Knowing how to manage the atmosphere in your team, your organization or your family has become a must. Mentally and emotionally agile people can skillfully blend psychological and communication skills to the point where it becomes a way of knowing how to be and how to know, and no longer just a theoretical application.

WHO AM I REALLY?

This is a question that some people have been asking themselves for thousands of years, and to which very few have found an answer. Attitudes and emotions that are misunderstood and poorly managed can lead to painful situations in both personal and professional environments. Like a pebble in a shoe, our progress is compromised, our focus shifting from the essential to the pebble. We find ourselves putting out fires instead of making progress in our interpersonal relationships and projects. Did you know that attitudes tend to persist, even after they’ve lost their relevance? And that’s because of a fascinating protection scam: we unwittingly protect our attitudes. Indeed, every single one of our experiences has been literally filtered and often also “reinvented” in our heads making our experience of reality completely skewed. For what are we if not a collection of memories? The good news is that, however tenacious these attitudes may be, they can be changed by force of circumstance and/or will.

 A NEVER-ENDING INNER STRUGGLE

Let me tell you a story… 

“A wise old man teaches his grandson about life. There’s a fight going on inside me,” he tells the boy. It’s a terrible struggle and it’s between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sadness, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, self-doubt, and ego. The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The grandson thought for a minute, then asked, which one will win? The wise old man simply replied: the one you feed. 

Understand that this same struggle is going on inside each of us. It is therefore essential, first of all, to become aware of it, and then to make certain choices: 1- taking full responsibility for periodically checking the quality of your interpretations, 2- selecting the negative emotions you want to replace with positive ones, 3- nurturing these positive emotions. 

Most people are not even aware that they have this ability to regulate, control and modify their interpretations of events. Toxic interpretations generate toxic experiences. And these interpretations, built on cognitive distortions and errors, fill our combined system of mind, body and emotions, with distortions and nightmares that undermine well-being and self-actualization. In this, our guts are smarter than our brains. After all, when we put garbage in our mouths, our stomach know how to reject it. Our brain doesn’t, and sometimes doesn’t even want to, because it’s easier to blame others for our moods. 

To make your memories more useful, you need to reinterpret them and give them a new meaning, so that contemplating them is less painful, and sometimes a little more acceptable.

How we behave today depends on how we perceive ourselves. Self-esteem, confidence, and competence are based on our memories, which in turn are constructed from what happened; they are full of suppressions, distortions and generalizations.

THE ROLE OF MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL AGILITY

The ability to choose a resilient response to failure and adversity is what distinguishes a mentally and emotionally agile person from a rigid one. 

In the process of developing mental and emotional agility, here are the elements you will need:

• The courage to be authentic. We often lie to ourselves and to those around us. That’s why it is important to assume your choices and responsibilities, and, knowing that to err is human, you can show yourself to be gloriously fallible, because it does not affect your value.
• The willingness to dare, to stop always being extremely cautious and to realize that this extreme prudence may protect you temporarily, but it can also stifle your dreams and ambitions.
• The openness to exploration and experimentation, to transform failure into learning. 
• The belief and the conviction that we become more alive and more human by taking responsibility for our choices.
• The commitment and the will to give yourself the chance to take charge of your life.
• Do more than live: experience. Do more than listen: understand. Learn the causes and effects of what works and what doesn’t, while being flexible enough to adjust as needed.

TAKE THE NEXT STEP

In the world we live in, where ambiguity and uncertainty generate bad stress, where loneliness and physical distance have become the norm, where one in four employees suffers from mental disorders, and where the sense of belonging and team cohesion have gone by the wayside, where teenagers are depressed due to a lack of purpose, and anxiety and depression have reached record levels, mental and emotional agility has become, without any doubt, the most important skill to cultivate, both in one’s personal life and in the workplace. 

To help you develop your full potential, don’t hesitate to reserve your place for an unrivalled coaching session. For further resources, please refer to the following links: 

• Stress and Performance Management
• Conflict Resolution
• Ontological Coaching
• Unleash Your Full Potential
• Develop Emotional Intelligence
• Mental Hygiene and Emotional Intelligence