Lead the Resilience Revolt! 3 Tips for Greater Resilience
Workplace frustration happens to us all; never feel you are on your own with that one. Unless you live in a disconnected vacuum with absolutely no influence from anyone or anywhere else, it is just not possible to have everything ‘your way’. Quite frankly, I really can’t think of a person who would benefit from living in such a disconnected way either. While accepting this reality, it should not translate into a sense of hopelessness; you can easily maintain control over the way you face and respond to any frustration.
1. Stay Healthy and Alert Physical wellbeing has vast impact on resilience capability. Our muscles maintain strength, our nutrition continues to nourish and our reflexes are ready, willing and able to protect at any given moment. Physical wellbeing is the air in our balloon, having us colourful, bright and able to fly high given the quality of the air within. Exercise turns on our ‘feel good’ factor, stimulating our natural chemical called dopamine. Ample sleep allows us to download and release the previous day allowing for the creation of our next day’s experience.
Picture a fully-inflated balloon, tethered by a string and bouncing around in the breeze; colourful, bright and just ‘full’. That would be a great analogy for a successful team member at work when things are going well, fully participating in meetings, producing results and building great relationships at the same time. No workplace woes and only workplace wows follow that person. Suddenly the balloon is hit by a rather forceful child who has a deep and strong grasp on it, squeezing it tightly and not allowing it escape. The balloon changes structure, shape and consistency. In the workplace that child may be compared to a tightening of the budget funding, a shorter time frame for required results, less people to do more work, more communication coming from every angle stifling your freedom to create or any number of other influences.
Mohammed enters the workplace to find that the meeting has been moved to midday, which clashes with an essential project meeting. His co-worker is off sick and the manager wants to see their joint project progress at 11am. Watch Mohammed bounce like the balloon. He makes contact with the business owner of the rescheduled meeting, indicating his inability to attend given the need to be in another meeting, and provides the business owner a summary of what would have been asked of him in that meeting. He speaks to others who will be in the meeting, allowing them to be aware of what he has done.
The balloon escapes the child’s grasp and instantly bounces back to its full shape and position. There were no questions, no analysis, no doubt – it just happened as a natural reaction. We too are a vessel of possibility that has full opportunity to bounce back instantly from facing adversity and being squeezed, yet we often don’t let it happen. We become the story of frustration, providing every reason why the reduced budget, the increased input or the decreasing freedom is simply not right. Yes, it will be ‘not right’ once it is labelled ‘not right’, when we look at it as ‘not right’ and when we reinforce it with further judgement as ‘not right’. Resilience doesn’t judge, it just allows you to reposition, repurpose and re-energize effortlessly. How can you increase your resilience?
This was also providing great opportunity for personal contact to see how they are doing, and offer any help they may need. He then sits with project results of his colleague and himself, finds the gaps that have not been recorded and quickly adds them. When in doubt he checks with others on the accuracy on what has been added. Now that he’s prepared for the original meeting, he now invests the time he would have shared working with his colleague in finding new resources for the next step of that project, something he really wouldn’t normally have time to do. Not a minute goes by in that day without some productive activity, and he returns home reflecting how a day that had potential for confusion and chaos was highly productive and organized. We can only think straight and construct alternatives with a clear mind and healthy disposition. Oh, and of course, passion for your job!
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