October 14th, 2009
I’m seeing the word “resilient” used frequently lately. It is apparently an “in vogue” word. I love the word and the strength that focuses is toward our best capabilities and strength. So, what does it take to be resilient? Where can I learn to get it? How will I know I am resilient? The topic has recently taken root in my work and life.
I am sure the changing economy is a major contributor. There seems to be a much higher percentage of sad, scary, and difficult stories in the news, which inevitably causes us to become “Chicken Littles” (if you are old enough to remember the story that initially focuses on fear – crying that “the sky is falling, the sky is falling!”) In the end, the chickens all die, because they would not change their focus from fear to possibilities for survival. There are times when each of us is on the “Chicken Little” track – we can just feel the sky beginning to fall. Often times the sky isn’t really falling, but fear steps in to overtake realities. The resilient path is to focus on a creative path to rediscover your strength, skills, resources, and resilience.
We all know that important, scary, exciting, potentially life changing experiences will show up on our doorstep. The resilient person, team, or organization will develop a creative contingency plan. When things do get rocky, the PLAN will engage with an exploration of possibilities and the development of new and creative ideas. Shared knowledge, skilled competencies, ongoing collaboration for new directions, and a strong focus on the exciting possibilities of the future stop the chant of “The sky is falling” and is quickly reframed into “Our challenge is our opportunity - we will transform lemons into lemonade”.
Not all resilience will come from pain or fear. Resilience is also built by exciting successes – the ability of a team to solve seemingly insurmountable obstacles, to find possible long-term solutions (a resilient pathway) that could not just sustain the current existence, or focus on a fear-based solution. We could actually find options to save ourselves, our planet or at a minimum, mitigate the negative impact. Think of your own experiences of saving yourself. For me it always ends in a strong pat on my back for maintaining my strength instead of being tossed about.
I recently found a great definition of resilience in the dictionary: “resilience is the power and the ability to return to the original form, position, etc., after being bent, compressed, or stretched; elasticity.” My interpretation of resilience as an open door to a world full of possibilities not yet understood or achieved. That interpretation is a vast difference form Chicken Little’s focus on fear, panic, and destruction, leading to a lack of capacity to source any form of creative, positive, ideas.
Remember, we found a way to land on the moon in 1969 through hard work and resilience. We should be able to create a new trajectory for ourselves. Obviously, it might not be easy, but nothing feels better than recognizing your resilience and committing to achieve your goals.
August 4th, 2009
It seems safe to say that the most of us are experiencing some form of stress. We could also say that many to most of us are experiencing more stress than they have previously. Watching my own life, I am definitely experiencing more personal stress. In addition, I am also aware of how many people I have connected with in the last month, whose primary focus is the fear of losing things that have primary importance to their lives – jobs, homes, lifestyles, stability, self-esteem, confidence, direction…
In my experience, as a consultant, mediator of conflict, and real person, fear and anger are the primary response to perceived threats to safety and security.
Responses have a regular pattern focused on the unfairness of life, such as:
“Why is this happening to me? I’m a good person. I am a good employee. I am a good parent…”
“I have worked hard and I deserve to lead the life I want – to have a stable life without too many hassles.”
What if I lose my job? How will we survive?
Will I lose my housing?
What if something happens to family members and I don’t have the resources to help or contribute?
Will I ever be able to retire like I had planned?
In the current economy, it doesn’t take too much effort to build your personal list of fears and concerns. Concerns and worries can often take control, immersing you in a continuous do-loop of “MAYDAY! MAYDAY! We are sinking fast and death is imminent.” Obviously, this is never a great focus for finding creative ideas.
Even in the worst of times, there are ways for you to push through the fear with a process to keep you focused on building creative new options, renewed hope, confidence, and new possibilities for strong results. Here are some steps that have worked well for me and my clients in the past:
1. Get beyond your fight or flight behaviors and reconnect to your resilience.
“STOP, BREATH, and RECONNECT” to the assets and experience that is held in your brain.
Re-read the Resilience blog as a reminder of your resilience options and capabilities.
2. Purposefully establish practices that decrease your immediate stress:
Schedule daily fun and relaxation time.
Read, go to the beach, take a vacation, etc.
Give yourself a break and enjoy yourself.
This will help you to rebuild your inner resources, and, more importantly, open your brain’s creative portals.
3. Really know yourself
Explore your personal monologues – the stories that you have made up in your head over your whole lifetime. How many are really true?
Ask your friends to evaluate their experience of you – your skills, your work ethic, your compassion, your relationships, and any other areas that apply to you. You will most likely be surprised by the value your friend see in you.
It is likely that your friends will tell you that they do not believe your negative monologues to be true – that you have far more skills, capabilities, and wisdom than you believe.
Take some time to explore your personal monologues and commit to remove those that pull you down.
Focus on ideas and things that are healthy and life-giving.
4. Dialogue – connect with your most honest, smart, and caring friends to explore new and creative options.
Focus first on removing all your preconceived notions of what is possible or not possible.
Forget your usual rules regarding what is possible or allowed.
Brainstorm new ideas, especially the crazier and most unlikely. Write all of them down. DO NOT EDIT ANY IDEAS!!! The crazy ones push you into odd directions that often open your mind to a beautiful patchwork quilt of ideas.
Select the best ideas and brainstorm those again, digging deeper into new possibilities.
Choose 2-3 of the best ideas.
5. Sort and select the best options.
Research your options – gather broad-based data
Identify the benefits and challenges of each.
Select and commit to your goals and desired results.
6. Call in the Marines for help
Connect to your best resources expand your ideas of “what’s possible”
Develop and work your plan for change.
Be bold – connect to anyone and everyone that could be a resource to you.
Remember, you never have to handle all this by yourself. CONNECT – to friends, colleagues, current and past employers, job counselors, a wide variety of outside services… Be bold. Ask for what you need and want. YOU CAN DO IT! – WITH THE HELP OF YOUR FRIENDS.
Please take some time to share your ideas on any or all of these topics:
What are your major stressors? What impact are they having on your work, life, and health?
What keeps you sane and grounded?
What strategies have you tried? What worked or didn’t work for you?
Where are you finding support?
What have been your most important “worrying” lessons?
June 17th, 2009
“An ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.” Miriam Webster
“Ability to harness your personal strengths to respond to adversity, rather than focusing on fear.” Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research
“When you’re falling, dive.” Joseph Campbell
How’s your resilience quotient lately? Have you ever even considered “resilience” as an important subject to evaluate in your life? In the current status of our world, it seems like almost everyone could use a booster shot of resilience.
It has been my experience, in the last few months, that there has been a noticeable increase in the number of people who are feeling anxious, angry, scared, vulnerable and worried. All of these words describe what a large part of the population is feeling. Unfortunately, all of these words manage to continuously reinforce our negative thoughts, sending us farther into our personal monologues that “this” (insert your favorite monologue of destruction) is the only truth and it will never change. Anyone trying to offer a new solution is probably not going to be positively regarded. Instead, the focus on worry and fear creates only more worry and fear.
Resilience is the antidote. For some people, resilience is something that has been developed since birth and is a continuous source of new, exciting, and reliable new ideas and options. For others, rules and patterns in a person’s past are so strong, that any change results in the reliable cry of “I COULD NEVER DO THAT!” “I WILL NEVER DO THAT!” and “ARE YOU INSANE?”
Resilience does not mean that nothing challenging is ever going to happen. Resilience helps you connect to the positive options and opportunities, before the negative whining and griping takes over. Resilience is all about health, stability, ingenuity, and triumph over struggle.
Tips to build or expand your resilience include:
KNOW YOURSELF
You are a unique individual with experiences unique to you that form the patterns of your life decisions. When my patterns and your patterns are very similar, we tend to like and respect each other. When our patterns are different, more effort is required. The patterns develop over our life time and are described by negative monologues that continuously run through your head – worry, fear, blame, and anger. The positive monologues are a lot more fun – praise, desire, claim, and pride. The positive monologues go a long way in validating your success allowing you to acknowledge your capabilities and personal pride. Fully knowing your own pluses and minuses as a human being makes it easier to acknowledge your weakness, inexperience, difference of experience or point of view so that the “trouble” becomes an opportunity for learning, development, and healthier relationship with others.
THINK OUTSIDE YOUR BOX. All of us live in a box of our own creation. A box is comfortable, predictable, and requires minimal upkeep. To go outside your box requires a purposeful act to change one or more life patterns. Your challenge is to identify strong, life pattern and purposefully change it for at least 2 weeks. It doesn’t need to be something monumental. Switch responsibilities with a co-worker or family member, brush your teeth using the opposite hand, and pick a different chair to watch TV. For most of us, we are fully unaware of the power of patterns in our lives. Once you have recognized that moving outside your pattern might not actually kill you, make a commitment to expand the size and quality of your box. Connect with someone new at least once per month for a whole year. Volunteer, provide a random act of kindness, contact a friend from your childhood, take a class, learn something new about a co-worker, etc. In other words – “GET OUT OF WHATEVER RUT YOU ARE IN and SEE WHAT THE OUTSIDE WORLD HAS TO OFFER!”
LAUGH. The best medicine (it is scientifically validated) has always been to laugh. It increases your endorphins, which, in turn, increases your feelings of well-being. Being positive is not being in denial. It just means that you want and need to take a break and refocus, at least temporarily, on something different. Something more fun, interesting, or challenging to recharge your batteries. I can’t tell you how many times laughing at my most crushing challenges has resulted in a wacky new idea that becomes the perfect nugget I needed to find the real answer. Look for and share the laughs. It’s good for you.
TO YOUR OWN SELF BE TRUE (TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF). Stress is harmful to your health. We should have a warning label on every job description or challenge that we encounter. For most of us, the tenser, challenged, scared, overwhelmed, and burned out we are, the more our health is jeopardized. Steve Bressert, PhD. wrote and article titled The Impact of Stress. In it he suggests that signs of stress show up in four different ways: physical, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral, each with its own set of symptoms. The prescription for stress is simple – take some time for yourself – have fun, run, walk, swim, or watch the stars come out at night. The goal is to ensure that you take the time to care for yourself in order to maintain you health, sanity, well-being, and longevity.
WORK TOWARD GOALS. For every goal, there are expectations of how success can be measured. This may be more important than the goal itself. Without measurement, a goal is just a dream without focus. Defining the measurements focuses the spotlight on success. Different personality types often respond to goals in different ways. My personality type (INTP) is to be open to explore and analyze anything, anytime. As a result, I have a difficult time coming to closure. I revel in finding new insights and turning those insights into opportunities for change or improvement, but I much prefer helping someone else achieve their goals than disciplining myself to achieve my own goals. Each of you will have your own set of reasons (excuses) for maintaining your focus and your commitment to your goals. If you already know this is one of your best traits, terrific. If you have some inkling that this isn’t your best skill, find a “goals partner” – a person who will be your “opposite” and fill in the cracks in your armor, while you fill that person’s armor cracks.
BE RESILIENT! I know that is just what you wanted to hear. You are thinking, I read all this way for you to tell me to just be resilient. Thanks a lot. You have really helped me – NOT! The reality is that resilience is not only about steps you can take to be resilient, it is about acknowledging that you have experienced many times in the past in which you were resilient. Times when you triumphed. Times when you kept on moving through a very difficult time and not only achieved your goal, but strengthened your confidence and your commitment. Karen Salmansohn, in her book “The Bounce Back Book” offers 75 ways to “thrive in the face of adversity, setbacks, and loses.” Here are two that I enjoyed: Tip#32: “Think of life as a gigantic ice cream parlor with infinite flavors to taste. Recognize every challenge offers the opportunity to thing a new flavor of thoughts and feel a new flavor of emotion. The more varied the flavors of life you get to taste, the more interesting, layered, educated, and work-experienced you’ll be.
Tip#58 “Cultivate the habit of zest.” Bertrand Russell, author of The Conquest of Happiness suggests that we “catch mundane fever”. Watch for beauty in things that seem mundane, and uncover find a new reality of fun, imagination, and opportunity.”
Resilience is a choice, a life style, and a leadership quality. Tell us about your experience of resilience or lack there-of:
Where do you see signs of resilience in yourself?
Where do you see signs of resilience in others?
What experiences have contributed to your resilience?
What benefits result from being resilient?
How could you strengthen your personal resilience?
Resources for this blog:
• Psych Central http://psychcentral.com/lib/2006/the-impact-of-stress/
• The Bounce Back Book, Karen Salmansohn, Workman Publishing Company, 2007.
• American Psychological Association Help Center http://www.apahelpcenter.org/
• Mayo Clinic, “Resilience: Build skills to endure hardship” https://mayoclinic.com/health/resilience/MH00078
March 31st, 2009
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are we not to be? Marianne Williamson/ Nelson Mandella
I don’t like fear. In my worst times I imagine fear to be a cold, dark place where it is impossible to access or take advantage of any of my proven strengths and capabilities. I feel helpless and without options.
Fear also tries to rob us of our past learning. With every life experience, we gain new or deeper perspectives of our true reality. We don’t have to give in to the ghosts and goblins that want to scare us. Instead, we can access our past , or the past experiences of our family, friends and co-workers to find examples and experiences where we have been able to not only survive, but thrive.
Let me hear from you on these questions
• How do you manage fear?
• Tell me your stories of fear and how you found resolution.
• What are your fear triggers?
• What are your best strategies for defeating fear?
Let’s get our dialogue started!
March 31st, 2009
This is the first posting of “The Catalyst: In Pursuit of Personal and Organizational Best”
As the name suggests, the focus is about exploring what makes us our best selves in life and work. I will provide my thoughts on topics related to life and work skills, building strong and effective leadership and management skills, facilitating challenges and opportunities, and developing strong capabilities, competence, and confidence to maximize your value for yourself and your community.
My current descriptor of the national and local environment is “fear”. Fear is a very strong monologue that plays in our head, doing its best to convince us that there are no current solutions, and there probably won’t be a solution that will save us from destruction. Believing this reality makes it very difficult or impossible to be a source of your own solutions. What each of us needs, in a time of chaos or fear, is to find a personal “Catalyst” that will walk with us and help us source new ideas that will open a window into real possibilities.
I am charging you with the responsibility to be a Catalyst and to share your experiences and results of the PURSUIT of YOUR BEST on the blog.
I am looking forward to our ongoing conversation and shared learning. See you on the web.
Julie