercise, and chores and things would not fall apart.

Instead, I:

• Read two great books! What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo and Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro; one nonfiction and the other fiction. Great reads BTW. I highly recommend them both!

• Realized that I want to start a monthly book club and add that to my Meetup group

• Slept a lot! I needed it.

• Binged on the Netflix series, Marco Polo. Not done yet … but am LOVING IT!

• Wore no makeup for almost two weeks! Yeah!!!

By showing myself a high level of self-love and self-care, with the support of my partner, I am getting better every day and will return healthier than before.

Just curious – What have you learned when you have allowed yourself to rest & recover even during random times throughout your day? I would love to hear your thoughts!