Productivity And Mental Health: How Are They Related?
We all seek constant productivity. Excellence, going beyond the limits and having the “ideal” performance in our activities is one of our most important desires as people. On the other hand, sometimes we find ourselves with a day to day life in which we fail to complete tasks, we fail to meet all of our objectives and we experience a constant blockage in our performance.
Our productivity has much more to do with our emotions than we normally realize. Several psychological realities play an important role in accompanying our performance in work and sports environments and in all the objectives we set out to achieve.
One of the things that prevent our correct performance is the lack of complete involvement in the task at hand. Sometimes, it is difficult for us to maintain complete attention and concentration while carrying out a certain activity. Have you asked yourself why?
When activities are too easy or extremely difficult for us, we tend to disengage from them to avoid either boredom or excessive stress. If our mind perceives a task as something very simple, it does not feel the challenge of implementing cognitive tools to complete it and therefore, it is experienced as boring and unimportant. On the other hand, when we perceive an activity as too demanding, our mind does not find the necessary resources to cope with it and therefore experiences stress and possible blockage. Either of these two realities limits our productivity.
The state of “flow” proposed by the current of positive psychology mentions that the ideal way to maintain our functionality is to carry out activities that maintain a good balance between being challenging and achievable. It is important to set tasks that engage our mental capabilities but also feel achievable and possible within our abilities. Entering a state of flow allows us to be completely immersed, motivated and concentrated in the activity we are carrying out, so seeking this balance is extremely important to enhance productivity. How to do it?
Find a challenge in tasks that you consider boring or too monotonous. Break down big, overwhelming tasks into small, achievable chunks according to your capabilities. Try to have a state of full attention in what you are doing.
Emotions and productivity
Many of our emotions get in the way of our ability to achieve goals. Have you encountered tasks that unleash anger, frustration or discouragement? When we experience emotions that we perceive as negative and link them to a certain task, we tend to automatically avoid what is making us feel uncomfortable. As a result, we postpone and delay the fulfillment of things that we perceive with rejection.
However, the reality is that not all tasks to be completed will provide an immediate positive emotional reward. Inevitably we will find ourselves with unpleasant and unsatisfactory pending tasks to complete. The more we try to escape from them, the more rejection we generate towards any task that goes out of our comfort zone. We become inflexible and lose our ability to resolve conflicts on the fly in the real world. To do?
Frustration, anger and discouragement are a normal and expected part of every process we put into action in our work, sports and personal growth lives. Recognizing, understanding and regulating these states contributes to our adequate performance.
Mental health influences our productivity
As has been observed, our capacity for attention, motivation, emotional regulation and sense of self-efficacy, among others; They are important psychology concepts that play a role in our productivity. Mental health is an element to take into account not only on a personal and relational level but also in every area in which we carry out tasks and seek to achieve objectives.
When relating our well-being to our efficiency, we must remember that productivity is not the only thing or the most important thing! Every area of our life requires self-reflexivity that leads us to be more aware of our entire experience beyond achievement. It is not only about achieving goals but about perceiving, validating and moving through all the emotions and thoughts that are part of your daily life.
When talking about productivity, let’s take into account the importance of our mental health and seek to generate the necessary tools so that completing our tasks does not become a frustrating and tedious experience that we face daily.
