First Lets Look At What is Resilience?

Let me illustrate: You are a rubber ball that can be pulled, stretched and formed into different shapes, but at the end of the day, you will eventually come back to your original self or shape. Resilience is similar to this as it is the ability to bounce back when we are in danger, adversity and/or stress comes up. Life is difficult at times and we all go through some ups and downs along the way. Resilience is what keeps us moving when things are not going our way. It is the emotional and psychological endurance that pulls us through challenging and stressful situations without being overwhelmed or giving up. 

This doesn’t mean we never experience negative emotions. Its just they don’t stick to us and overwhelm us for long periods of time. If we’re resilient, we are better able to deal with these emotions when they do come our way and get to a better place. We also become better prepared for whatever comes next as it makes us stronger. That’s a pretty important quality to have. It helps us deal with challenging times in life more easily and more gracefully. If we’re more resilient, then it’s easier to become what we want to be and do what we need or want to do. Resilience can be the roadmap to a successful life.

Why is resilience important in the workplace?

Resilience in the work place makes an employee get more energy to have a positive outlook on life, stay work motivated and naturally get more confident to do more. Also you will have the upper hand and get a better work ethic when you practise resilience. In fact, most employees who do resilience training will remain motivated to do their work, will welcome change easily, can build better relationship among themselves and even among managers. They will also always trust others easily and be reachable to help.

Again, the resilient employee a lot of the time is willing to work without the praise or recognition. Occasionally, they let others take the glory knowing they have better things to contribute;   they are hard wired to brush away the nagging voice of resentment. Some take bad news, criticism and advice with finesse, they do not take it as personal, and take it more constructively. Many resist the temptation to throw in the towel after a setback, they carry themselves well and care less about the finer details.

The 6 pillars of resilience

The 6 pillars represent characteristics for building productive resilience. They are, in effect, the heart and soul of most world class resilience behaviour change training sessions. Evidence has further shown that six distinct resilience domains are genuinely worth developing within  a persons personal development journey.

Vision

This is knowing what you want in your private and your working life. In other words what your personal vision is and why you want to reach it.

So if you know what you want, you will be more focused, make decisions faster and not get distracted and use your precious time on things that do not really contribute to where you are headed. So work interference such as procrastination may play a role as to how you go reaching your goal.

When you can take actions that feel in line with your target, it becomes easier to maintain the momentum, to keep grinding when you start to feel like you aren’t getting anywhere. When you know specifically what you want and everything you do aligns you in that direction, you can do some amazing things. Things that you thought once could possibly never happen, now seem suddenly possible. It’s a matter of applying that laser focus and making sure that whatever you’re doing is going to reach your target. So, if you want to start doing some amazing things in your personal or professional lives, just make sure your target is clear and your actions are aligned with the goal or your values.

Composure

If you’re able to stay cool under pressure, then you can remain even in the face of an intense work environment. True, our brains are biologically wired to trip into either fight or flight mode when faced with a sudden change or even a conflict;  but if you are able to stay calm, you are better able to see new opportunities and possible innovative ways of solving the dilemma. Add to that a dose of calm and even the little everyday irritations such as being stuck in traffic on the way to work or not being capable to catch the elevator to your office would help ease the stress of the day.

Simply reflect on your beliefs and expectations and you can arrange your feelings so that no matter what happens, you are ready for it.

Reasoning

This is where visualising and staying sane enter the picture;   you can’t reason better if you don’t know your goals and you can’t know your goals if you’re a frazzled disaster. Get creative! Find new ways to do a quick fix. After all, this isn’t reactiveness  it’s anticipation and getting out ahead of problems. It’s kind of humorous if you think about it like dental hygiene;   yes, you visit the dentist so you don’t have to get a root canal later. Being resourceful? Getting the right tools, techniques, information and people to help you weigh a solution to an issue? Jump on see the opportunity in change;  don’t treat it like a threat.

Tenacity

You hear that phrase, ‘persistence pays off.’ Persistence does just that. Remember Einstein? It was getting up every time and continuing in the pursuit of an answer to a problem.  Yes, we’re going to mess up. We’re sunk if we can’t let ourselves be a little gracious to our failings. One of the things I said in a motivational speech I gave was;   ‘One of my biggest regrets when I was at school was the joy I didn’t take in learning. That I didn’t just stop and be amazed by how I learned something new.’ We get fixated, usually at the failure. Ooh, wasn’t that terrible, how did I fail? No, we need to flip that thought of failure on its head a little bit.

I am not fighting for blind optimism that never helps and will fool you into giving up too easily if you hit the slightest problem or rebuff when you hope that you are ‘almost there’. So an important element in savvy is realistic optimism. You need to feel positive that you will hit your targets, but also to recognise that the pathway will be challenging.

Collaboration

We are a social species by programming and nature and we recognise facial expressions and feel empathy, but ‘I’ is important but maybe not that important, I guess it’s just a cliché but we are all in this together, whether we meet up as a community or we are a team of people for a company, we are here to make a difference, we are here to collaborate, which is about cooperation.

The world which we now all live in is insane. It’s so difficult for some that live alone, so try to make a network of support for yourself, whether it be your work co-workers, your managers or even valuing the support of your family and friends. Just the mere knowledge that we are not in this alone, that we are cared for, makes us feel as though we are supported and it keeps us sane!

Health

Health is the most primary key to build and maintain a strong life. A person who takes care of himself, who exercises regularly, diets and take his rest with the right hours and time, can build the strong foundations of his personal success or success of his career.

Making sure that you are healthy and you is not only about looking good, it has a important outcome on your mental health. Making sure you sleep enough to start your working day. If you are sleepy during work, you won’t be productive. Being healthy contributes for the mental health during the work and protects your diseases in the future.

The good news is, we can improve each of these areas and the effort is worth it for quality of life. It helps us accomplish our life goals for ourselves and our families as well.