on mastering resilience
8 habits of truly resilient people
Hello love,
If there’s a buzz word that we hear all the time in the world of personal development, it must be this one : resilience.
I find it is often misused, misrepresented, misunderstood. Sometimes even thrown at your face like a little slap: Oh I know so much has happened to you, but have you heard about resilience?!? (judgmental tone).
Yet, resilience is a key factor in our capacity to face the adversities of life we all are confronted to sooner or later. Not like something that you either have or don’t, but rather as something you build, with patience and a whole lot of compassion.
When Catherine Grindrod Dean - my nutrition & lifestyle coach + newest member to the Soulful Biz Club - offered to write a series of 6 blog posts over the next 6 months (once a month) on this theme for you, I jumped on the occasion. Her insights and approach have made such a difference in my life that I’m thrilled to share this space with her.
On today’s topic: what is resilience and how to build it with 8 powerful habits, without falling into the traps of toxic positivity or pushing ourselves into burnout.
Enjoy!
What is Resilience?
In a former job I ran a large and busy department. For months I worked without an assistant manager, a lesson very much learnt.
When I eventually found an assistant manager she was everything I hoped she would be and more : emotionally intelligent, dedicated, motivated and my team loved her! It was like all my work Christmases had come at once.
Unfortunately the timing wasn’t perfect and I’d booked two weeks of annual leave just after she started. She was definitely thrown in at the deep end. While she absolutely stepped up, the pressure was a lot and she ended up emotionally telling another departmental manager how difficult the job had been.
On my return, I was told: “We just need to break her a few more times and she’ll be fine”.
Yes, I was as horrified as you are.
Constantly experiencing overwhelm is not the road to resilience, even though many people mistakenly think it is.
It is, however, a one way, surefire street to burnout.
Defining Resilience
But it leads us to the question, what exactly is resilience and how can we develop true resilience?
You probably have an understanding of what resilience is, but so we’re all on the same page, let’s define it.
This definition from Psychology Today magazine is perfect, “that ineffable quality that allows some people to be knocked down by life and come back stronger than ever. Rather than letting failure overcome them and drain their resolve, they find a way to rise from the ashes.”
So resilience can be described as your bounce-back-ability, your capacity to get back up again after getting knocked down.
It’s crucial that we know the difference between burnout and true resilience, otherwise we can find ourselves sliding down that slippery slope towards burn out, all the while convincing ourselves that we are building resilience because we’re getting back up again and getting on with it.
Resilience vs Burnout; What’s the Difference?
It can be helpful to see resilience and burnout, not as opposites, but as two sides of the same scale.
Knowing the difference can help us to stay vigilant so when we, inevitably, do start to slide the wrong way down the scale, we can take action and turn things around before it’s too late.
When we’re experiencing true resilience, we feel highly motivated, energised and focused on our goals. During periods of high resilience we are also likely to be in good physical health, finding it easier to prioritise our wellbeing.
As our stress levels increase and take their toll on our bodies, our energy levels fluctuate more, we feel less goal-driven and our motivation is more fleeting, rising and falling with our changing moods.
Sliding closer to burnout, energy slumps, brain fog, irritability, fatigue and low motivation become more prevalent. While not easy, if we can turn things around at this point and move back up the scale towards resilience we can prevent true burn out.
If you’ve ever experienced burn out you will know that it’s characterised by complete and utter emotional and physical exhaustion, cognitive decline and can lead to a number of health issues.
It can take time to fully recover from burnout so prevention is definitely better than cure.
How to Build True Resilience
The great news?
Resilience isn’t a fixed and finite skill, it’s something that we can learn and then constantly improve.
And while the way we handle stress matters, external pressures will always be at play - your family, work, your side hustle, friends, money worries, traffic, nightmare neighbours, we are always going to be tested.
What do we do?
Control what we can control and learn - probably one of life’s hardest lessons - to let go of what we can’t control.
8 Key Habits of Resilient People
Resilience as a characteristic is pretty tricky to describe, it’s more a series of behaviours and mindsets.
Those people that have mastered true resilience? Here are 8 habits they all have in common:
A positive attitude, treating problems as a learning process that they can grow from.
Optimism, always looking for opportunities even in the most challenging situations
Taking ownership, accepting responsibility for their life without blaming others.
High levels of self-awareness & self-control, managing difficult emotions without being self-defeating.
Compassionate and empathetic, aware that everyone, including themselves deserves respect.
Seeing self care as essential, not a luxury, actively building habits into their day.
They work hard and rest harder, considering hard work to be just as important as rest and relaxation.
A strong support system, building strong relationships and an ability to reach out for help and support.
If you feel you need to become more resilient, start by identifying which of these habits you feel you need to work on.
Easier said than done, I know, but over the course of the next few months I am going to share practical tips to help you create real resilience in your busy life.
Thank you for reading this far. I hope you have taken at least one golden nugget away from this blog post and I look forward to sharing with you again soon.
Catherine
NUTRITION COACH
Helping busy, professional women 30+ feel healthy & energised by learning to nourish themselves and stop punishing themselves - https://www.instagram.com/catherinedeancoaching/
Wow, thank you Catherine! I can clearly see how it’s easy to slide from wanting to be resilient to heading towards burnout, something that I’ve myself experienced first-hand!
I think especially if like me, you’ve developed a “high-achiever” sort of personality, avoiding a bit your difficult emotions by throwing yourself into work and productivity… it does feel like you’re putting on a brave face and you’re overcoming your challenges + the people around you start looking at you with more admiration…
A risky formula, in my opinion.
What about you?
What is your take on resilience? Which ones of these key habits do you feel need your attention the most at the moment? Which ones do you feel you rock at? Do you have specific questions you’d like Catherine to answer?
Tell us in a comment - this helps my little publication gain more visibility :)
Until then, we wish you a beautiful Sunday afternoon. May you rest, be creative and and feel surrounded by love.
Power and light,
Jessica
Thank you for sharing Jessica. What an honour to be part of this lovely community. I hope this series brings value to your readers 🙏