Building Resilience So You Can Thrive in Turbulent Times

Belinda Gore writes a short and con­cise arti­cle on what to do dur­ing these trou­bled times. It is part stress-busting, part psy­cho­log­i­cal strength­en­ing and build­ing inner energy for life in general.

Belinda Gore is a psy­chol­o­gist, exec­u­tive coach and expe­ri­enced sem­i­nar leader who is skilled in sup­port­ing clients in high-level learn­ing. With 30 years’ expe­ri­ence in lead­er­ship devel­op­ment and inter­per­sonal skills train­ing, she is known for help­ing teams dis­cover strength in their diver­sity to achieve their mutual goals. She is a founder and for­mer man­ag­ing part­ner of Wilbridge Con­sul­ta­tion Cen­ter, a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary group using a holis­tic approach in work­ing with indi­vid­u­als and groups. She is also a Senior Instruc­tor at thoughtLEAD­ERS, LLC

Resilience is a hot topic these days as peo­ple try to fig­ure out how to bend with the winds of eco­nomic change with­out break­ing. I’m read­ing arti­cles that link resilience with pos­i­tive self-image, courage and com­mit­ment, emo­tional matu­rity and integrity.

The chal­lenge seems to be what to do to develop resilience when yours is get­ting low.

To start down the path of build­ing your resilience and abil­ity to deal with today’s fran­tic pace of change and stress, there are three prac­tices you can start build­ing immediately.

Sleep, Eat, and Be Active

The foun­da­tion for resilience is somatic strength, keep­ing your body healthy and con­tribut­ing to your energy instead of drain­ing it. For decades we have been hear­ing about basic stress man­age­ment tech­niques: get enough sleep, exer­cise, eat well. Guess what? It’s all still true.

The lat­est research tells us that nor­mal adults need 7 – 10 hours of sleep a night, as in every night. No macho points for sur­viv­ing on 4 –5 hours. Sooner or later it will catch up with you as reduced immune strength, com­pro­mised abil­ity to con­cen­trate, anx­i­ety. The list goes on…

Eat­ing well means keep­ing caf­feine to 1–2 cups/cans a day (you won’t need it if you have been get­ting enough sleep), cut­ting trans-fats and high fruc­tose corn syrup (it’s in every­thing pack­aged), and eat­ing fruit and fresh veg­eta­bles every day. And of course, if you still smoke, enroll in a smok­ing ces­sa­tion group right now.

Exer­cise is pretty basic. If you get 45 min­utes of good heart-pumping exer­cise, which could be some­thing as sim­ple as fast walk­ing, walk­ing up and down steps, or play­ing vol­ley­ball, four times a week, you’re there.

Silence the Voices in Your Head

Once you have somatic strength so you aren’t tired all the time, the next step in devel­op­ing resilience is pay­ing atten­tion to how you talk to your­self. The tech­ni­cal term is Inter­nal Nar­ra­tive. If you flood your mind with neg­a­tive talk all the time, you sig­nif­i­cantly reduce your abil­ity to deal with change and adver­sity in pos­i­tive and cre­ative ways. You are using all of your energy keep­ing your­self stuck.

Usu­ally we either rumi­nate over what has hap­pened, telling our­selves that we shouldn’t have to be going through this, or we worry about worst-case sce­nar­ios for the future. Our scope may be too nar­row, as when we can only focus on one issue like improv­ing sales rev­enues at all costs, or too broad, as in try­ing to solve the world eco­nomic prob­lems instead of think­ing cre­atively about solv­ing the need for updat­ing your products.

For one day, prac­tice telling your­self that chal­lenges are nor­mal and healthy for any orga­ni­za­tion and the cur­rent prob­lem is a door­way to an inno­v­a­tive solu­tion. Don’t roll your eyes — just make a gen­uine effort and at the end of the day pay atten­tion to what has happened.

Be Open and Direct

Finally, com­mu­ni­cate. Learn to say things as sim­ply, clearly, and hon­estly as you can. One sen­tence may be enough. Let other peo­ple ask when they are not sure if they under­stand you, and make it safe for them to ask by being responsive.

When in doubt, share infor­ma­tion. Except for a few explo­sive out­bursts, most orga­ni­za­tions suf­fer from repressed com­mu­ni­ca­tion, when peo­ple keep their mouths shut for polit­i­cal rea­sons or because they are afraid of the con­se­quences of speak­ing up.