How often do you find yourself wishing for a seamless, hiccup-free day?
Let’s face it. Your world will always be filled with challenges. From technology failures and workflow breakdowns to budget constraints and team conflicts, you’ve got a relentless stream of problems to solve. Over time, it can sap your confidence and reduce your effectiveness.
It’s tempting to fantasize about a perfect world where everything flows smoothly!
But what if you could shift your mindset to embrace the real world, instead? What if you concentrated on building your mental and physical resilience so you’re better equipped to face challenges head-on?
Today, I’ll share 3 ways to gauge your resilience and some practical strategies to boost it. Time to dump the fantasies and turn those hiccups into success stories.
Understanding Resilience in Executive Roles
What exactly is resilience? In its simplest terms, it’s the ability to bounce back from challenges and keep moving forward.
Think of it like a ship’s ability to stay afloat and steer towards its destination, no matter what storms pop up. It’s the capacity to absorb shocks, learn from setbacks, and adapt without losing your core values or your mission.
How can you measure your resilience? Too often, it’s based on your end-of-day feelings. But those are neither particularly accurate nor helpful. There are better ways to get a bead on how resilient you are, for example:
Three Ways to Measure Your Resilience
- Assess Your Response to Adversity: How do you behave during crises? How well do you maintain composure, think strategically, and guide your team with confidence when you’re under pressure? Your observable behaviors and results in the real-world can give you reliable insight and you can seek feedback from colleagues for accuracy.
- Evaluate Your Recovery Time: How quickly do you bounce back from setbacks? How swiftly do you regain stability after disruptions? Keep a journal and track this quantitatively so you can name clear metrics for improvement.
- Monitor Your Stress Management: What would you say your stress level is? What coping mechanisms do you use to manage stress? Incorporating mindfulness, exercise, and time management helps your personal well-being and overall performance. Evaluating yourself this way involves daily practices that you can regularly do and track.
Once you have an understanding of your resilience level, you can consider ways to crank it up. And there are lots of ways to do this! Here are a few creative and practical methods my clients have used clients recently to become more resilient:
Creative Strategies to Enhance Your Resilience
- Get in the habit of saying ‘Yet’. One of the most impactful habits you can pick up is to tack the word ‘yet’ onto negative statements. Instead of saying “I can’t solve this problem,” say “I can’t solve this problem yet.” It’s a tiny shift in language, but it gives you a very different runway to move on.
- Throw a ‘Failure Party’: One of my clients shared some of his failures with his team. He got real about what he learned and how he intended to improve. He reported back that not only did this boost his resilience, it also strengthened his bonds with his team.
- Designate a ‘Worry Time’: Another client devotes a specific time each day to address her worries. Each afternoon at 2pm she pauses for a cup of tea and writes in a journal what’s worrying her. She also reviews her entries from the past few days, noting how many issues have already been resolved, whether through her own efforts, her team’s actions, or just naturally over time. She says that this daily practice has enhanced her focus and resilience and builds her confidence.
- Find Real-World Examples: Another client created his own reading list about real-world leaders known for their resilience. He started studying their strategies to learn from their experiences. After a few months he took it a step further and organized a sort of book discussion group with some business buddies. Together they dissect what they’re reading, share ideas and learn from each other’s very diverse perspectives.
- Establish a ‘Resilience Playlist’: During tough times, I plug in to a specially curated playlist for my morning run. This combination of physical activity and uplifting music adds jet fuel to resilience levels and gives me a big mental boost.
Once you’ve assessed your resilience level, set a clear intention to improve, and then try out different strategies. You’ll find the one that works best for you.
For peek into something else that naturally boosts your resilience, listen to episode 36, ‘3 Compelling Reasons Why Operations Execs Should Prioritize Time in Nature,’ available at yourfuturerealized.com/36.
Today I’ll leave you with this question: What’s one resilience-building practice you can start this week?
You can’t stop the chaos, but you can change the game.
