Pawn wearing a crown - metaphor for practice zone thinking as a means to reduce performance anxiety and increase mental health

Use practice zone thinking to reduce stress & performance anxiety at work

Use Practice Zones to develop skills and insights in people ahead of when they are needed. This helps build competence and confidence ahead of taking on new roles and challenges and reduces performance anxiety at work. This article is part of our series on stress resilience and mental health at work..
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The challenge of everything having consequences

Performance anxiety at work is perhaps the epitome of workplace stress. It occurs when we need to perform at a particular level and we are not fully confident that we can. Perhaps it is a new challenge. Maybe we talked our capabilities up in securing the opportunity to face that challenge. Or maybe we feel we may be on our ‘third strike’ – metaphorically, or literally.
Image of person feeling criticism outside the practice zones due to performance anxiety at work - courtesy GeraltWe feel a bit under the microscope of dispassionate (even unfriendly) eyes. And we cannot drop the ball. Perhaps doing so has real consequences for our career, or our job security, or our reputation and influence.
And we feel this high level of stress as a churning inside of us.

our body, our minds, and our skin are telling us they would rather be somewhere else

Some people thrive on this feeling, even at this level of stress. They know it is a precursor to their next amazing victory. And that fires and inspires them to something extraordinary.
But most people don’t, and this can have real consequences for their mental health at work.
The challenge is difficult enough on its own. But as they confront difficult odds, even their own mind seems to be turned against them. It should be giving them experience and ideas and confidence. But instead it talks to them of what will go wrong, threatens awful consequences, and berates them for their temerity.
Coming out of lockdown and sliding into recession makes the stakes even higher. The inflated promises we make to secure a job. The implications of losing it. And here, now, on our very first run, it is make or break. That is real performance anxiety at work.

The power of practice zone thinking

Sully - Miracle on the Hudson - film poster - clip about practice zonesIn the film Sully: Miracle on the Hudson, Tom Hanks plays the pilot who landed his plane, full of passengers, on the Hudson river. In a pivotal scene he is facing a board of inquiry that, for various reasons, want to prove him in the wrong. He is forced to watch two simulations where pilots fly from the point his plane is damaged, and safely land it at two nearby airports. So he asks the board how many trial runs those pilots had before the demonstration. The answer was seventeen.

we all need practice zones

The point is, we all need space to practice. Nobody can be relied on to perform at their best the first time round. We all need time and space to learn and try things out. To have time in practice zones where we can build our confidence, and experience, and our strategies in a safe environment.  And yet, for most of us, our entire working lives are spent in the performance zone, where everything we do has consequences.

The problems of a performance mindset

And the biggest consequence is what Carol Dweck refers to as a fixed mindset. A fixed mindset shies away from challenging situations. It would rather excel at something it already knows than learn something new.  And when it encounters problems, those problems are always the fault of someone or something else.
And there are two big problems with this:
  • The first is, that when you blame something else, you psychologically throw away to opportunity to find something you can do different. You concede the power to learn and to change.

blame concedes power

  • The second is, that the future of work is increasingly all about change. Continuous learning will soon be the key skill that everyone needs to thrive and survive as people and organisations.
As routine becomes more automated, AI will play an increasingly large part of our work. Every day will include new things we haven’t encountered previously. Those who approach this with a fixed mindset will become increasingly irrelevant. And those who operate solely in the Performance Zone will become increasingly stressed. Without practice zone thinking there is a real danger that we will see increasing incidences of both disengagement and issues in mental health at work.

Practice zones – environments that encourage practice

Picture of somebody practicing for hurdles - courtesy Andrea Piacquadio via PexelsTo avoid this, we need to take a good look at how our organisations, and the people within them, respond to change. And then we need to create a practice zone environment in which it is easier and less threatening for people to engage with change:
  • Foster a more realistic expectation of people. Create a tolerance, even an expectation, of mistakes. Encourage vulnerability between people by having senior people share their own experiences of going wrong. Allow people to be more honest with themselves, and with others, about their limitations. And through this inspire people to value learning over appearance.

value learning over appearance

  • Teach people about fixed and growth mindsets, and help them to be more accepting of the reality of themselves. Prepare them with an attitude of lifelong learning, and help them to define and aspire to their own vision of the next stages in their personal development.
  • Establish practice and performance zones for people. Use a proportion of your meetings and internal projects to be deliberate Practice Zones. Periods of time where everything is safe, and people can try things out. And where the outcomes can be revisited and adjusted later. Create a culture where people build real confidence to try out the new.
  • Run simulations of situations and meetings with more junior people so that they can develop skills and attitudes to equip them for their next career step. In this way, they can make their next promotion with more confidence and less risk. Expose them to aspects of their potential future roles early so that their responses can be coached years ahead of time. (And they can build even more confidence in their current role).

develop curiosity

  • Encourage ‘open’ attitudes in all conversations. Teach people to develop curious reactions rather than judgmental ones, and to prefer compassion to cynicism. In this way, we will not only make learning easier and more certain for them, we will also foster communities where people can feel more free and less stressed with their colleagues.
  • Create spaces for people to reflect and ready themselves to be the person they have the potential to be. Begin meetings with a time that allows people to centre themselves. To move past any stress from previous encounters. And to make a choice about how they want to be in this one.

reflect the truth that we are ALL learning

Let the environment reflect the truth that we are all learning in these new ways of working. Practice zones can help to remove performance anxiety at work and help people to feel comfortable in their own present. And also comfortable about changing themselves for the future. We can make humility safe, and through that create workplaces in which everyone can thrive and reach their potential, and maintain their mental health at work.
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Relevant Links:

Daily re-restructuring for agility? How adaptive structures maximise agile engagement.
Culture eats strategy for breakfast – but what sort of strategy are you feeding it?
Facilitating mental wellbeing – The power of adventure in keeping our minds fit & healthy.
Patterns of collaborative excellence – Rediscovering the lost wisdom of design.
Prescient emotional knowledge management – do you have what it takes?
eople holding speech bubbles as a metaphor for feedback and growth mindset as a route to mental health - rawpixel viaPXhere

Using feedback & growth mindset to sustain mental health at work

Learning cultures are key to avoiding an overload of stress as we face greater levels of change. Key to making them work is embracing failure and feedback. This article is part of our series on stress resilience and mental health at work..
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The role of culture in mental health at work

Culture is a massive factor in mental health at work. A challenge that might be seen as exciting in one culture can be the cause of great distress in another. In part this is down to influences that we have covered in previous articles:
But perhaps the biggest cultural influence on mental health at work is the organisation’s response to ‘failure’. This is also a massive influence on whether the organisation fosters a growth mindset or a fixed one.

Performance culture abhors failure

business performance culture reflected in numbers of a screenOrganisations have long tended to be performance-obsessed. The financial markets have set a paradigm where profits grow in every cycle. And they expect changes in leadership when they don’t.  This is exacerbated by media reporting, which publicly humiliates leaders who fall short in some way.
This has created a business culture where failure is seen as something to be avoided at all costs. Where those involved are tarnished and lose credibility, or even benefits. And where, as a consequence, blame, finger-pointing and conflict are rife. The first victim of any conflict is always openness and truth. As a result, learning becomes ‘in short supply’. This can have a huge detrimental impact on mental health at work.
The problem is that these organisations all see ‘failure’ as the antithesis of ‘performance’. Rather than the precursor to it. And this has permeated the culture resulting in behaviours that directly oppose and penalise growth mindsets.

is failure the antithesis of performance?

As a result, for people within those organisations, taking on risk is highly stressful. People do not want to associate themselves with potential failure. Consequentially, support for challenging or ambitious projects is difficult to enlist.
Therefore, people tend to limit themselves to safe projects – ones that build only marginally on what is already known. Furthermore they select the most capable people in the organisation, and this creates resource conflicts and limits the development opportunities for the less experienced.
Real learning, in both the individual and organisational senses of the term, is kept to a minimum. Thus the organisation not only resists a growth mindset in its people, it has a fixed mindset in itself. Even the concept of feedback gets subverted – but more on this below.

Learning culture embraces failure

However, healthy organisations with a learning culture treat failure as valuable. They rightly see it is a reflection of the degree of ambition. A natural consequence of a balanced approach to risk. And an opportunity for learning and encouraging growth mindsets.
learning culture dance as a metaphor for pushing the envelope and the need for failure, feedback and a growth mindset for real performance and sustained mental healthIn a learning culture, failure is expected. If everything you do is successful, you are clearly not pushing the envelope hard enough. Thriving organisations need creativity and ambition. And these inevitably generate failures.
Therefore, in a learning culture, the level of failure is a function of your level of creativity and innovative ambition. Both of which will be necessary for the organisation to thrive. Furthermore, embracing that failure releases new data and insight to the organisation. Creating a culture of openness around failures enables the organisation to get the information that will bring it closer to success. Success that can leap ahead of the performance of organisations with more staid approaches to risk.

failure is a necessary reality in maximising success

But let’s be clear here. A learning culture doesn’t actually prefer failure to success. It just accepts that it is a necessary reality in maximising their success. And they are not willing to limit themselves to ‘safe’ and obvious ways forward which limit and slow their performance potential.  Nor do they want their people hiding failure, and thereby denying their colleagues the insights that are available through it.
Which brings us back to feedback.

Feedback as an evaluation

Attitude to feedback is a key indicator of a culture’s underlying attitude to failure.
In a performance culture, ‘success’ forms a key component of individual identity. Its synonyms are regularly, if informally, used to define and categorise people. And those reputations significantly influence the opportunities and benefits of that individual.
As such, ‘feedback’ can prove somewhat of a liability.

we tend to experience feedback either as an endorsement, or as personal criticism

We all understand ‘intellectually’ that feedback is good for our learning and development. But in a culture where failure is ‘a bad thing’ we tend to experience feedback either as an endorsement, or as personal criticism. It is great when it adds to our reputation and our personal confidence in how we are perceived. But if it highlights any shortcomings, our emotional concerns tend to mask any sense of intellectual joy we may have at being presented with new learning opportunities.
As a result, while our head says we look for feedback so we can identify and address those shortcomings, our heart is saying ‘no way’. We find ourselves becoming emotionally tense inside (even if we manage to suppress the appearance of it). Often, we ‘forget’ to ask for it. We become defensive, or rationalise what we are hearing. And we find explanations that justify us in ignoring it. This not only blocks growth mindset, it also adversely affects mental health at work.

Feedback as data and insight

Feedback is an increasingly key component of the ‘future of work’. As more of the routine elements of our roles are automated, more and more of our work will concern change. And more and more of that change will be effected through the relationships we have with colleagues and customers.
Our value will be the value we add to others. And key to finding new ways to add value will be a growth mindset, our creativity and our ability to innovate. Not everything will work first time. In a learning culture feedback is crucial to learning from the impact we are having on those around us.
So how do we separate the emotional from the intellectual?

change your organisation to one that embraces failure

The first way is “work for an organisation that embraces failure”. If you have influence, then change the culture. If you don’t, then move on. The reality is that if you are stuck in a performance culture that you cannot change, then politically and pragmatically you are stuck with playing the game. However, if you can change the culture, even just your bit of it, then do so. Celebrate failure. Explain why. Champion those who over-reach and innovate. Encourage people to take risks. Reward learning over performance. All in balance of course. Basically, embrace and promote the belief that, if you are innovating, you are inevitably having some failures
And give people a better understanding of feedback.

A better understanding of feedback

Feedback is not, and cannot be, any sort of judgement of us. How can it be?
In reality, feedback can only ever be a self-assessment of the person giving the feedback. The only thing they know for sure is how they have been impacted. They are only really equipped to provide feedback on themselves and how they experienced things.

Context of feedback - learning culture diagram illustrating the range of possible factors. But growth mindset accepts our part in working with these

They may, perhaps by tradition or a lack of humility, couch it in terms of judgement and evaluation of you. But how can they know? How can they know all of the factors (including their own attitudes and behaviours) that led up to what they experienced?
They cannot.
Therefore, any attempt at an ‘evaluation of you‘ based on their experience is inappropriate, poorly informed, and probably arrogant.
However, their opinion of what resulted for them is actually vital information for you.
Whatever the reasons that led up to them having that opinion, they will act in accordance with it. And so, if they feel they got no value, they will act as though they got no value. And the harsh reality will be that no value will be transmitted through them.
Now, if that is what you intended, fine. But if you intended that they should get value, and should be able to use that value effectively to benefit the organisation, then the fact that it hasn’t happened is an important piece of information.
You might not be ‘to blame’. But you are in the best position to realise that you still have a gap to close, and that you may want to adjust some of the variables to make it happen. And if you, as a result, can improve those variables, then you have learned something.

It is not about YOU

And that learning is valuable, but not value-laden. It helps you to grow, but it doesn’t mean you were flawed beforehand. This perspective lies at the core of a growth mindset.
This understanding of feedback is key. If we, consciously or subconsciously, see it as an evaluation, that will be a barrier to learning. In such situations it can be difficult for us to accept the insight without accepting the ‘judgement’. And learning is much easier to assimilate when it doesn’t come laden with emotional baggage.
Any education worthy of the name is bound to be dangerous (Louis Néel). Real learning at the edge of our potential comes at the cost of of mistakes. But if we can see these mistakes as the inevitable steps to who we were destined to be. The fastest route to the value we can add. Then we can get the very best learning out of each one.
The best thing an organisation can do is to accept this fact, and imbue it into its people. Give them a love of feedback. Equip them with a humility in providing it. Key to this is an acceptance by all concerned that falling short is an expected and admirable consequence of reaching far.
Share this on Linkedin –   |   Follow Culturistics insights on Linkedin –

Relevant Links:

Daily re-restructuring for agility? How adaptive structures maximise agile engagement.
Culture eats strategy for breakfast – but what sort of strategy are you feeding it?
Facilitating mental wellbeing – The power of adventure in keeping our minds fit & healthy.
Patterns of collaborative excellence – Rediscovering the lost wisdom of design.
Prescient emotional knowledge management – do you have what it takes?
Man standing on a peak - metaphor for spirituality mental health stress resilience

Inspiration and spirituality as a means to better stress resilience at work

Mental health issues challenge who we are – they question our identity. If we can help people better access the things that make them fully human, we can better equip them to have the answers they need when those questions get asked. This article is part of our series on mental health and stress resilience at work..
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‘Having spirit’ is our best defence

Stress in business is on the increase, and this is adversely affecting our mental health at work. When such levels of stress exceed our natural ability to handle them, the consequences are most commonly a decline in mental health at work. And this is usually manifest in anxiety, and depression, all too frequently at a level that means we cannot function effectively.
In the previous articles in this series, we have looked at strategies to diminish or avoid unhealthy levels of stress. This included how we organise, use creativity, work together, lead others, prepare ourselves and learn from each other to improve mental health at work. In this article on stress resilience we look at how we handle the stress that still gets through. Stress resilience is our ability to handle these levels of stress without it affecting our mental health at work.
We diminish the impact of stress when we retain a belief in ourselves and our potential – a spirit of hope, perseverance and love – and a faith that we can make a difference. Woman holding balloon - metaphor for spirituality and adventure - courtesy Tirachard Kumtanom via PexelsThese things give us arguments to keep anxiety at bay, and to lift us away from depression. In this way, they give us a resilience to cope with more stressful situations than might be possible without them.
We might term these things our ‘spirtuality‘ – as in to have ‘spirit’, or be ‘spirited’. A sense of inner resolve. A force for good. The determination to pick ourselves up and start again. They are the things we most easily lose during bouts of anxiety and depression. But they are also our best defence against those bouts, and sometimes our best chance of recovering from them.

Spirituality sets us apart

However, over recent decades, our prediliction for: the material in business; the purely rational in science; and polarity in politics and the media has led us to pay Image of money courtesy Wolfgang Eckert via Pixabayless attention to those things that cannot be explained in those terms. As a result, we have abandoned the concept of ‘spirituality’ to more superstitious perspectives. And we have lost sight of its true potential to balance materialistic and rational dominance. Sadly it is no longer a term that can easily be used without prejudice or misunderstanding.

we are not machines – so don’t think like one

But as the world grows ever-increasingly more complex and uncertain, materialism, logic, and binary arguments are insufficient to cope with the rate of change we are required to work within. As a result, their has been a realisation of how much we have allowed the balance to slip. And a resurgence of re-embracing our ‘spirit’ in things like mindfulness, diversity, emergence, authenticity, vulnerability and trust.

Business is reawakening to spirituality

Image of creative curious right brainAll of a sudden things like hope, love, loyalty, character, centredness, integrity, trust are back on the business agenda. And we are just about reaching the point where we can re-appropriate the term ‘spirituality’ to mean something which reflects the impact and potential of all of those things. Which is just as well, because if we were to attempt to tackle what is coming without them, we would all have serious mental health issues. Spirit is key to stress resilience at work.

spirituality is key to tackling the challenges we face

So, in terms of mental health at work, how can we use this opportunity to help people to access and develop these things, and to better protect them from mental illness?
    1. Firstly, talk about it. Gradually rebuild their vocabulary to enable them to gain a better grasp of their spiritual side, and its importance to them in building stress resilience at work. Launch discussions on topics like: authenticity; vulnerability; mindfulness; diversity; creativity; story-telling; personal narrative; trust; spirit … And build their insight, their understanding, and their ability to articulate their feelings in this area. Most of all, bring it back centre stage so they know this is normal. They do not need to suppress it.

creativity is a spiritual act

  1. Secondly, introduce and build the role of creativity in your meetings. Creativity is a very spiritual act. Whether you express it in influencing images, writing, concepts or patterns of activity. Creativity changes our relationship with the way the world is and might be. It is about moving beyond the confines of our situation and tapping into things we do not fully understand. In doing so, it reshapes the world around us. And the joy that we feel in our spirit when that happens is a spiritual reaction to what we are doing – a connectedness with something bigger and more enduring than our physical selves.
  2. Thirdly, equip yourself and your people with a mindset of ‘adventure’. Adventure creates stress resilience at work by providing a valid alternative to a victim mindset in response to change.

Develop a mindset of adventure

To clarify a mindset of adventure, I would like to contrast the example of two people working in the same role facing identical circumstances. Their workload is higher than they can reasonably cope with. Things go wrong from time to time. They inevitably get complaints and encounter blame. Head office has blocked further recruitment and introduced a brand new system. And there is new initiative starting to look at changing the process, again.
  • As a result, Jeb feels that: he is stuck; and suffering the consequences of bad decisions made elsewhere; the blame is unfair; mistakes are inevitable given the set up; nobody listens; his team-mates let him down; he wants to avoid the initiative; if his performance drops further he will be fired;  and he just wants to make it through each day – all of which is totally true!
  • While Aja: choses to stay; wants to learn from how she responds to the challenge; is curious to find how bad decisions might be reversed; empathises with the blame and with her team mates; wonders about options for self-help; sees the initiative as a way to fix mistakes; and to learn new skills; believes listening starts with her; knows they won’t fire her – and if they did, that will be a new experience; sees each day as a new opportunity.

it isn’t what happens to you, it is what you make of what happens to you

Even though everything else is equal, Aja’s level of stress resilience is obvious in her perspective. She is clearly getting far more out of her day than Jeb. It also means that she is far less likely to suffer stress and depression. And the only difference is her spirit – her sense of adventure.
As time goes on, and all other things remain equal, Jeb will infuence and attract more Jebs. Aja will influence and attract more Ajas. And hopefully they will make her team leader because then maybe she can help the Jebs develop a sense of adventure and stress resilience too.

the future is an adventure, or a disaster – you choose – you literally choose!

The reality is that Jeb and Aja’s context is going to be a common consequence of the changing future of work. Increasing uncertainty and complexity will generate extra work, confusion, tensions and mistakes. It will also generate opportunity, new experiences and connections, learning, and insight. But if we are to equip our people to not only survive but thrive in this new world, we are going to have to help them engage with a mindset that emphasises the latter.

Leading by adventure

Waiting for someone to experience mental health issues is too late. For those who feel mentally trapped within their circumstances and their minds, the levels of change we will experience will be overwhelming. But it is easier if we develop new strength way ahead of any damage ocurring. We need to take them on a journey into their imagination, their spirit, and the resources that are available to them now. We need to give them time to: appreciate new perspectives; develop new skills; and gain confidence in their spirit way ahead of the time that it is all that stands between them and a deep dark pit.

an adventure into ourselves and our potential

To begin this journey, we ran a 50 session weekly programme called ‘Leading by Adventure’. It is a series of short weekly challenges that tap into exploring and developing different aspects of the mind. Helping people to see it as the untapped resource that it is, and lifting them to an understanding so that they can use it effectively under stress. Feel free to use this as a resource to build stress resilience and mental health at work with your people. LeadingbyAdventure.com
Share this on Linkedin –   |   Follow Culturistics insights on Linkedin –

Relevant Links:

Daily re-restructuring for agility? How adaptive structures maximise agile engagement.
Culture eats strategy for breakfast – but what sort of strategy are you feeding it?
Facilitating mental wellbeing – The power of adventure in keeping our minds fit & healthy.
Patterns of collaborative excellence – Rediscovering the lost wisdom of design.
Prescient emotional knowledge management – do you have what it takes?
Flamingos taking off - metaphor for the space between one situation and the next

#007 – Using the Third Space

Use small pauses between things to best ready yourself for each challenge and opportunity. Divest yourself of the debris of what’s past and put on your best for what’s to come.

Graphic image saying Power-Up and reflecting the intended advantage to be gained through the adventure

Why take this challenge?

Be at your best for each challenge and situation throughout your day.

Better work-life balance through intentional transitions between the ideal work you, and the ideal home you.

Improved mental health for you and those around you

 

Graphic image reflecting different pathways to take the adventure

In our second adventure – Fixing ‘ … that’s not me’ – we explored how ‘who you are’ is something you can choose. You can put on the ‘you’ you want. You can choose the ‘you’ that will be best for each situation. Even each moment.

Out of his research into top performing athletes, Adam Fraser has discovered that in many cases our success is determined by something most people take for granted – the transition between one thing and the next. Too often we bring who we were in the last battle into the beginning of the next one. And the fact is, that may not be the best option for us.

Around this idea, Adam has prepared some excellent (brief) resources that I heartily recommend you take a look at. This week’s adventure is about better understanding what happens to YOU in those transitions, and then trying out his simple three step approach.

 

Graphic image reflecting the idea of a Pack of resources to support the adventurer in the challenge

You may find the following resources helpful in tackling your challenge or in gaining further benefits from the skills and insights you develop

Other resources to help you create healthier environments

To catch up on past adventures you may have missed, feel free to browse our Adventures Library

 

Graphic image suggesting the idea of posting a record of the adventurer's journey

Let us know how you get on.

Share your experience, your insights and your observation using the comments section at the bottom of the Linkedin post.

Please help us to extend and develop our community by sharing what you are doing. Click on the links below where you are most active, and then like or share the article to your network. Thank you for helping.

And share your progress and insights with the Twitter LbA community using #leadingbyadventure

Useful links:

 

Playing at work! Seriously?

Post intentionally hidden from search engines 15/12/2022 (covered in Clrgo.com)

 

The toy, Lego, can provide surprising insights into you, your work and your relationships. 

Over the last two months I have been reading and listening to a lot of stuff about what makes us who we are, and the conclusion I am being drawn to is that, for most of us, we are not who we think we are. 

Our identity is tied up in stories; multiple stories which we tell ourselves; a flow of narrative which leads to and flows from the current moment, and to a large part determines how we feel about what we are doing right now. Those stories may be short or long, they may originate from us or from others, they may be in conflict or harmony, and most of the time we may not be fully aware of them. 

And some of them are the truth, and some of them are lies, and some of them are both in different circumstances. And we pick which ones we believe (not always consciously or consistently) and they determine not only our effectiveness, but also how we feel about our performance and our situation.

I say ‘not always consciously’ because a lot of this takes place in our subconscious. Most of what is going on in our heads is happening without us being in control of it, and yet it is making associations, feeding our attitudes, responding to cues, suggesting motives, and preparing us – all based on whatever narratives it is currently using.

But if we are not aware of this, how do we know that it is equipping us with the best narrative to do what we are wanting to do? The answer, for most of us, most of the time, is we don’t! And it isn’t! 

In many cases, particularly in respect of relationships with others (business or otherwise) we find ourselves all too easily doing, saying, and feeling things that are not particularly helpful to us or to them – particularly in tense or difficult situations. And as a result, opportunities, time and resource get wasted.

So how do we fix this?

Well first of all, this is not a quick fix – it takes time. But that time can be enjoyable, insightful, and empowering. And it can yield benefits right from the outset. 

Secondly, working on it is not like working on other things in our lives. Our subconscious is an alien space and it uses a different language to the ones we are used to speaking. 

As a result, working with the subconscious involves doing things that our conscious might deem as silly or weird – like playing with Lego. Seriously.

Lego (R) Serious Play (R) or LSP, for brevity and avoidance of the the legal symbols, was a technique developed at the Lego group in the mid-nineties and made open-source in 2010. It is designed to access the metaphors that operate in our subconscious, and enable us to better work together on a shared vision or enterprise. 

At an individual level, it enables people to see things in themselves that can surprise them; to unearth important facets of their narrative, and to work on them to bring about changes which can make us more effective, individually and together. It can surface metaphors that are important to us, and enable us to better examine them, and reassess their place (and their limits) in our story. 

Whether by LSP, or by means of other Therapies, if you are blessed enough to have the opportunity to work on your own subconscious. I encourage you to take it (or even seek it out). It is not just for those with mental health issues, it is also for those with mental health who want to retain it. 

The world is getting more and more complex, routine is being automated, things are moving ever faster, and relationships are increasingly key. Looking after our mental health so that it equips us with what we need to make the best of this emerging future is key, and I am increasingly convinced that a better grasp of our subconscious will enrich all our lives.  

In these days of data protection, when we can ask any organisation to reveal the picture it has of us, particularly where it might lead them to make decisions which are not in our interest, perhaps our most productive course of action could be to start within our own minds.