Are you constantly thinking about work? Tight deadlines, dealing with unpleasant coworkers,
or shifting schedules and then you look at your calendar and its booked with
meetings over meetings and conference calls. Well my friend
this week's video is all about mental health at work.
Hi and welcome, I'm Lennis, a wellness engineer. If you're new to this channel make sure to
subscribe and hit the bell so you get notified when I publish new videos every week and if you
are a returning member of the community thank you so much we are over 23 000 subscribers I cannot
believe it! Just as a reminder this space is all about helping you let go of the stress and chaos
in your day-to-day life so you my friend can have true impact, fulfillment, and enjoy every day
because we all deserve to live our best lives So we're talking about mental health at work
and oh my goodness am I familiar with poor mental health because of work between deadlines,
dealing with coworkers that I didn't get along with and putting myself in stressful situations
because of the workload, companies that keep losing people because of the culture and then
they just keep piling on more and more work on your desk. That was my personal experience
but I also know many fellow women in STEM and engineers who actually love what they do,
the problem is they cannot disconnect, they're constantly busy and this also creates stress in
their lives because they're stretching themselves so thin that regardless of how much they love what
they do they are constantly stressed out because there's a lot going on we are expected to show up
with this quote unquote perfect image of we can handle work we can handle family we can handle
ourselves and it's simply not sustainable. This causes us and our mental health to deteriorate
and in my case as I've shared in this other video which you can check out here
it led to some physical illness as well so what can we do? Now I know for me personally
it was a matter of lack of clarity and honestly staying in lack mentality for everything! One
of the first things that I recognized in my journey that was causing me a lot of stress
was feeling that I didn't have enough time to do everything that I wanted to and everything that I
was expecting to do. So if you're overwhelmed because of the lack of time or maybe you're
overwhelmed because you need this job to pay for your bills, to pay for your lifestyle, to pay for
what you currently have, to get you out of debt because we're all familiar with
student loans and mortgages and car loans and credit card debt, it feels so overwhelming
but why are we living this lifestyle? Why are we so stressed out that our mental well-being
is deteriorating? Why is work becoming one of the main sources of stress in our lives? There are
so many reasons that can happen here but I want to tackle one very specific reason that helped me
remove stress from my work life and therefore have such a better mental well-being and mental health
right Really be feeling great emotionally, physically and mentally. So there's a quote
that I want to share with you because I think this is key to understanding why work can have
such an impact on our mental health. The quote is by Myles Munroe and it goes like this Your job
is not your work, your job is what they pay you to do your work is what you were born to do
That is a tough one I'll be honest for me when I first heard that quote first it was like a light
bulb moment right because my work is what I came here to do and my job is what I'm getting paid to
do why are they two separate and exclusive things? why? why was I sacrificing my work
my health my well-being for a job and a paycheck and this for me uncover a huge
you know part of my onion as I say we're many layers where I discovered that number one
when i made the decision of going to engineering I lack full clarity of what my work my life work
was about and i think many of us go through this because how the hell can we know what our work our
life work is what we were born to do when we are 18 years old and we're choosing what schools to
go to and we're applying for different careers. And then we hear in society the judgment of those
who decide to go to school but try a bunch of different things and then there's the nagging
of hey you're accumulating student loans and you're not accomplishing anything, right?
There's all these other expectations and honestly for me it was about finding clarity what the heck
is my work? and if you're in that space right now my friend if you're trying to figure out
what your work in this world is on this earth why you were born right now and you need to gain some
clarity on that then definitely contact me and we can have a completely complementary clarity
session which you can book on the link in the description below. Okay so coming back to
mental health and work when we are sacrificing our values what we desire for a paycheck
we are living in lack we are living in fear and I've been there I've been there
hundreds of times I ve had those thoughts many times and this is because we are falling prey
to what it's called negativity bias and i've spoken about this before but pretty much
negativity bias is where you fall into the loop of thinking about all the negative consequences
of all the negative things that may come from your decisions that you're making. In my case
it all started with okay I see that my work and my job are not aligned so my job is paying me to
live to pay for my rent to pay for my car to pay for my things to pay for my clothes and if I don't
perform and I am not constantly connected and I am not delivering what I m supposed to be doing and
overworking and becoming an overachiever and type a personality then I may lose my job which means I
may lose my lose my safety which then means that there's a tough market out there to find a job
and if I cannot have a find another job I may not have enough savings to cover for the expenses that
i need to live I may end up on the streets I may end up homeless people may say oh Lennis
she had so much potential but then she decided to find her work and left her job and now
she is on the streets its so sad, right? So this is the story that I would create in my mind
over and over and over again which will keep me stuck, but we're never stuck, stuck
means that we're making a choice to stay where we're at and we are so paralyzed by fear that
we cannot make that next step Okay so I'm curious to learn from you is your current job in alignment
with your work let me know in the comments below How can we tackle mental health at work from this
perspective of alignment between your job and your work first thing is be clear with your
values having clarity with your core values is going to help you evaluate if the company that
you're working for if the organization that you're working for if your employer's mission,
vision and culture are in alignment with that. For me my three core values are integrity freedom
and happiness so wherever I will look for a job if I was to look for a job right now those are
important to me so whoever I'm gonna be working for or whoever I'm gonna be working with they need
to have very similar values maybe not exactly the same but something that is closer in alignment to
other companies that I work for where it was all about the bottom line I don't care about
you having a family and if you don't show up on time and you don't do all the work trips that I'm
sending you to do then I'm gonna keep you stuck in your position you're not gonna be promoted for
anything else that we have available for you and now you're just here in this loop of groundhog day
pretty much repeating the day every single day and it looks exactly the same and then we question
why our mental health at work is deteriorating It's because of these culture of old thinking that
we just have to be grateful for what we have and not desire more okay the second thing that
I want you to do is besides recognizing what are your values think about what are the things that
bring you joy, what are some of the things that you truly enjoy. For me is going out hiking it's
creating connection with people is helping others thrive and live in abundance right so when I think
about those things what are some companies that come to mind that may be in alignment with that
which is important and I enjoy in my life. So looking for other options, networking,
talking to people that work there trying to find out hey is there anything where my strengths can
be of use there and that's the other part we tend to focus a lot on improvements that we can have
at work and things that we can improve and skills can be most of the time easily improve but
leaning into your strengths at work is going to help you really create a wonderful mental health
experience because you are using what you're best at, what your zone of genius is, which
I've spoken about before and I'll drop the link of that video in the description below as well
The last thing that I want you to think about is recognize where your lack mentality is coming
up in your life and lean into abundance. So here's the thing, when I was thinking about my work and
my job and my alignment and all of that this voice kept creeping up which is called Patricia,
I'm sorry if your name is Patricia, but that's the name that I gave to my ego because when we
give our egos a name then we can kind of have a conversation with this voice that keeps telling
you and mistreating you honestly most of the time she was very mean to me now we're friends
But a lot of the things that I was telling myself or Patricia was telling me in my mind
was you don't have enough time to be looking for a job and working on updating your resume or this
is not in alignment with integrity because you're going behind your employer to find another job or
you know you're gonna run out of money and what are you gonna do are you I have no option
of moving in with my parents my parents were in Venezuela at that point actually now they
are here and pretty much I'm supporting my dad like all these different things all these lack
thoughts kept coming up which are limiting beliefs which keep you stuck which sabotage your progress
so how do you lean into abundance you start with gratitude okay I am very grateful for this job
that I have but I have a bigger desire can you show me the next step can you open the door for
me can I talk to people that I can see they're truly enjoying their work and they're very similar
to me and my personality and the likes that we have so let me find out what they're doing.
All these different things that you can do to really get closer to doing your work and getting
paid for it okay there is that option as well people like Steve Jobs, people like Sarah Blakely,
people like Oprah, they are great examples that this is truly possible. So leaning into abundance
what do you have right now that's working out for you what are some of the things that are
going really well for you to help you take this next micro step and the next micro step.
It's not about giant steps It's not about taking gigantic leaps of faith, although sometimes that
is necessary and required, I've been there and I've done it, but sometimes to help you stay in
the safe mentality and like you're feeling safe but also you are looking for that alignment and
leaning into abundance is trusting, finding that those examples, those other things and surrounding
yourself with that mentality and brainwashing yourself pretty much which is what I've done
for the past seven years brainwashed myself to see life from a different perspective
to have a new message to know that the belief that I have to work hard to deserve a good life
is actually burning me out is actually causing me more stress and it's leaving me depleted Oh my
goodness I know we cover a lot of things today and if you're looking to find your path of true joy in
STEM, I recently ran a masterclass that I'm gonna make available to you in the description below as
well because I truly believe that if we lean into this curiosity we can find the path to true true
joy whether it's in STEM, engineering, technology or whatever else we're doing with our lives so
you can catch the recording below If you like the content in this video make sure to give it
a like and to share it with your fellow friends and family members because anyone that's in their
working years can benefit from the things that I'm sharing here. I really believe that if all of us
lean into to that abundance mentality, lean into doing our work and getting paid for it we'll have
a much kinder loving and better society so if you like that idea make sure to support it right
here. I'm lennis your wellness engineer helping you cultivate mindful practices so you my friend
can have the life that you deserve with more freedom joy peace of mind time abundance
money abundance and miracles showing up at your doorsteps every single day I've seen it happen
not only my life but I've seen how my clients are creating miracles because of leaning into
this abundance and surrounding themselves with the right community of someone that's promoting
positive thinking and really letting go of that lack mentality. Thank you so much my friend
you really deserve to live your best life and I hope to see you on the next video be well bye