The Upside of the Downside.

Over the past month, many family members, friends, and colleagues of mine have asked me how I’ve been able to remain unapologetically optimistic as a business owner and leader throughout the COVID experience? Many assumed that I haven’t had micro moments of feeling and functioning in a way that is less than optimal. You assume wrong. There have been challenging moments – many of them. What has been the difference between those who can quickly bounce out of these moments and harness them for performance vs. those who have gotten stuck in the quicksand?

Fundamentally, we need to be able to handle inevitable hardships and unpleasant feelings to flourish and succeed. The ability to tolerate psychological discomfort, or distress tolerance as psychologists call it, has become one of the greatest skills that an individual, family and organization can possess. This is not only essential to our own individual well-being, but for positive outcomes in both our family and organisational tribes. 

COVID-19 has not only created havoc, rather, it has simultaneously been a catalyst for positive change. Organisations have very quickly realised that without psychological safety, trust and positive relationships in the workplace, things can unravel very quickly.

I am not opposed to happiness (I don’t like the term– I prefer terms to describe short term positive emotion such as joy, gratitude, contentment, and love), meaning and purpose, but I do want us all to value our entire emotional experience. I want us to believe in wholeness. I implore you to see the upside to the negative emotions you feel and the days in which you don’t function at your best. These moments are precursors to growth if you let them be.

The recent obsession with emphasizing happiness – “I want to be happier; I want to feel happy, I just want him/her to be happy,” is reductionist thinking in my opinion. Science tells us happiness generally brings benefits and suggests choices we can make to bring more happiness. 25 years ago, this is where Positive Psychology started. It began as the science of happiness and so there was a strong focus on positive emotions and feeling good. At the time, organizations focused on helping employees to ‘feel good’ to increase productivity (and in turn, profits). Over the years, a more sophisticated way of thinking about wellbeing and what it means to thrive, has emerged. For example, embracing struggle helps shape our understanding that while positive emotions can help to broaden our minds and build our resources, our negative – or more uncomfortable emotions such as anger, anxiety, and struggle – offer us paths to learning and growth. Caring for wellbeing is not a lone venture, however. Our wellbeing experiences – thoughts, feelings and behaviours spread and create a very tight nexus between individuals, teams, and organisations. It is all our responsibilities to act as a type of positive glue within this nexus. At times, the humility and positive vulnerability that we can show others unintentionally gives them permission to do the same. This is true, positive social contagion – where there is spontaneous spread of emotions and behaviours through a group or network.

For too long our society has stigmatized negative emotions. You are expected to feel and look good. That adds unnecessary stress and suffering to many people’s experience of the world. People in pain feel the need to retreat, they feel something is wrong with them – they are an outcast. Negative emotion, however, is a healthy habit if you have the emotional intelligence to notice the emotion, understand the emotion and then use the emotion to facilitate positive performance. Negative emotions are organic. What isn’t organic is not appreciating the valuable role they play in developing who we are. Ruminating (chronic pondering) sad events over and over because we can’t let go is one pathway many take; another and potentially more productive path is befriending our emotions. This noticing, understanding, and regulation of the emotion is at the core of personal growth. 

I leave you with the simple question. Are you letting negative emotion consume you? Or are you noticing, understanding, regulating, and using them to facilitate better performance?