Aljoša Bagola: We are victims of relationships devoid of respect, trust, and filled with punishment through fear and shame

The new cycle of workshops ‘HOWtoWOW’ organized by HURA in collaboration with Mastercard began yesterday in Zagreb’s Rougemarin Park, featuring Aljoša Bagola, one of the greatest regional creatives, winner of numerous marketing awards, and an expert on burnout, but also happiness. Bagola, who was declared the best creative director of the decade in Slovenia, is also known as the author of the bestseller ‘How to Burn Out and Take Your Life into Your Own Hands’ and, recently, the book ‘Happiness, Please’.

To the Zagreb audience – creatives, marketers, and leaders – he delivered a lecture ‘How to Burn Out’ in which he spoke about the importance of employee mental health and shared his knowledge on effectiveness without burnout, as well as productive thinking and creativity.

At what moment did you take your own mental health into your hands and decide to change your life?

– Life strips us to shoe us, I wrote in my new book ‘Happiness, Please’. When it stripped me, I was knocked off the pedestal of constant successes, achievements, and awards. From unresolved issues and some disappointments in my important relationships, I fled into workaholism. I was extremely successful, but internally broken because I didn’t know how to set healthy boundaries for myself and others. Thus, burnout knocked on my door, and life, through pain rather than happiness, told me that it cared about me.

Who or what was your greatest help after you recognized burnout?

– I couldn’t overcome all this without psychotherapy because burnout is a brutal experience. At first, I was ashamed that I needed therapeutic help, but the fears and pain were greater than the shame. Shortly after the breakdown, I started writing, which had a therapeutic effect. If burnout initially requires a radical retreat from the world, into oneself and to safety, away from stress factors, soon comes the need to speak about it.

After my experience, I found it strange that the area of mental health is so tabooed, which is how my books came to be. When we become more open and able to recognize and discard personal and systemic causes and do not engage only in symptom alleviation, it is good for everyone. I am very grateful to everyone for the success of my books – the first became the best-selling book in Slovenia in 2020, and the new one is currently the best-selling book in our country this year.

What prompted you to write the new title – ‘Happiness, Please’?

– Given that people have known me for years as a successful creative and winner of many awards, after the success of my debut, they quickly thought: ‘Aha, Aljoša is back! Another treat awaits us.’ But in reality, after a difficult recovery, I still felt unhealed, broken, disappointed, and exhausted, so writing the new book was a form of therapy and a mission to approach happiness. My discoveries were very interesting.

Today we consider it mandatory to be happy and condition happiness with ‘when’ and ‘if’: ‘I will be happy when I can achieve this and that goal’, ‘I will be happy if I succeed in this and that’… Thus, we become prisoners of the idea that happiness is proving what we must become, as well as the only reward for who we are. The problem is also that we no longer set goals in stages, but directly head towards them thinking that we will be happy only when we achieve them. But the recipe for happiness is not in rushing into it, but in balanced care for self-actualization and loved ones.

What are the biggest prejudices when it comes to mental health? Do creatives feel shame, fear, or think they are not capable enough, that they do not deserve that position, and that they will be fired if they admit they do not feel well and need to set a boundary, to say they have had enough?

– We, creatives, are curious and sensitive, but we also need to have a very strong ego to realize our ideas. However, that ego is not immune to shame and fear of not being good enough, not receiving enough awards, not being cool enough, and so on. Of course, this does not apply only to creative industries. The entire modern society is a victim of relationships that are devoid of respect, trust, and filled with punishment through fear and shame. We feel happy only when we do everything, satisfy everyone around us, achieve everything we imagined, and for which we think we will be accepted.

We replace happiness with ten seconds of inner peace when we complete everything that was on our to-do list. Thus, we live in constant readiness, constant responsibility, ultimate self-sacrifice, constantly rushing and breathing shallowly because we think we must give our all to survive in this merciless and cruel world. With such a configuration of happiness, it is always short-lived.

At the workshop, you spoke about how accepted psychological models influence our behavior. Can you briefly share with us which models you are referring to?

– In my years of recovery, I have tried many techniques and strategies – from Jungian psychology, active imagination, meditation, yoga, breathing, cognitive-behavioral therapy, PTSD treatments – which I highlight in lectures and workshops. But the most important thing is to ‘allow yourself’ and reconnect with your creativity and uniqueness.

How to dive into your inner world and how to deal with dark moments, which are inevitable on the path to healing?

– We fear change because it brings uncertainty and requires action. Also, something else lurks within us, which is that we do not trust ourselves. However, if we view that fear as a biological survival tool, we will realize that it is proof that nature cares about us. Thus, we can trust life much more. Trust is one of the key currencies of life that we develop by choosing and accepting decisions ourselves.

We live too much in the role of a victim and in the shelter of familiar pain. We present our obedience, diligence, and self-sacrifice as a virtue, and therefore do not recognize that we have actually taken on the role of a victim. It is childish to constantly be a victim – it is an expression of passive aggression and an unhealthy escape from facing reality. It is painful for us to let go of old habits because their sum in our eyes means our identity: diligent and obedient workers. Since the rules increasingly dictate others, we also become irreparable grumblers. If we are used to grumbling, constantly pointing fingers, or sacrificing ourselves for others, we shift the burden of our happiness onto others who are, conveniently, then blamed for everything.

Therefore, we must confront stubbornness, self-trust, and take responsibility for our happiness into our own hands every day anew. Happiness always starts with ourselves. When we are in a tornado, we are prisoners of its wild centrifuge. But in the very center of the tornado, in the so-called eye, there is complete peace. If we are willing to take that step, we can find ourselves in a zone of peace even in difficult trouble. This can be motivated by love for our loved ones or by the determination not to betray them and leave them in the lurch, as I did not allow myself to disappoint my daughter and wife, but in the end, we discover that we need to take care of ourselves.

How much do bosses care about the mental health of their employees? Do you think this relationship is changing, that more support is being provided and these problems are being recognized?

– Even before the corona crisis, we witnessed an epidemic of burnout, and today it is on steroids. When I wrote my first book, companies and directors were very reserved about caring for the culture of mental health, but after two years, much has changed for the better.

I often lecture in large companies, and many managers take mental health seriously. These are, of course, good signs of change towards careers that are more fulfilling and less exhausting. Of course, we are still far from systemic solutions – the system assumes that people take antidepressants and return to work as soon as possible. This symptom alleviation strategy does not work for many reasons. Therefore, in my opinion, we have significant changes ahead.

What should bosses pay attention to in order to achieve effectiveness without burnout?

– The most important are relationships. The internal culture of a company is not just a few platitudes on the walls, but a daily focus on developing a culture of dialogue and real expectations of progress. The dominance of outdated economic ideas, such as 10% organic quarterly growth and similar, does not help but pressures all structures in the company and negatively affects the entire ecosystem: overburdening healthcare, the environment… When it comes to individuals, each of us should pay attention to whether life feels ‘robbed’ of meaning, to anxiety, long periods of poor sleep, constant dissatisfaction, toxic relationships without boundaries – all of these are symptoms on the path to burnout.