Becoming More Resilient

SUMMARY

Do you find the constant change exhausting?

Well, stick with me in this episode because I will help you learn to be more flexible and adaptable and bounce back in the face of adversity.

You can navigate change and bounce back from adversity and significant stressful events by becoming more resilient.

The problem with most people is that they carry a negative self-image, and they're averse to change because they believe when they change, things will be uncomfortable, and therefore they won't be able to do it. They will have another opportunity for something to fail that can lead to unhealthy stress responses, and in the end, can lead to burnout.

When you develop resilience, when you build up your Personal Power, when you become more flexible, more adaptable, you can be more balanced, have more energy and bounce back from whatever is going on in your life.

To do this, it's all about developing resilience strategies.

The first strategy that I love to use is one that I call a Perspective Check.

The second strategy is to learn to Manage Your Self-Talk.

The third strategy in building up your resilience is Rest and Renewal.

The fourth strategy is Asking for Help.

So, resilience is not about hardening up; it's about learning practical skills to meet challenges as they arise and then navigating through those challenges coming out the other side, even stronger and ready for the challenges ahead.

Well, that's it for me for another week. Join me again next week as we continue on this journey of Self-Management by learning the skills of Personal Agility. I'll see you then.

TRANSCRIPT

Do you find the constant change exhausting?

Well, stick with me in this episode because I will help you learn to be more flexible and adaptable and bounce back in the face of adversity.

Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Speaker and Trainer of the year and Master Coach Trainer. Today I want to continue our conversation around Self-Management by looking at the competency of resilience.

You can navigate change and bounce back from adversity and significant stressful events by becoming more resilient.

The problem with most people is that they carry a negative self-image, and they're averse to change because they believe when they change, things will be uncomfortable, and therefore they won't be able to do it. They will have another opportunity for something to fail that can lead to unhealthy stress responses, and in the end, can lead to burnout.

When you develop resilience, when you build up your Personal Power, when you become more flexible, more adaptable, you can be more balanced, have more energy and bounce back from whatever is going on in your life.

To do this, it's all about developing resilience strategies.

Just like what I talked to you about last week with stress, you already have strategies that you run. So, if your strategies to handle change and adversity are not currently serving you, you need to identify those and then shift to something that will give you more power.

To do that, it starts with having clarity around your purpose.

"What is it that you are doing and why?"

And being able to keep your eye on the prize - being able to have that forward-focused vision on where you are going - and not be stuck in the circumstances.

It's also about having emotional control, and that's why you've been continuing to add layers to this as you develop your Emotional Intelligence.

It's about coming from a place of self-approval instead of being trapped by performing to get the approval of others.

It's about developing the skills of Personal Agility and having a great support network behind you.

I want to take you through some key strategies that will help you be more resilient.

Resilience is bouncing back in the face of setbacks.

It's not about shutting them out of your mind and realising or thinking that there will not be any setbacks.

It's not about that toxic, positive thinking that everything's going to be okay. Because stuff happens in life and with the speed of change in the world that we live in today, it happens more often.

One of the things I love to do is help people around that word "change" and see what effect it is having on them. Some people just need to hear the word "change" to send them into a bit of a spin.

So, even shifting the language and the dialogue around what you believe "change" is, and therefore what it means, will help you to be able to handle situations in a more measured way.

The first strategy that I love to use is one that I call a Perspective Check.

It is where you can look at a situation in your logical brain and bring things back to their true perspective.

So, you look at something that's happened or something about to happen, a change in your life. What you do a lot of times is going to the end of that in terms of the worst-case scenario.

That's where your mind ruminates, and your thinking patterns based on your conditioning and what you feel about yourself and your ability to handle these sorts of situations will determine your state. Then, you make decisions out of that "state" that is not going to serve you. And they either prompt you to do things that will keep you from the change, so you are averse to it. Or you go into the change without having key understandings of what next steps to take.

By putting things back into their right perspective, you have a clear path ahead of you and a brain that's ready to make good decisions.

So, the first thing you do is ask yourself that first question:

"What is the worst thing that can happen?" And getting clear on that worst thing.

I love how Richard Branson responded when asked, "what was the biggest risk you have ever taken in your life?"

He says, "I've never taken a risk."

Now, when you look at a lot of the things he's done, you might wonder if he really understood the question.

But what he said was (to explain that): "if the worst-case scenario was that I was to die and I'm okay with death, then I haven't taken a risk at all."

So, by having a look at the worst-case scenario, it does two things.

1.) It allows us to get clear on our ability to handle that worst-case scenario.

2.) It allows us to then ask this second question: "what is the best thing that could happen?"

By focusing on the best thing, you've now got a gap between the worst thing and the best thing.

So, you've identified with some clarity what's going on rather than just your brain going mad with all these thoughts and things that are going on in your internal dialogue based on your conditioning and beliefs.

Now what you can do, is go from being out there in your thinking to what I love, and that is FOCUS.

Then you can ask yourself the question (in terms of both the worst case and best-case scenario):

"What is one thing that I could do right now that would eliminate or lessen the chance of that worst-case happening?"

And "What is one thing that I could do right now to move towards that best-case scenario happening?"

By doing this, what you've now done is narrow your focus.

You've also empowered yourself with some key next steps, no matter what was going to happen.

Now that you're in that state and your brain allows you to make decisions, you ask this question: "What's most likely to happen?"

Now that you've corralled that in a dialogue and you've got a voice that's working with us, that's empowering rather than holding us back, you can come up with (and even consider) that there would be a middle of the road in what might happen.

Then, you can choose some strategies and steps to be able to handle that situation moving forward.

So, the first key strategy is to do a Perspective Check.

The second strategy is to learn to Manage Your Self-Talk - that small inner voice (that's not so quiet most of the time) that you have developed called your "mini-me".

You worked on that back in Personal Power. (If you haven't yet learned how to re-program your mini-me, go back, and I can certainly take you through that.)

But that voice that you designed to keep you safe from doing things outside your comfort zone could also be that voice that comes up to remind you of all your failures, all your fears, and to put you back in your place when you decide to step up and step out and do things that are a little bit different.

By learning the skills of managing that self-talk (that inner dialogue); being able to correct it, to be able to bring it into perspective, to be able to use empowering language rather than disempowering language, is vital in our ability to be able to handle change and therefore, that new self-talk is built up inside of us, and it makes us more resilient.

So, what is it that you tell yourself all the time that's not helping you - that's holding you back?

What are the thoughts that come up; that you entertain rather than push back, and replace with more empowering thoughts?

The third strategy in building up your resilience is Rest and Renewal.

There's nothing better than empowering your body and your mind to be able to handle setbacks. As I said, it's not about setbacks never happening - they are there, it's inevitable. However, the more your body and your mind is ready to be able to handle those, the lesser the negative effect.

So, looking at your current habits, looking at your sleep hygiene, looking at you being able to relax and take rests.

Where are you right now?

What's one thing that you could do today to feel more rested, to build up your reserves so that you have the energy to be able to handle things when they pop up?

The fourth strategy is Asking for Help.

I talked to you about this last week when you were looking at Stress Management. Asking for help is a strength, not a weakness. It's a powerful strategy to build up resilience. Just like every other competency in Social and Emotional Intelligence, Resilience is built up day by day. It's not something that you have, or you don't have.

So, your goal is to become a little more resilient each and every day by changing simple things in your life.

By asking for help, you can have people in your life who will let you know when you are out of whack or out of balance when you are burning the candle at both ends. By asking people to help you in what you are doing, you can keep that energy reserve.

To ask for help, you need to first recognise that you are worthy of getting help. And you need to overcome that Performance Trap - that fear of what people might think if you were to ask for help.

Once again, resilience is all about key strategies employed in conjunction with all the competencies you've dealt with so far.

So that's why I take you on a journey where you go through Self-Awareness and build up that Emotional Self-Awareness. You become accurate in assessing where you are in the competencies, and you develop a strong level of Personal Power and escape that approval addiction.

That means when you get into self-management, you can and will employ the strategies that I've been taking you through.

So, resilience is not about hardening up; it's about learning practical skills to meet challenges as they arise and then navigating through those challenges coming out the other side, even stronger and ready for the challenges ahead.

Well, that's it for me for another week. Join me again next week as we continue on this journey of Self-Management by learning the skills of Personal Agility. I'll see you then.