As a Resilience Wellbeing Coach & NLP Practitioner I have an enormous passion to ensuring that I can support, help and inspire but importantly EMPOWER you to take charge of your life and address the challenges you encounter along the way in a much more positive light… With the increased challenges and concerns around mental health, resilience is ever more need. What makes me get up each morning is knowing that I can make a difference to shedding some light of hope around peoples’ mental health and wellbeing and part of that is changing your mindset and building resilience through supporting techniques.
So, what is Resilience?
When things go wrong, resilience is what helps you to cope and get through hard times and difficult situations. Sometimes it makes you even stronger than you were before. Resilience refers to your innate ability to recover and bounce back from life’s challenges. People have strong resilience are better able to deal with stress and pressure. Research shows resilient people are also more positive and are able to maintain a sense of calm in intense and stressful situations.
For some resilience is a natural trait, however for others it is a behaviour that has to be learnt. I’d like to share with you these 7 techniques to help you improve your natural resilience, or act as the foundation to build up your resilience.
1. Find meaning within tough lessons
In every adversity is a great lesson, at first, it’s deeper meaning may not be clear. To quote Malcom X, “There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time.” Look for the meaning in each tough lesson, instead of focusing on the defeat and the negative. What has this lesson actually taught me?
2. Accept change as a natural progression of life
Whether you like it or not, change is a natural part of life. An important part of building resilience is to fully understand this – savour in the sweet moments and anticipate that harder times will come. Good or bad, positive or negative, the common thread is that life will change, evolve and continue marching on. So, go with the flow and accept these alterations of change.
3. Building a support network
Building and maintaining a trusted support network is perhaps one of the most important techniques for resilience. You will not always be able to overcome every single hardship on your own and everyone deserve support once in a while and that is perfectly OK and normal. Ask for help when you need it and return the support when you are able.
4. Saying thank you
Be grateful and really appreciate all the hard work you do whether you succeed or fail, because failing is also a success to earn from. If you look for them daily, or even weekly there are many reasons to say thank you and be grateful. I’m sure you’ve heard this before but believe me it works; keep a gratitude journal, or incorporate a gratitude affirmation into your daily routine, either way train yourself to see the glass as half full.
5. A self-care ritual is a must
Challenges and set-backs in our personal or professional life are exhausting. So, it’s essential to know when and how to take a step back and care for yourself. Incorporating mindfulness techniques; like deep breathing and mediation into your self-care ritual is a wonderful way to reduce stress and anxiety. Take time to treat yourself to a 30 minutes massage or reflexology. And if you’re feeling really brave then why not try out acupuncture, it’s awesome. Similarly, regular exercise boosts your mood and increases your motivation levels.
6. Establish goals
Resilient people are able to view hardships with a healthy dose of reality. They set themselves goals in order to find solutions to problems and strive forward in spite of adversity. Improve your resilience by taking a step back, assess the situation before you dive in, brainstorm steps and goals to improve your situation and then break them down into small manageable steps. With a roadmap ahead and the ability to adjust your path you will find your way out of hardship.
7. Take action
Without action there is nothing! Some adversity will require action as burying your head in the sand may only prolong the issue. Practice problem solving when adversity strikes and start focusing on solutions that will make your situation better. While there might not be a fast or easy solution, understand that progress and action will help alleviate stress.
With action you will feel more in control of your life and any stress that is thrown your way. Whilst taking action, be sure to implement techniques 1 to 6 and be consistent with yourself and yet do not he hard on yourself too.
Adversity and change are natural parts of life. While no one is able to experience life without hardships, we are all able to build resilience to help us on our journey.
Invest time and energy into building your resilience and you will notice that you are living your life, rather than letting life happen to you. You will be in much more control, mind and body!
What would change if you stayed just as you are?
What could change or could you achieve if you took action?