9 ways to develop your resilience
Over the years many people have called me resilient. Whether it has been bouncing back from bereavement, redundancy and or a life obstacle. My philosophy is to do and keep going knowing only to well there are always people worse off than you.
We are all uniquely different. The approach to build our resilience to the things in life that like to challenge us will all work differently for each of us.
I have learnt many things through my own journey and the circumstance alters what I do. However my winning formula comes down to these:
9 ways to develop your resilience
- Find a purpose in life
Having lost a child, my children are core to what I do. I want to be the best parent I can to give them a great starting platform.
“In the face of crisis or tragedy, finding a sense of purpose can play an important role in your recovery. This might mean becoming involved in your community, cultivating your spirituality, or participating in activities that are meaningful to you.” Kendra Cherry
When you are achieving your purpose what are you doing?
2. Start each day as if its a new beginning
Each morning creates a feeling of a new beginning for me. A time to start again taking the learnings of yesterday and building incremental steps to achieve your goal.
What is your picture of a successful start of the day? What do you see, hear and feel?
3. Take exercise daily
I love the sense of freedom that you get from taking exercise. Fo me this is best in the outdoors when you can feel the wind going through your hair and or pushing through the elements (wind, rain…). It builds the inner grit that you need in a crisis.
What exercise can you achieve today and daily? When can you start?
4. Put a positive spin on what happens
Research has shown that when you put a positive spin on what you do you can recover from stress and a crisis more quickly. Reminding yourself of your strengths, the success you have had in the past and show saying to yourself “I can do this” is a great way to build resilience.
List 10 positive things that happened yesterday? Add to it daily.
5. Every challenge is a learning opportunity
Everything we do is different because things are always moving. Consciously or unconsciously it creates a pattern of learnings that we can choose to respond to.
For me learning is exciting as it provides little pieces or nuggets or tools that will allow me to respond better or more confidently another day.
What do you know today that you didnt yesterday and how can that help your decision making?
6. Establish a goal with reasonable milestones
Goals give a direction however you can feel overwhelmed at times. The skill is the ability to breakdown the task into reasonable and manageable chunks. As a leader you can involve subject matter experts and people in your team to support you stay on track.
When you have reasonable goals, what have you got? What are yours now?
7. Take Action
I love a bit of action and I like nothing better than rolling up my sleeves and chipping away tasks in the direction of success. Whilst sometimes there may not be a clear plan, by starting you are at least trying out options that will be heading in the right direction (or eliminate). The fact that you are moving will allow you to stay in control.
What action are you taking to move in the right direction?
8. Build problem solving strategies
We never know what might come our way and it has been shown in research that those who can work their way through problem solving have a greater resilience under pressure. Taking the opportunity to step back and see things from a different perspective.
When you problem solve what strategies do you use?
9. Listen to your body
Your mind and body responds to how you treat it. What you eat and give your body through nutrients and how you manage your mind will allow you to be the best you can be.
How, when and what do you fed your human machine to support a road to success?
The very fact you have read this blog will mean you will be more conscious of how best you can build your own mechanisms to survival.
It would be great to hear your strategies and winning formula to being resilient.
