Wellbeing with Right Management
Intro to Well-being
Even though change is inevitable, it can be overwhelming. It is often accompanied by high levels of emotion, stress, and anxiety, all of which can take a toll on your physical and mental well-being. This is normal and to be expected! We recognize that a successful career transition supports you as a whole person—through all the phases of change—so that you come out on the other side, potentially, stronger than ever before.
In this section, Intro to Wellbeing, you will be introduced to an overview of the transition journey and specific strategies for times of change. Keep scrolling to explore additional sections providing deep dives into adjusting, physical and mental wellbeing, uncertainty, anxiety, and mindset.
These resources, combined with your Right Management Connecting and Collaborating Learning Experience, as well as individualized coach support, provide for all aspects of your successful career transition journey.
Recorded Wellbeing Workshop
Click below to view the recorded version of Right Management's Wellbeing workshop.
Bridges Transition Model
An explanation of The Bridges transitions model, created by organizational consultant and author, William Bridges.
Harvard Wellbeing Assessment
Use this tool to benchmark your Well-Being now and at future points in your transition process.
Wellbeing with Right Management
Making the Big Adjustment
Job endings are among life’s most stressful experiences. If you are feeling overwhelmed with shock, grief, and loss, know that you are not alone. Emotions run the gamut at this time! It is normal and to be expected. Allowing a period of adjustment to methodically process feelings, get re-centered and, ultimately, find a positive way forward is the best way to set yourself up for a constructive future.
Take your time exploring the resources and exercises provided in this section. You will discover support and strategies to help you take control of the situation, maintain your spirits, and find a renewed sense of purpose.
Boosting Confidence in Difficult Times
This recorded event focuses on: 1) the top 5 ways we lose self-confidence when we go through tough transitions in life 2) Four of the best strategies for boosting self-confidence created by top psychologists, medical doctors, and philosophers.
7 Ways to Help You Deal with Change
Change is inevitable and can be overwhelming. Finding ways to accept, flow, and cope can make these transitions a little easier.
Catastrophizing: What You Need to Know to Stop Worrying
Catastrophizing involves believing that you’re in a worse situation than you really are or exaggerating your difficulties. It can be a symptom of anxiety or depression.
Tips to Cope With Job Loss
These are rough waters, but there are strategies you can try to help navigate the anxiety and uncertainty of this major life transition.
11 Ways to Handle Being Laid Off
Strategies to make the most of this transition.
How to train your brain to accept change, according to neuroscience
Change is naturally difficult, but it’s beneficial to our cognitive health to stimulate and encourage it.
“Dear Job” Letter Exercise
Write a Dear Job letter to gain a greater sense of clarity and closure.
Wellbeing with Right Management
Promoting Physical Well-being
Physical wellbeing is the ability to maintain a healthy and balanced life in which we get the most out of our daily activities.
Extended periods of increased stress and uncertainty—as in a career transition!—place extra demand on the body’s physical resources, leaving us vulnerable to increased fatigue, physical stress, injury or illness. During this time, you need even better nutrition, more sleep, and more exercise just to stay healthy.
There is an opportunity hiding in plain sight here: old habits went by the wayside when your job ended, creating open space for you to shape new habits that will carry you into your new future.
Take a creative look at your daily schedule. Build physical activity into your daily routine. Get plenty of restorative sleep. Eat healthy foods. Focus on managing your stress. As you are able, more and more, use this time to hardwire-in healthy habits so they are solidly entrenched when your life changes again with new employment.
The resources on this page invite you to discover enjoyable and sustainable ways to prioritize your physical wellbeing. Use this time of transition to create positive new habits that carry into the future you are creating for yourself.
How to Get a Good Night Sleep When Stressed
Stress and anxiety can often keep you from getting the sleep you need. Here are a few tips to help you practice good “sleep hygiene” so you can wind down both your body and mind:
Exercise and stress: Get moving to manage stress
Exercise in almost any form can act as a stress reliever. Being active can boost your feel-good endorphins and distract you from daily worries.
Eat These Foods to Reduce Stress and Anxiety
Dietician explains how certain foods can help reduce your levels of cortisol — the primary hormone responsible for stress.
10 New Strategies for Stress Management
Research studies suggest we have more tools than we realize.
The Practice of Play with Dr. Stuart Brown
Learn more about how the practice of play can benefit our emotional well-being, relationships with others, and the world as a whole.
Honest Food Guide
Make decisions toward Health (green) and away from Disease (red) with this simple guide.
Wellbeing with Right Management
Boosting Mental Well-being
Well-Being is more than just physical health and wellness. The Mental component of well-being is an integral part of our overall health. Mental well-being relates to how well we deal with life’s ups and downs. It’s our learned ability to thrive…no matter what.
In fact, periods of challenge or adversity can be used to strengthen Mental Well-Being. We can use this opportunity to develop and practice skills that make us more optimistic, resilient, and growth-oriented.
Resilience is often confused with “bouncing back,” as if we could return to our original shape. Nope. Experience changes you. There is no going back; only forward.
Fortunately, Mental Wellbeing is a SKILL to develop, not a gift someone is born with. On this page we provide resources for you to develop your ability to move forward with positive changes in outlook, skills, expectations and capacity.
How Social Support Contributes to Psychological Health
Relationships play a critical role in how you function in crisis, as well as your day-to-day life.
Kristin Neff: The Three Components of Self-Compassion
The world's leading researcher of self-compassion explains the core features of self-compassion.
Emotional Wellness Toolkit
How you feel can affect your ability to carry out everyday activities, your relationships, and your overall mental health.
The SEHS Counseling Center Offers Free Counseling Sessions
The SEHS Counseling Center is a no-cost service offering personal and career counseling. It is a teaching and research facility for the counselor education program at Oakland University.
Daily Mood Tracker
Helpful for anyone who wants to track their mood for greater awareness, easier self-expression, or valuable self-reflection. Some research has even shown that depressed people can improve their mood by tracking it.
Surround Yourself For Support Worksheet
Use this worksheet to evaluate and rebuild your social circles.
Wellbeing with Right Management
Managing the Stress of Uncertainty
People are creatures of habit, by design. The human brain is programmed to anticipate the future based on the past. When things go as we expect, we feel comfortable, in control. But when life throws a curveball, it can leave us feeling anxious and stressed.
Unchecked, this uncertainty can spiral downward, taking with it our ability to cope, tolerate ambiguity, make decisions, solve problems, present well, and respond creatively.
The exact skills we need during a job search are obliterated by the inherent uncertainty of a job search!
In this section you’ll find references, tools and strategies to face uncertainty head-on in a productive way while, at the same time, mitigating its stress effects.
Overcoming Unemployment Stress
Article describes how taking positive steps forward can contribute a great deal to overcoming the stress that accompanies job loss.
Job Search Action Plan
Reduce stress by focusing your attention on the things you can control: this excel workbook helps you create and adhere to a job search plan and schedule.
Thought Provoking Statements
Job Loss and Unemployment Stress
While the stress of losing a job can seem overwhelming, there are many things you can do to take control of the situation, maintain your spirits, and find a renewed sense of purpose
10 tips for dealing with the stress of uncertainty
People react differently to uncertainty, but you can take some simple steps to build your resilience in uncertain times.
Locus of Control exercise
Get clear about what is within or outside of your control so you can focus your energy appropriately.
Wellbeing with Right Management
Overcoming Anxiety
Anxiety results from the brain’s fight-or-flight response to a perceived threat. When triggered, our emotional brain floods the body with chemical messengers that fire-up muscles while closing down non-essentials…all to get us out of the way of a sabretooth tiger. It is a brilliant survival mechanism! But when there is no tiger—or threat that can be avoided or resolved—it converts to the experience of anxiety. What you need to know is:
- It completely takes over control of the body automatically
- It happens below our conscious awareness
- It does not respond to reason
In other words, you cannot think yourself out of anxiety. Since the uncertainty and overwhelm of a job transition process is certain to trigger your fight-or-flight circuitry, you need body-based tools to counter its effects.
In this section, you will find a plethora of body-based tools you can use to calm the fight-or-flight response. Experiment with many—noticing which ones work best for you—until you’ve narrowed it down to approximately 5-or-so go-to tools for overcoming anxiety.
The Biology of Anxiety
Anxiety explained as a state of negative expectation to cope with an unknown or adverse situation.
Natural Approaches to Anxiety
Anxiety should be treated so it does not become chronic, whether medically, naturally, or a combination of both.
4-7-8 Calm Breathing Exercise
Be guided in a breathing pattern that calms the triggered nervous system.
Get the Calm App (from your app store)
This app provides pre-recorded tracks to guide you through meditations that help you relax. Select from tracks to help reduce their anxiety.
Dear Gabby – How to Live Without Anxiety – Gabby Bernstein
This podcast episode teaches a specific method for dealing with anxiety. The method focuses on letting go of control and the anxiety that accompanies it.
Self-Care-Check-In
Engaging in self-care is one of the most important steps in maintaining a strong sense of self and a high degree of mental wellness. However, self-care looks different for everyone. Use this check-in as a quick way to see where more attention is needed to ensure you are meeting your self-care needs.
Wellbeing with Right Management
Maintaining a Positive Mindset
Here’s the thing about mindset: everybody’s got one. Whether it’s negative or positive is up to you. Einstein said, “The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or a hostile universe.” It’s the same universe either way, but one makes for a much better experience.
This is true for the job transition journey, too: viewing experiences with a focus on what’s going right, and then using those insights and tools to create more of what’s going right, improves the process on every level.
A positive mindset includes positive-oriented thoughts, beliefs, values, and attitudes, which are key factors for well-being. Positive thinking also helps with stress management and can even improve your health. Positive thinking engages parts of the brain involved in greater creativity, connection and collaboration…which are all aspects of a successful job transition.
One of the most important decisions you will make on your job transition journey is whether it will be negative or positive. In this section of well-being resources, you will find science-backed tools and strategies for building a positive mindset.
Key Strengths Analysis
Our key strengths are a result of the overlap between the things we are good at and the things we enjoy.
THE CHOICE (Short Animated Movie)
This is a short animated film, about how your small everyday life choices can ultimately shape your life.
Take the saboteur assessment - Positive Intelligence
Discover what negative thought patterns are working against you.
Amy Cuddy TED Talk: Your Body Language May Shape Who You Are
The second most popular TED Talk video EVER connects how we hold our body to our level of confidence.
Power Posing Is Back: Amy Cuddy Successfully Refutes Criticism
Read about the controversy—and outcome—when Amy Cuddy’s research was questioned.
Doors Closed Doors Open
The goal of the exercise is not to downplay the negative event but to create awareness of the positive potential that arises as a result of the closed door.
The Strengths Wheel
Once you have identified your unique strengths, optimizing them using this worksheet with your coach.
