A 3 min read.

Picture this: It’s a busy Friday night at your restaurant. The kitchen is backed up with orders, guests are waiting in the entryway as you are running behind on their reservations, and there’s a mistake in a large party’s bill that needs your immediate attention. Your stress levels are through the roof. You feel overwhelmed, reactive, and it seems like the chaos will never end. You snap at your staff, your decision-making is impaired, and the whole team feels the tension.

Now imagine the same scenario, but this time, you’ve invested in your mental fitness. You remain calm and composed, effectively communicating with your team, delegating tasks with clarity, and solving problems with a level-headed approach. The kitchen still has a lot of orders, the guests are still waiting for their tables, and there’s still a mistake in the bill, but your response is different. The energy you bring to the situation helps diffuse tension, keeps your team focused, and ensures the night runs smoother despite the challenges. This is what mental fitness looks and feels like.

What is Mental Fitness?

Mental fitness refers to the capacity to respond to life’s challenges with a positive rather than a negative mindset. It’s about strengthening your mind to handle stress, improve decision-making, and maintain emotional balance. Just like physical fitness requires regular exercise, mental fitness involves practices that build resilience, focus, and positivity.

Shirzad Chamine, in his book, Positive Intelligence, introduces the concept of mental fitness through the framework of identifying and managing our inner saboteurs. Saboteurs are the voices in your head that generate negative emotions as you handle life's everyday challenges. They represent the automatic patterns in your mind for how to think, feel, and respond. Your Saboteurs cause all of your stress, anxiety, self-doubt, frustration, restlessness, and unhappiness.

If stress, anxiety, frustration, self-doubt and unhappiness is impacting your performance as a leader-I’ve been there and can help. Let’s connect at christinlmarvin@gmail.com

Saboteurs and Their Impact on Restaurant Leaders

Chamine identifies ten saboteurs, each with a unique way of manifesting in our lives. As a restaurant leader, understanding these saboteurs can help you recognize how they might be affecting your work and your team.

1. The Judge: This is the master saboteur that finds fault with yourself, others, and your circumstances. As a leader, the Judge might make you overly critical of your staff’s mistakes, harsh on yourself for any perceived failures, and constantly dissatisfied with how things are running.

2. The Stickler: This saboteur is a perfectionist, pushing for flawless results. In a restaurant setting, the Stickler can cause you to micromanage your team, become overly stressed about minor details, and create an atmosphere of pressure and anxiety.

3. The Controller: The Controller wants to take charge and control everything. This can lead to you being overbearing, not trusting your team, and causing frustration among your staff due to your need for control.

4. The Hyper-Achiever: This saboteur ties your self-worth to success and achievements. As a restaurant leader, the Hyper-Achiever might drive you to set unrealistic goals, work excessively long hours, and neglect personal well-being and relationships in pursuit of success.

5. The People Pleaser: The Pleaser tries to gain acceptance and affection by helping, pleasing, or rescuing others. In your role, this can lead to overcommitting, resenting your team for not working as hard as you, saying yes to every request, and burning out because you’re trying to keep everyone happy.

6. The Restless: The Restless is constantly in search of greater excitement. As a leader, this can result in you frequently changing plans, being easily distracted, and not following through on long-term strategies, causing instability for your team.

7. The Avoider: The Avoider focuses on avoiding difficult and unpleasant tasks and conversations. This can manifest as procrastination on important decisions, ignoring performance issues with staff, and delaying necessary but uncomfortable conversations.

8. The Victim: The Victim feels emotional and temperamental as a way of gaining attention and affection. As a restaurant leader, this can result in you feeling constantly overwhelmed, complaining about how hard things are, and draining your team’s energy with negativity.

9. The Hyper-Rational: This saboteur values the rational mind over emotions and relationships. You might focus excessively on data and logic, neglecting the emotional needs of your team and failing to connect with them on a personal level.

10. The Hyper-Vigilant: The Hyper-Vigilant is constantly anxious and vigilant, fearing that something will go wrong. In a restaurant setting, this can make you overly cautious, stress out your team with your constant worry, and prevent innovative and bold decisions.

Transforming Your Leadership Through Mental Fitness

By identifying these saboteurs, you can start to counteract their negative influence and strengthen your mental fitness. Here’s how focusing on mental fitness can transform your restaurant leadership:

1. Improved Decision-Making: When you’re mentally fit, you’re able to approach problems with a clear, calm mind. This leads to better decisions that are thought through and not driven by stress or panic.

2. Enhanced Communication: A mentally fit leader communicates more effectively, with empathy and clarity. This helps build stronger relationships with your team and improves overall morale.

3. Stress Management: Mental fitness practices, such as mindfulness and self-awareness, help you manage stress better. You remain composed under pressure, setting a positive tone for your team.

4. Boosted Team Performance: As you become more positive and supportive, your team is likely to mirror this behavior. A positive environment boosts productivity, creativity, and overall performance.

5. Increased Resilience: Mental fitness builds your resilience, helping you bounce back from setbacks quickly. This quality is crucial in the dynamic and often unpredictable world of hospitality.

6. Greater Work-Life Balance: With improved mental fitness, you’re better equipped to set boundaries and manage your time effectively, leading to a healthier work-life balance.

How I Can Help

As a coach trained in mental fitness, I can guide you through the process of identifying and managing your saboteurs. Together, we can develop strategies to enhance your mental fitness, leading to improved leadership skills, a more positive work environment, and a thriving restaurant.

Through one-on-one coaching and leadership workshops, I offer tailored support to help you:

- Identify and counteract your saboteurs: Gain awareness of the negative patterns holding you back and learn practical techniques to overcome them.

- Build mental fitness: Develop habits and practices that strengthen your mental resilience and positivity.

- Improve leadership skills: Enhance your communication, decision-making, and stress management abilities.

- Achieve work-life balance: Learn to set boundaries, manage your time effectively, and maintain a healthy balance between work and personal life.

Investing in your mental fitness is not just about improving your well-being; it’s about creating a positive ripple effect that impacts your entire team and restaurant. Reach out today to start your journey towards becoming a mentally fit and highly effective hospitality leader.

Interested in learning more about mental fitness? Let’s connect at christinlmarvin@gmail.com

P.S. 

For more leadership development, here are some additional resources for you:

1. Tune into the No Hesitations Podcast Episode 32 : How to Lead with Clarity : 5 Strategies for Effective Restaurant Management

2. Contact me for a strategy session about overcoming your biggest challenge at christinlmarvin@gmail.com and start transforming your mindset, your restaurant, and your life today!

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Chamine, Shirzad. Positive intelligence: Why only 20% of teams and individuals achieve their true potential AND HOW YOU can achieve yours. Austin, TX: Greenleaf Book Group Press, 2016.