How to Boost Your Personal Resilience

The following is adapted from Speak Up or Stay Stuck.

Think of someone that you admire. How would you describe them? Perhaps the words hard-working, intelligent, or tenacious come to mind. Or, perhaps you think of that person as innovative, courageous, or charismatic.

All of those descriptors may be true, but there is also a specific, singular trait that most successful people share: resilience.

Resilience manifests when a person is able to remain relatively calm in unpredictable circumstances. It shows up in the form of agility and ease in the midst of pressure. And here’s the good news: it’s possible to grow your personal resilience with practice. Read on to learn how you can expand on your own personal resilience, specifically in the areas of your mind, body, and soul.

Your Mind

The best way to build your mental resilience is to feed your mind new ideas and new challenges and to create new thought patterns. You can rewire your brain by changing how you think.

When limiting thoughts come, you can dismiss them or replace them with new, uplifting thoughts that edify you and build you up. You can make it a game by telling yourself something like, Caught one! It ain’t staying. Next! Or you can simply acknowledge the limiting thought and move on to a more friendly one. Find a way to identify thinking that no longer suits you and replace it with thoughts that benefit you.

On the other hand, one of the worst things for building resilience is stress. According to an article published by Harvard Health Publishing, chronic stress affects your memory and the brain’s overall function. Stress can alter the pathways in your brain, cause inflammation, and negatively impact your overall health.

When you are stressed, your brain shifts its energy to the part of your brain known as the amygdala. This is your survival center that is responsible for keeping you safe. Although this part of the brain plays a critical role, staying in survival mode for long is not ideal because it consumes much of your energy and puts your other brain functions temporarily on pause.

During survival mode, the prefrontal cortex takes a back seat. It’s the part of the brain that allows you to do higher-order tasks, controls decision making, helps you dream, and drives you toward action.

Even though we can’t eliminate stress completely, aim to manage stress through healthy habits that promote growth so that your mind is in a suitable position to be resilient. When we experience stress, we can reframe our mindsets by doing what psychologists call reappraisal, which requires us to look at situations and interpret them differently.

Harvard Business School professor Alison Wood Brooks found that people who take advantage of this similarity by reframing their stress as excitement (e.g., by saying, “I am excited” out loud when they feel stress) perform better.

You have a choice to make by reframing your thoughts to better serve you in your circumstances.

Your Body

Another critical component for overall resilience is taking care of your body. A healthy body is better equipped to handle stress. Consume adequate amounts of liquids by keeping a large water jug at your desk or workstation. Eat regularly and healthily—when your blood glucose drops, so does your resilience. Fatigue rises and your willpower drops. Quality food increases your brain’s ability to function. It gives your body the energy to help you achieve your goals, thus increasing your endurance.

Take a walk around the office after lunch or, better yet, walk outside if possible. Nature has a way of reenergizing our minds and providing us with renewed perspectives. An increase in oxygen level is good for your brain, good for your heart, and good for your spirit. And when possible, take a deep breath. Doing so calms your nervous system, slows your heart rate, and centers you.

Even better, find a resting position and try the 4-7-8 breathing technique recommended by Dr. Andrew Weil:

1. Inhale through your nose for 4 counts.
2. Hold your breath for 7 counts.
3. Exhale through your mouth for 8 counts.
4. Repeat a few times for maximum relaxation.

Doing breathing exercises might seem odd since breathing is automatic, but breathing intentionally like this is simply good for you and will help your body function better.

Your Soul

As we consider this holistic approach to building your personal resilience, we conclude with strengthening your resilient soul. We are wired for connection, so consider making new friendships and strengthening existing relationships with coworkers and loved ones.

As King Solomon says in Proverbs 27:17, “As iron sharpens iron, so a person sharpens his friend.” Surround yourself with people who are optimistic and uplift your spirit. I regularly pray and rely on my faith in God for strength, wisdom, guidance, and trust when the future seems uncertain and I’m stepping into unfamiliar experiences.

Living in alignment with our values brings peace to our souls. Set a new professional goal and pursue who you are created to be, contributing in the unique way that only you can offer to the world.

You Are More Resilient Than You Think

You are more resilient than you think, and your past can prove it.

List ten ways you have been resilient in your personal or professional life. Think of situations that took place in your childhood, teenage years, young adulthood, early career stages, and later years through present day.

Now pause and thank yourself for your courage and perseverance. Honor the difficult moments that challenged you yet created opportunities for you to rise and become more resilient. Acknowledge what you’ve learned by overcoming the hurdles.

After completing this exercise, you will probably recognize that you have overcome much in life. You have a history of past successes and failures that have shaped you into who you are today.

The past does not define your future. With each new day, you hold the power to choose who you become. The question is, who will you choose to be tomorrow? What will you do differently? How can you use your personal resilience when faced with change?

For more advice on workplace change, you can find Speak Up or Stay Stuck on Amazon.

Pam Marmon is the CEO of Marmon Consulting, a change management consulting firm that provides strategy and execution services to help companies transform. From executives at Fortune 100s to influencers at all levels, Pam helps leaders achieve lasting organizational change with minimal disruption. She is also the bestselling author of No One’s Listening and It’s Your Fault, a book that equips leaders to get their message heard during organizational transformations, and the creator of the LESS change management framework. Pam and her family live in Franklin, Tennessee, and chase adventures wherever the road takes them.