Resilience: Lessons from an 11 year old
I’ve been thinking a lot about resilience over the last few weeks. I shared in my last newsletter about my failed business venture and there have been so many other times that I have experienced failure and disappointment and had to pick myself back up.
I’ve have worked in many teams during times of change where it’s been so clear that resilience is what that team really needs. I’ve often been asked ‘how do we build resilience in the team’?
So how do we build resilience?
There is not an easy answer to this. What I do know is that you cannot build resilience through a training course or online learning (take note HR teams)! My personal experience of resilience is that it’s a choice. It’s a conscious decision to pick myself up and try again. It’s a mindset.
I was going to give you a list of ways you can build resilience but I’m none of them really hit the mark. The joy of the school summer holidays meant that I was having lunch with my 11-year-old son today and he asked me what I had been doing this morning. I told him I was writing a newsletter about resilience, and I asked him for his opinion on how to build resilience. He agreed that you can’t teach resilience, but these were his top tips on how to build resilience in others (also I’m seriously humbled by his 11 year old wisdom):
· Show resilience: Show other people what it looks like to pick yourself up and carry on. Role model the behaviours you want to see in your team. If you are resilient, you are more likely to inspire the same behaviour in others.
· Encourage resilience: Resilience is easier when you have others around you to support and encourage you. Don’t suffer in silence, share your experience with others so they can get alongside you and support you.
· Talk about resilience: Talk to your team about times when you have had to be resilient. Be vulnerable and share how you are feeling, especially if you are having to choose to be resilient right now.
A little bit of optimism
I love Simon Sinek’s quote on the different between positivity and optimism: ‘Positivity is blind. Optimism is the undying belief that the future is bright, but it’s not a denial of the current state’. Resilience is not about blind positivity but about choosing to believe that the future is bright and that things will get better.
Conscious choice
This conscious choice is the crucial part of any personal resilience. We have to choose to continue to believe that the future is bright. It is easy to say this in the good times, and I know it’s hard in the bad times, but in those dark days sometimes choosing resilience is as simple as getting up and turning on your laptop. It can be a simple as choosing to look after yourself, eat well and exercise. It can be as simple as turning up and putting on a brave face.
Fake it till you make it
I generally don’t like the ‘fake it till you make it’ mentality but sometimes you have to act optimistic before you really feel it. My experience is that simply by acting optimistic, turning up and taking small steps in the right direction you can change your mindset towards resilience. If its something to be learnt and developed, then there is a kind of ‘muscle memory’ involved in going through the motions. You choose to take the next step forward and eventually your mind will catch up and remember the optimism you have worked from before.
Just do the next right thing
I love Glennon Doyle’s ‘We can do hard things’ podcast. One of the mantras they repeat on there is ‘just do the next right thing’. This is so vital in resilience as you may be in a situation which you don’t know how to resolve but you can choose to do the next right thing. Take the next step in the right direction, it is always a step in the right direction.