News Post

Five Small Ways to Build Mental Strength and Flexibility

May is Attorney Wellness Month. All month long, the Alabama State Bar is providing tips and tools to create healthy habits and environments, which are critical for lawyer wellness. 

Psychological capital is the combination of resilience, optimism, hope and confidence.

As lawyers, it helps us to manage the stress of lawyering. Research links high levels of psychological capital with better job performance, a greater ability to overcome obstacles, higher job satisfaction and elevated well-being (Avey, Richard, Luthans &  Mhatre, 2011; Luthans, Youssef-Morgan & Avolio, 2015).

Here are 5 practical tips to improving mental resilience and flexibility.

  1. Focus on one thing at a time. Studies have shown that multitasking negatively impacts your working memory – the part of your memory used to manage and focus on key information.
  2. Excessive multitasking also causes people to take longer to do simple tasks, drops your IQ by an average of 10 points.
  3. Part of maintaining and building resiliency is staying inspired. Place an image of an item, hobby, person or thing that motivates you on your desk, in your wallet or in your purse to help maintain inspiration in a difficult profession.
  4. Part of maintaining and building resiliency is using stress as an opportunity to connect with others. In our profession this may be difficult, but finding others in which you can confide is key to managing stress and maintaining perspective.
  5. Take decisive actions. Act on adverse situations as much as you can. Failing to act often results in stress and the exacerbation of challenges.

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[1] Well-Being Toolkit for Lawyers and Legal Employers, Anne M. Brafford – American Bar Association
[2] https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2011/04/9676/ucsf-study-multitasking-reveals-switching-glitch-aging-brain
[3] https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95256794?storyId=95256794
[4] Penn Resiliency Project – A resiliency project program developed by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania.
[5] Id.; https://www.lawpracticetoday.org/article/four-things-resilient/
[6] https://www.apa.org/helpcenter/road-resilience