5 Strategies To Develop Your Resilience!

WHAT IS RESILIENCE?

Resilience is the ability to bounce back from problems and setbacks or when things don't go as planned. It's a quality that we all possess to some degree, but some of us can draw on it more easily than others can or can take bigger knocks or more knocks than others can. Resilience is important because it keeps us getting back up on our feet and getting back on track after we hit a challenge until we finally reach our goals, it allows us to deal with difficult situations, and it helps us to grow by encouraging us to look at the positives and to manage stress.

However, it's not about trying to carry on regardless of how we feel, and it's not about being superhuman! Instead, it's about understanding why we feel the way we do, and developing strategies to help us deal with situations more effectively.

It’s very hard to beat someone who keeps getting back up. What makes them different from another person who cannot is just the strategies they use. The situation is not different but the response is different and thats what resilience is all about.

How resilient are you right now?

I thought a good place to start would be to think about what strategies do you already have now that help you bounce back? Can’t think of any? Then perhaps rate yourself in these areas? 

• When given a new task, I'm confident that I'll succeed.
• When a task doesn't go to plan, it affects my self belief.
• I have few people at work who I can speak to about issues in the office.
• I have an incredible support network. 
• If a challenge pops up, I am quick to focus on the solutions.
• When I encounter a difficulty, I lose sight of my goal quickly.
• Asking for assistance reveals weakness.
• When there is fundamental change, I struggle to come around to new ways of thinking.

Rating yourself will reveal the areas that you need to focus on and how resilient you truly are. 

Being resilient doesn't mean that a person won’t experience difficulty or distress. People who have suffered major adversity or trauma in their lives commonly experience emotional pain and stress. In fact, the road to resilience is likely to involve considerable emotional distress.

While certain factors might make some individuals more resilient than others, resilience isn’t necessarily a personality trait that only some people possess. On the contrary, resilience involves behaviours, thoughts and actions that anyone can learn and develop. The ability to learn resilience is one reason research has shown that resilience is ordinary, NOT extraordinary. Like building a muscle, increasing your resilience takes time and intentionality.

Here are 5 Strategies To Develop Your Resilience:

1) DEVELOP A SOCIAL SUPPORT STRUCTURE:

Do you have a network of people that you can reach out to in times of need where you feel safe and supported to discuss the challenges you am face?

This strategy isn't always emphasised as a factor in resilience- usually the focus is on improving personal qualities. But it’s so important to connect with someone else and process it with them. The support you have from family, friends, community is a key factor because they provide not only emotional support or even physical support like a helping hand but also support with the way we think about things. The positive relationships you have with those around you and a supportive environment also play an important role. These relationships offer encouragement and reassurance and also provide role models. Well positive relationships have a way of helping us dampen down stress reactions.

So consider who are the people in your inner support circle? You need to know that you have support in this world and remember that especially when you hit those very difficult times. 

2) EMBRACE CHANGE.  Sh*t Happens.

What are your first words when something goes wrong? Is it “I knew this would go wrong” or “I knew this would happen” … Is that how you respond? Or are you immediately able to flip that situation around in your mind and find the positive. We have shared this with you before but we have this thing we do when something bad happens where our first words are “What a Gift!”. I failed this test- what a gift!, I have to deal with this client complaint- what a gift! 

Your inner dialogue- how you view things when shit happens  is the first and most important aspect of resilience. There are four steps for change management that needs to happen in your head when something bad happens.

Step 1: Accept it. 

Step 2: Find the opportunity.

Step 3: Embrace the experience.

Step 4: Let it motivate you to take action or make a positive change.

Check out a video of this strategy from the VSA live Cast.

3) HAVE A PURPOSE:

Why is having a sense of purpose so important? A sense of purpose (or meaning) is the motivation that drives you toward a satisfying future. t also helps you to get the most from the things you do and achieve, large and small, right now.

It is a sense of purpose that helps teams accomplish big things together, which may be why its associated with better physical and mental health.  In a way purpose helps both individuals and the teams survive.

You may think that your purpose arises from your special gifts and passions and it is what sets you apart from other people, that is true but it is not the entire picture. Purpose also grows from our connection with each other as you’ll almost certainly find others traveling along with you, hoping to reach the same destination as a community. A prime example is in the workplace, you and your team may have a common sense of purpose for choosing to work in this profession.

Now how does purpose impact your level of resilience? Purpose not only helps you to find and do things that add meaning to your life, it also helps when things go wrong. When life presents unforeseen events like sickness or accidents or sometimes, despite trying hard, you mightn’t achieve what you strived for. A healthy sense of purpose helps you to put those events in perspective, then to refocus on the things that are meaningful to you, then to pick yourself up and continue to move ahead and enjoy life.

Your sense of purpose can change as you grow older, as you learn new things about the world and about yourself, and as you meet new people and experience new things. What is important is being able to identify the things that matter to you.

4) BE YOUR OWN COACH AND CHEERLEADER:

This puts the power back in your court. The power of coaching is that it is focused on continuously moving forward, and becoming unstuck.

Being able to move forward despite the challenges we face is an important part of developing resiliency. Sometimes we can get stuck, we cant see the way forward and ruminating on things only makes things worse, or we ruminate on things outside of our control.

But when we are in the depths of a struggle is it often hard to see the way forward. That is where coaching comes into play. Developing the ability to self-coaching enables you to move forward and embrace your next challenge, it will help you achieve your goals, bouncing back from change or adversity, and therefore will help you feel like you are living in alignment with your purpose.

One thing to remember, you have to frame your response in a positive manner. 

A list of questions you can ask yourself are:

You also have to be your own cheerleader. This first means we have to stand up for ourselves and question any limiting beliefs we have about ourselves. A limiting belief is a false belief that you acquire as a result of making an incorrect conclusion about something in life.

It happens to all of us, but these toxic thought traps, lead to self-sabotage and hinder your forward progress.

With a little practice and discipline, you can learn to identify as soon as these toxic thoughts spring up, and stop them right in their tracks. We have to pay close attention to your internal dialogue, and what thoughts you think. We think 50,000-80,000 thoughts a day, not all of them are helpful, if anything a lot of them are self-critical.  If there are any that are not self-serving then tackle it. Give yourself a voice and ask “is this true? or “where is the proof”.

Cheering for ourselves with passion, and with a true sense of love and appreciation is not arrogant, it's actually required if we're going to live a life of fulfilment, gratitude, and meaning, which will help us bounce back from hardship. Be kind to yourself. 

If we start to think of ourselves as our most important ally, friend and, ultimately, cheerleader, we can alter our own internal relationship and begin to count on ourselves in new, inspiring and important ways, which helps us build confidence and bring the power back into your court to bounce back up and keep moving forward.

5) SHOW SELF COMPASSION AND HAVE A SELF CARE PLAN:

Have you ever heard that saying- talk to yourself as if you were your best friend? That means offering compassion to yourself like you would a friend: confronting your own internal battle with an attitude of warmth and kindness

I know it sounds obvious but those lifestyle factors like proper nutrition, enough sleep, drinking plenty of water and regular exercise all strengthen your body to adapt to stress and reduce the toll of emotions like anxiety or depression. It’s an absolute fact that if you are well rested and feeling good you will be better able to face any unexpected challenges that come your way.

Meditation - Show us any high performer in the world and there’s a very good chance they use meditation as a tool.

Have strategies for unwinding after a tough day. These habits send a signal to your brain that it can slow down, and get rested and ready for sleep. What is it for you? Have a clear plan in your mind - a walk, cup of tea, reading or dinner? Try to not make it reaching for your phone and scrolling through insta or switching on Netflix as these things have an addictive aspect to them- which means every day becomes a reason to just sit down and veg out and that is not a strategy for resilience.

The other aspect of resilience is this:- make sure you maintain your discipline for previously commitments to self. What does that mean? Have you ever had a setback or something failed, something went wrong and you just threw out everything. This one bad thing happened so now I'm not going to go to the gym like I planned, or I’m going to leave my healthy dinner in the fridge and I’m going to hit the takeaway instead. Anyone ever done that? You had one setback and everyone goes out the window. If some client yells at you or you have a case that you feel like you could have managed better- that is the day to make sure you absolutely stick to your good habits. Don’t cancel all the good that you were going to do as it will only make you feel worse long term. 

We hope you found this valuable.