Getting Up Off the Mat, Resilience and Success

A little motivation to start the week.

What do flowers have to do with resilience???Symbolic in a way.? Having survived a long, bitter winter, every spring the annuals in this rocky area of my yard sprout anew, through the smallest cracks in stone and concrete. These tough annuals have perfected the ability to bounce back, year after year!

Ok, back to the work world where we've all experienced setbacks. Part of life, right? I hope this brief article provides some helpful tips to develop your resilience, a needed attribute for success and a topic that is particularly significant to me. As a career leader in the accountability community I view staying resilient and practicing a positive image for the future as my key responsibilities to my organization and the teams I lead and motivate. After all, in any profession, especially audit and oversight work, a key measure of success is strengthening and improving the organizations we review and setting a positive vision for brighter days ahead.

Various Definitions of Resilience

Dictionaries generally define resilience as an ability to recover from or adjust easily to adversity or change. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management’s Executive Core Qualification “Leading Change” includes Resilience among its six competencies for this particular Executive Core Qualification.?OPM describes Resilience as:?Deals effectively with pressure; remains optimistic and persistent, even under adversity. Recovers quickly from setbacks.

Getting Up Off the Mat: How I've Developed Resilience

I believe resilience is similar to muscles in our body and as such can be developed and honed.?Over my career I have built and relied on this “muscle memory” to successfully weather professional challenges.?Some components of my resilience "toolkit" that you may find beneficial are outlined below.?I realize many of these sound easier said than done, trust me, I’ve had my share of trial and error.

• Seek Support from Your Network.?Discussing challenges with a mentor, colleague, or family member will not make them go away, but sharing your experience with a supportive individual can be a good reminder that you have someone in your corner. That specific support can help develop resilience. Talking things over with others can also help you gain new insights and opportunities for growth. For example, years ago when I entered mid-management I was fortunate to have an excellent, caring mentor.?To this day when I grapple with a big challenge and am “stuck” I reach out to her for guidance and support.

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• Focus on the Front Windshield, Not the Rear-View Mirror.?This boils down to focusing on things that are in our control.?When faced with a problem it is tempting and sometimes easy to get overwhelmed by events and actions that seem far beyond our control. Ruminating about things you should have done or past events – that involved you, directly or not – can be a trap to moving forward.

• Maintain Perspective. While not easy to do under pressure, keeping perspective that although a crisis may seem overwhelming in the moment, it may not make that much of an impact long term. Try to avoid blowing events out of proportion. Also, related to maintaining perspective, looking at difficult and negative situations realistically has been helpful. Part of this realistic look is breaking larger challenges down to smaller items that I can more readily tackle.

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• Managing Stress.?For me, building healthy stress management habits is a key principle.?My habits include things like getting enough sleep and exercise. Exercise has been particularly helpful to me.?As a lifelong runner and marathoner exercise helps to heighten my mood and motivation levels, which lessens stress.?Added Bonus: I have had some of my best ideas on how to address a challenge while running! On a personal level running marathons has visualization benefits that lessen stress and give perspective to challenges.?Visualizing crossing the finish line of a marathon helps put a challenge in the proper frame and motivates me to tackle it. For example, an image I frequently use in my visualization is celebrating in 2019 after completing my first Marine Corps 50k Ultramarathon at the Iwo Jima Memorial.

I hope this article was helpful and am interested in learning your tips to develop resilience.?I look forward to your thoughts in the comments. Keep breaking through those rocks and challenges! Thanks in advance!