Developing Resilience: a 9 Step Strategy for Success
Life and building resilience are a journey, with many forks in the road
Understanding Resilience
Resilience isn’t something people either have or don’t have; it’s a mix of skills, behaviours, thoughts, and actions that can be learnt and developed. It doesn’t mean going through life without experiencing stress or emotional pain but it is having the strength and wherewithal to tackle problems head-on, recover, and move on.
Building Resilience: A 9 Step Strategy
1. Celebrate Success: Not matter how small they may be, always celebrate your wins. By getting into a habit of recognising our small successes as well as larger successes we put ourselves into a more positive mindset. It also gives us a chance to access some happy chemicals – dopamine. By creating a positive outlook and giving ourselves regular doses of dopamine we are able to face challenges from a stronger more confident ‘default position’.
Some things that can help you remember to celebrate or get you celebrating things which might seem less important are:
Increasing your vocabulary around success – when was the last time you said you were proud, happy, excited, psyched, impressed, delighted, over the moon, pleased.
A physical celebration - if your exercising with friends, high five them or fist bump them when they or you have succeeded
Say something positive every time you finish something, even if it wasn’t 100% a success. For example, I fell off mountain biking the other day and when we went back up to do the track again I definitely didn’t ride it my best that day but I had fun and my sore ankle and bruised ego didn’t stop me so when I finished the run I said “that’s a great track, I really like it, I’m pretty chuffed with my progress today.”
2. Goal Setting: This is a HUGE topic and one I’ll cover properly in another blog as I can’t do it justice in a few sentences. Setting realistic and achievable goals gives us a sense of purpose, motivation, and direction. Which can guide us through hardships, promoting resilience. Try to set yourself at least one small goal everyday to help build a sense of achievement and feed the resilience you’re building. This might be to walk round the block at lunchtime, send 20 sales emails or contact an old friend. Small achievable and measurable goals which by the end of the day you can give yourself a pat on the back for.
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t set bigger ones too! Alongside the smaller goals to build daily resilience and motivation your bigger goals will help nurture longer term resilience and understanding of yourself. The trick is to break up those longer term goals into smaller, more manageable chunks. Take the lunchtime walk – that might be a daily goal of someone who is returning from a serious injury, their big goals might be to lose 5kg, squat 90kg and run a sub 45min 10k. If they only looked at these big goals they could quickly become disheartened, loose motivation and actually erode their resilience. By chunking up their goal into small SMART goals like walking the block everyday that week or adding a portion of vegetables to every meal, they can continue to build on a sense of purpose, fulfilment and success. Done right, setting goals is one of the easiest ways to build resilience.
What small goal will you set today?
3. Mindfulness and Self-awareness: The first step towards resilience is being aware of our thoughts, emotions, and responses to stressful situations. Mindfulness practices, such as meditation, help us to be more present in the moment, acknowledging and noticing more things around us. It also fosters greater self-awareness and promotes a calm, focused state of mind. With this greater sense of awareness and self we are able to recognise emotions and patterns more quickly, allowing us to shift, move or adapt as necessary. Mindfulness can also bring us back to a place of calm when we’ve ben challenged.
Next time you’ve got a minute spare or you’re walking to grab a coffee, see how many colours you can notice in a given area. Really focus in and try to describe each colour separately. You can do this with sound, shapes, or even textures as you run your hand across a surface.
4. Accepting Change: As Heraclitus said, “change is the only constant in life”. Embracing change can help us adapt to new situations, reduce stress and grow our resilience. Developing a growth mindset and viewing changes as opportunities rather than threats, can empower us to face challenges head-on.
What do you need to accept change?
5. Connection is King: Strong, supportive relationships are the backbone of resilience. Surrounding ourselves with supportive people provides us with emotional assistance, practical help, and a sense of belonging, bolstering our resilience when faced with challenges. Often just knowing that you have support is enough of a boost to get you through a tough time, without even needing to call on it. It’s a two way street – offering support and being a good friend also boosts our resilience. Quality is key here though, these friendships and partnerships need to be strong, open and honest. To truly build resilience through a supportive network you need to be able to talk to that person about your stresses, your fears and your angers.
6. Physical Health: It should be no surprise that the body and mind are inextricably linked. For a healthy mind we need a healthy body, and vice versa. It doesn’t matter how you get exercise and move but it is vitally important for mental resilience. As is the complete opposite – sleep!
What movement can you commit to every week?
How many times a week do you move / exercise?
What helps you get a better night’s sleep?
7. Self-Care and Compassion: This might seem obvious but in times of struggle or stress we often forget the simplest of all the ways to build resilience - self-care. This includes physical and mental health and emotional wellbeing. Maintaining a strong personal care routine and acknowledging the things which make us calm, happy and light are key to being resilient. Make sure physical activity, a healthy diet and practicing stress management through yoga, meditation, journalling, reading or time in nature are part of your weekly plan.
Some questions that can help you identify what you need are:
· What makes me feel calm?
· How do I recharge after a stressful day?
· What do I crave in times of stress?
· What exercise could I do / do I want to do every week?
· What can I do each day to give myself a little ME boost?
8. Problem-Solving Skills: Highly resilient people often view problems as challenges. Rather than thinking this is a disaster, X has happened, they think how can I change this now that X has happened or what can I learn from this situation. By developing effective problem-solving skills, we equip ourselves with the tools to navigate obstacles, enhancing our resilience.
Think about your brain like a business. If your business was faced with a problem, would it come crashing down around you? No, the owner/board/team will asses the situation, look at it’s options and make a plan. A question I like to ask if given a problem by a colleague or client is “That’s the problem but what do you want”, you can also ask yourself a similar question, “now that this is the reality, where can I go from here” or “how does this affect what I was trying to achieve, what can I do to keep moving forward”.
9. Tackle Problems Head On: We’ve all been in that state where it feels safer to ignore a problem, or that the problem will go away if we leave it alone long enough. But how often does the problem really go away? Not often! If we face up to our situation as quickly as possible and start to identify how we can overcome it or work with the issue, we can take action and begin to move on. The more we do this, the fewer times we actually see things as problems.
Harnessing Resilience for Success
Understanding and cultivating resilience is something we’ll do our whole lives. It’s not about eliminating stress or adversity, it’s all about equipping ourselves with the tools and strategies to manage and learn from challenging experiences. By working on developing our resilience, we give ourselves the best chance of success, and allow those potholes to become opportunities or just small moments in our ever changing and exciting journey through life.