7 ways to Strengthen Resilience
Yes, life is uncertain. There is very little that occurs to us on a day-to-day basis that we can control. Yet, we do our best to to reduce our feeling of vulnerability and restore some feeling of certainty. The truth is we can’t control much at all in our external environment. Life can be messy, chaotic and even unfair. We may be hit with health issues, redundancy, divorce, death of loved ones, being passed over for promotion, losing our financial security or conflict in our work environment. It’s easy to fall victim to what occurs. The only thing we control is oiur response to what comes at us. This is where resilience comes in. Resilience is the ability to bounce back after life’s inevitable setbacks. It’s the ability to put things into perspective without diminishing them. How do we develop and increase our emotional resilience? Here are a few of the principles that have worked for me and my clients, resulting in the ability to handle some of the tough challenges life throws at us: Find your Purpose. What is your reason for being? What gives your life meaning and fulfillment? What is the contribution you believe you can make in your life? It may come directly from the products or services you provide either direct to clients or to your employer. Perhaps there was something missing in your childhood that you are driven to rectify. Or maybe there is a clear notion of the legacy you want to leave and how you want to be remembered. Your Purpose will give you an emotional connection to something much larger than you.When life throws its inevitable curve balls at you, Purpose provides a bigger context for the threat. Barriers become challenges which can be overcome. Purpose provides the energy to move beyond the immediate setbacks allowing you to make your unique contribution. Develop a Positive Mindset. Not long ago, the widely-held view was that people were born optimists … or not. However, according to Shawn Achor set out in his presentation “The Happy Secret to Better Work”, optimism can be learned. It is a life-critical skill. 90% of our happiness is predicted not by our external world, but by the way your brain processes it. Only 25% of job success is predicted by IQ. 75% is predicted by our optimism levels, our social support and our ability to see stress as a challenge. Positive thinking is strongly linked with increased performance.Now, it is accepted that we can develop a positive mindset. We can increase our optimism by flipping situations to find the silver lining. When we practice gratitude each day, we basically rewire our brain. Just 3 different things that you appreciate each day for 28 days! Finally, making useful or productive mistakes contributes to a positive mindset. This technique is about letting go of blame and shame around making mistakes. Instead, we look at the mistake and ask “What can I learn from this so that I have a different outcome next time?” We take the lesson and let the mistake go. Practiced regularly, these three techniques will shift your mindset over time to one that is automatically more positive. Let go of Perfection. Many of us have been strongly influenced by perfectionist parents or caregivers. The ideal is what we aim for and nothing less will do. The problem is we can’t define the ideal. All we know is that we haven’t achieved it. When we expect our performance or our lives to be perfect, we are bound to be disappointed. The usual outcome is dissatisfaction and self-doubt which reinforce the feeling of not being good enough. It is hard to be resilient if we don’t believe in ourselves. Replace your inner critic with a Master Mind group. We all have an inner voice that provides commentary on the world around us. For many of us that voice is critical and winds up undermining us. We get ticked off for not doing the ‘right’ thing. We compare ourselves to others and either become arrogant or jealous as a result. We may give, give, give and then become resentful of being exploited, playing out the martyr.Believe it or not, this inner voice has our wellbeing in mind. It might be attempting to keep us safe from hurt, from being used, from failure and rejection. However, what it really does is undermine our possibilities by constantly sniping at us, wearing us down.How much more useful would it be to have an internal Master Mind group of all the people you respect and appreciate – alive or dead – whose voices could give you support and constructive advice. Their perspectives will help you open up possibilities. Make a list of all the people whose sage advice you would love to have access to. What would they say to you about whatever situation you’re currently experiencing. Make a habit of asking them each day (again that habit thing) and over time, you will internalise their voices. If you’ve had a great mentor or coach, you’ll know what I mean. After a while, you start hearing his or her voice in your head providing another perspective on the situation you’re currently experiencing. Try it.In addition to your internal Master Mind group, develop an external support group to provide a sounding board and objective advice when you need it. If they can also cheer you on where that’s valuable, even better. Separate your feelings from reality. We each have our personal unique view of the world. Our brain filters the 11 billion pieces of information we’re exposed to in each minute (no I have no idea how the neuroscientists arrived at that figure) down to 150 that we take in then down to 5-9 that we actively pay attention to. We eliminate most of what we see, hear and experience. How do we do that? What is the criteria we use? The answer is that our amazing mind has developed a filtering system based on
7 ways to move beyond ‘Nice Girl’ to Thought Leader
I was raised to be a nice girl, to be seen and not heard, to do what I was told to do and not what the adults in my life did. I was taught that if I couldn’t say something nice, I shouldn’t say anything at all. It was important that I didn’t offend anyone. As a result of all that conditioning, my tendency has been to avoid conflict or confrontation of any kind. Imagine my dilemma when I found out many years ago that to be of any real value as a thought leader (speaker, trainer, author …) I needed to challenge their thinking; to poke and stir up thoughts; to offer choice. Being agreeable maintains the status quo. It validates people where they are and takes away their growth opportunity. Almost as important, without being disruptive in my unique way, I can’t stand out from the crowd and it’s less likely I’ll be commercially successful. What a journey it’s been to shift from the nice agreeable girl to embrace my spikey. Yes, it was there buried beneath the patina of socially appropriate behaviour. What did it take for me to make that shift? Here are 7 steps in that journey that can help you do the same: 1. Believe we add value So many of us either don’t see our talents and capabilities or fail to recognise their value. Without claiming this critical part of ourselves, we can’t make our contribution. Without recognising our value, we feel we have nothing to offer that can add to another person’s perspective. I’ve used the word believe purposefully. When I first started out in my own business, I had beautiful marketing materials that I never used. I realised they were developed from other people’s feedback and I wasn’t buying it. I needed to recognise my strengths and successes, understand the benefits they provided to others and feel that it was OK to say I’m good at this. I needed to own and embody my value. I needed to believe in me before I could expect others to. Equally, I needed to let go of being a generalist. In the early days of a speaking or training career, many of us look at other people’s success and think “I can do that” and we incorporate that capability into our offering. That old saying “If we don’t stand for something, we fall for everything” comes to mind. We need to draw our line in the sand and tell the world (or at least the niche we’re after) that this is what we stand for; this is what we offer and we’re damned good at it! Then we are in a position to offer value. 2. Listen to – then transform – the critical voice inside We all have a critical voice. Some are less critical. Some are loud while others are a mere whisper. It’s there and it is providing a running commentary on how we’re doing according to our internal filters. If we believe we’re good enough, that we have a right to be here and have a valuable contribution to make, our internal voice will be reinforcing those positive messages. If we sometimes (or often) question our worthiness, the value we bring and what we deserve in this life, our critical internal voice will reflect those filters. Whatever way we think will influence how we show up. That critical voice is simply providing us with information on how we really think about ourselves and the world around us. Given those beliefs are deep-seated, our critical voice is helpful in surfacing those beliefs so we can challenge the value they bring in our current situations and in relation to our dreams. Do they support or undermine our best efforts? We can be grateful for the voice and the information it provides … then choose to do what we need to. This is where courage comes in. We can’t make our unique contribution – in this case add another perspective so our clients can make wiser choices – unless we move past that critical voice that would have us play small to keep us safe. 3. Ensure the message is clear Yes, receiving feedback can be challenging. Giving it can also be hard, particularly if you’ve grown up with a credo of not offending anyone. I used to get so frustrated when I found the courage to provide my opinion and then it wasn’t understood. I realised that the nice way I wrapped up what I was trying to say obscured the message. If I wanted to get my message across, I had to peel back the niceness to reveal its core. If your tendency is to wrap the feedback up to make it more palatable, ensure that you haven’t buried the nugget so deeply it gets lost. 4. Focus on intent This starts with a personal question. Why am I giving this person feedback? ‘Is it kind, is it necessary?’ is a phrase I was taught years ago. Am I providing the disruption to demonstrate just how clever I am or am I truly seeking to be of service to the other person. Where it’s the latter, the desire comes through as part of the communication. If not, my ego seeking validation will be heard instead and that can set up an icky energy. Feedback is a gift. We often can’t see what’s going on in front of our noses; feedback is essential to expose and resolve our blindspots which are often the parts of ourselves that stand in our way. As thought leaders, we can be the light. So, to the second question: ‘Will it help the other person to hear what I could share? Is what I’m about to say the next natural step for that person for him/her to progress?’ Articulating the disruption, communication, feedback, seeking to resolve a conflict or enforce a boundary, however, can be difficult. I got to the point where I realised my clumsy