If the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that change isn’t slowing down. Markets shift overnight. New technologies drop faster than we can master them. The pace of work keeps climbing, and so do the pressures that come with it.
For Australian workers, that pressure is taking a toll. In a recent report, 81% said they struggled with stress and burnout, compared to 73% globally. Serious mental stress claims are rising too, with Safe Work Australia highlighting the biggest triggers:
- bullying and harassment (27.5%)
- work pressure (25.2%)
- occupational violence (16.4%).
We know resilience in the workplace is critical, but what if we could combine it with something that fuels action and hope? That’s where urgent optimism comes in.
Why Resilience in the Workplace Matters More Than Ever
Resilience is often described as the ability to ‘bounce back’ from setbacks. But as Meaghan Archunde, Senior Facilitator at Phuel, points out, it’s about more than recovery – it’s about forward momentum.
‘Resilience gives people the ability to adapt and keep going when things get tough,’ Meaghan says. ‘But in a world where change is constant, we also need people to believe they can create a better future and to act on that belief.’
That belief isn’t always easy to hold onto. Stress levels across Australia and New Zealand are among the highest in the world, with 47% of workers reporting they felt stressed ‘a lot of the day’. Without tools to manage that stress, productivity, morale and well-being all suffer.
Urgent Optimism and How It Fuels Team Building
Meaghan first came across urgent optimism during COVID, when she stumbled on a TED Talk by game designer and researcher Jane McGonigal. The idea clicked immediately.
‘Urgent optimism is about tackling future obstacles with a sense of urgency, taking action and being proactive but also holding realistic hope,’ she explains. ‘It’s a mindset that helps you manage change and uncertainty in a way that’s energising instead of paralysing.’
McGonigal coined the term more than a decade ago, inspired partly by her own recovery from a severe concussion. She noticed gamers share a unique mindset: they expect challenges, believe they can overcome them and keep pushing until they succeed. She began exploring how that same approach could be applied to real-world challenges, and urgent optimism was born.
Importantly, it’s not about blind positivity. ‘It’s not rose-coloured glasses,’ Meaghan says. ‘It’s realistic hope that positive change can be enacted, paired with action. You acknowledge the risks, but you still move forward.’
The Link Between Resilience and Urgent Optimism in Teams
Resilience and urgent optimism are natural partners. Resilience equips people to handle setbacks. Urgent optimism keeps them looking for ways to shape a better outcome.
Left unchecked, workplace stress erodes both. ‘When people feel they have no control, they disengage,’ Meaghan says. ‘Urgent optimism gives them agency. It flips the mindset from “this is happening to me” to “I can do something about this”.’
And it’s not just theory. At Phuel, urgent optimism helped the team survive one of their toughest moments.
‘When COVID hit, we lost 100% of our revenue in two weeks,’ Meaghan recalls. ‘As a facilitation business, we’re in the room, that’s how we deliver, and suddenly, that wasn’t possible. We could have panicked. Instead, we pulled everyone together. What can we do? How can we adapt? We had urgency, but we also had hope. That combination helped us pivot to virtual delivery, retrain ourselves and keep helping our clients.’
3 Mindset Levers to Spark Urgent Optimism
McGonigal identifies three key ‘levers’ anyone can develop to build urgent optimism.
Lever 1 – Mental Flexibility: Staying Engaged and Purpose-Driven
‘You’ve got to look for strategies to not get stuck in one way of thinking,’ Meaghan says. ‘Always ask why? Never get too tied to just one view of the world.’
That mental flexibility keeps you open to new solutions and stops challenges from feeling like dead ends. In industries like healthcare and education, where psychosocial risks are high, this openness paired with a strong sense of purpose is often what keeps teams resilient under pressure.
Lever 2 – Realistic Hope: Focusing on What You Can Influence
According to Safe Work Australia, work pressure is a leading driver of mental stress claims in Australia. The control lever is about directing your attention to what’s within your influence and letting go of what’s not.
‘It’s not about ignoring reality,’ Meaghan says. ‘It’s about saying, “What can I shift right now that will make things better?” That’s where momentum starts.’
Lever 3 – Future Power: Seeing Change as an Opportunity to Grow
In NSW, psychological injury claims have risen nearly 30% in four years. That’s a clear sign that change can be destabilising. But with a future power mindset, it can also be an opportunity.
Meaghan encourages people to ask themselves what their superpower is. ‘The idea is that we all have skills and capabilities we can draw on to tackle adversity and this is where people begin to find a sense of agency about the future.’ Reframing change as an opportunity to learn or stretch ourselves further reduces fear. Instead of asking ‘Why is this happening to me?’, we can ask ‘What could I gain from this?’
Practical Strategies to Strengthen Resilience in the Workplace
The three mindset levers of urgent optimism are powerful, but they don’t just ‘click in’ automatically. They need to be practicsd and reinforced in daily life. As Meaghan explains, ‘These are not things that necessarily come naturally to us. These are things that we have to consistently remind ourselves, reinforce and encourage.’
So what does that look like in practice?
1. Create Psychological Safety
Leaders and teams need to prioritise environments where people feel supported and safe to think differently. ‘They need to practise and encourage psychological and psychosocial safe environments. They need to ensure that there’s trust and to encourage dialogue between their teams,’ Meaghan says. This includes having challenging conversations, validating small wins and giving regular feedback so people stay engaged even when things are tough.
2. Flip the Facts
One of Meaghan’s favourite workshop techniques is an exercise adapted from Jane McGonigal. It challenges teams to rethink what they ‘know’ by flipping assumptions about the present into possibilities for the future. ‘Think about what you know of a certain industry, product or government. What are the facts that we know today? Then flip them for the future. It’s not easy to do this type of thinking, but it’s an incredible way to warm people up to imaginative and innovative problem-solving,’ she explains.
For example, she starts workshops with something simple, like shoes: ‘We know they come in pairs, one for each foot. Flip the fact. What if shoes were sold individually, or weren’t worn on feet at all? Suddenly, people start to see how even the most basic assumptions can be challenged.’
3. Encourage Curiosity and Dialogue
Urgent optimism isn’t about ignoring reality but staying curious. Meaghan notes, ‘You’ve got to be really curious about the world and look for signals of change. It’s not about keeping your eyes covered and just being tunnel-focused, but you also don’t want to go into panic mode either. You’ve got to have realistic concerns and realistic hope.’ That balance helps individuals and teams move forward with purpose instead of getting stuck in fear.
4. Reinforce Purpose and Momentum
Efficiency and productivity are often on top leaders’ wish lists, but as Meaghan points out, those are outcomes, not inputs. ‘Efficiency and productivity are a result of people who have momentum and purpose to what they do. You can’t force people to be more efficient or productive if they don’t have that. So it’s a culture piece, it’s a mindset piece.’
Turning Resilience into a Competitive Advantage
High-engagement teams deliver better well-being, productivity and profitability. Resilience and urgent optimism are the cultural engines that drive those results. Resilience helps you withstand challenges. Urgent optimism helps you shape the future. Together, they give individuals and teams the agency, creativity and belief to act, even when the path ahead is uncertain.
As Meaghan puts it: ‘It’s not about ignoring reality. It’s about looking at the reality and asking: What can I do right now? What’s my next move? And how can I hold onto the belief that something positive can come from this?’
At Phuel, we believe these are skills anyone can learn. And when leaders model them, they ripple through entire organisations, building workplaces where people don’t just survive change – they thrive through it.
