RESILIENCE, A SECRET TO SUCCESS…
On 4th March I attended a networking event in London with the topic of “Resiliency”. Little did any of us know then what to happen over the coming weeks and how many of the topics we covered there would come into play.
It is now almost two months ago since the world recognized it was in a crisis. A pandemic is a unique sort of crisis. It is acute, global and exponential and no individual or business is immune. Like most crises, Covid-19 has had a familiar response of denial, confusion and panic, so it couldn’t be more important to focus on being resilient – not just for our businesses, but for ourselves.
So what is resiliency and why is it important?
In dictionary terms – Resilience is : the ability of people or things to recover quickly after something unpleasant, such as shock, injury, etc.
Resilience is about our response to events and a person’s level of resilience can determine who succeeds and who fails. Generally we talk about resiliency applying to the workplace but in reality, it applies to all areas of life and certainly current events mean we need to consider how we react and deal with this moment. We are in a different time and place from where we were a couple of months ago and for many things will never be the same but we will learn from this and hopefully this will be reflected in how we deal with challenges in the future.
I asked a good friend of mine, Georgie Dickens who is a sought after Coach & Mentor to assist in the writing of this blog and she kindly agreed to share some of her insight into what we can do to help ourselves and others during this period.
She gave the following advice:
1.Quit Taking it Personally (Q-TIP)
Resilient people recognise what they can/can’t control.. direct the lion’s share of your effort to what you can control – work ethic and attitude.
2. Plan
It gives shape to the day and a sense of making progress. Set yourselves tasks and focus. Whether this is home schooling the kids, exercising, planning meals, working from home and juggling conference calls whilst assisting clients and colleagues – it’s all important!
3. Focus on the “Good”
‘I am in lockdown and working from home’. GOOD – I’m not commuting so I have more time to exercise, read, cook healthy meals.
4. Mindset
Resilient people see the positives in tough situations ‘What can I learn from this? What is this an opportunity for? How can this positively affect me?
5. Let go of the little things
Resilient people don’t obsess over trivial things. They don’t sweat the small stuff as it is a waste of money, brains and time (WOMBAT). They conserve their energy for accomplishing what matters most.
6. Don’t go it alone
Resilient people ask for support when needed. They build a good network of people around them. There is nothing wrong with saying “I’m not ok”.
7. This too shall pass
What is stressful now will be a memory in a few years. Everything changes with time, especially how you see things.
8. Resilient people don’t let failure stop them
We are all finding ourselves in extraordinary times and have no blueprint to refer to. We make mistakes along the way, but it’s how we manage these. It is important to recognise when we need to pivot, re-strategize and also to understanding the learning.
Embedded in the word for ‘crisis’ is also the word ‘opportunity’. This opportunity is what you make of it. As somebody wise once said to me ‘Never waste a crisis’!
Credits to Georgie Dickins, Founder & Director of Cajetan
HELEN NICOL
HEAD OF SOLUTIONS