“I highly recommend this well-being guide. In today’s world, managing one’s emotional health takes increasing intentionality, regardless of your stage in life or field of work. This guide offers practical strategies and foundational tools for managing stress. It is a great resource for anyone looking to improve their emotional resilience and overall well-being.”

— Clinical Psychologist, Head of Student Counseling at large university

How to use the Calm, Kind, and Connected guide:

We recommend starting from the beginning because the concepts and tools in the guide build on one another. For example, Labeling Emotions is before Managing Emotions because it’s easier to manage emotions when we already know what we are feeling.

If you want to skip ahead, feel free to dive into a topic or tool that interests you. You can still get a lot of benefit from an exercise, even if you have less context for it.

To get the most from the guide, don’t just read it. Practice.

Simply knowing how to do something isn’t usually enough to make real change in how we think, act, and feel. We have to do it frequently. The biggest obstacle to these skills is making the effort to practice them.

Each week, choose 1 or 2 skills and try to do them every day.

A little each day goes a long way. Like lifting weights to strengthen muscles, regularly labeling and managing emotions strengthens new habits and fosters kindness towards ourselves and others.

Practice these skills when you least need them, when you are already calm, happy, or content. It will make them easier to do when you most need them.

It can be challenging to prioritize practicing regularly, especially when we forget or don’t feel like it. It takes effort to shift our habitual ways of reacting and thinking. Build these exercises into your routine, combining them with habits you already have (an effective technique known as “habit stacking“). For example, you could practice square breathing after you brush your teeth in the morning and practice labeling your emotions at your lunch break.

Picture how you want to feel at work. Do you want to feel calmer in tense situations? Happy? Balanced? This may motivate you to keep practicing, inching closer and closer to that image.

Bookmark exercises you want to come back to. They’ll be easier to access.

Workplace well-being starts with emotion skills. 

Emotions are always on in the background of our lives, affecting how we think and act. Unfortunately, many people ignore, dismiss, or chastise themselves or others for having feelings at work, but when we ignore feelings, we give them control over our actions. 

Emotion skills can calm and shift emotions, helping us cope with difficult situations, such as dealing with upset patients or students, communicating with frustrating coworkers, setting work-life boundaries, and giving feedback to employees.

More sections to come!

We will be adding more content covering topics like leadership, lifestyle habits, and encouraging kindness within your organization.