A Journey Through Wellbeing, Work, and Personal Growth Resilience – What does it mean to you?

Over the past few years, I’ve seen a lot about resilience, I even went on a course about becoming more 'resilient' when I burned out.? I questioned then about how resilient most people are.? Maybe that they are too resilient, that the expectation is that we should be even more so.? From that time on, I actually disliked the word ‘resilient’. ?I felt that if you were not resilient, you were weak, when actually I had coped time after time to the detriment of my own health.

The definition of resilient is ‘the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness’. ?Normally, most of us can do this. Basically, how well we 'bounce back' from difficult events.

Working in healthcare, I have found that over the years, that we are quite hard on ourselves and sometimes on those who work for us.? We are in a caring industry; however, this can be forgotten due to the amount of work expected.?? During the covid pandemic, there was a level of resilience like no other from all manner of staff working in the NHS, those working clinically, those trying to support those clinically and management who were trying to support those around them and keep up with the Government mandates of trying to keep both the public and their staff safe.

There are so many expectations from healthcare staff, our patients, patient’s relatives, management, Government; that we can easily forget about how we are feeling and coping.? The amount of pressure that is put on staff to hit targets, to ensure every patient is booked within a certain amount of time, to ensure patients are seen in ED within a certain amount of time, that we are hitting government targets otherwise we will be penalised.?

This pressure is not just the on the shop floor staff, but as high up as Executives.? They have targets to meet too.? This leads to burned out staff, which then leads to lack of capacity and then on that hamster wheel again about being able to hit targets.? This is just one example.? I’m sure that there are many of you are in the same position working for corporate companies who have to hit targets.

The question here is if you are resilient, how long can this continue without you losing it?? If the pressure is day in and day out, is it reasonable to expect an individual to maintain resilience?? No, I don’t believe it is.

We all have control over what we can and cannot cope with, to say when we are out of battery charge.? We have to each take responsibility for our own wellbeing.? We need to be gentler with ourselves and say we are not okay and sometimes say ‘no’. This is not a sign of weakness; this is actually strength of listening to your body and understanding when you need to stop.

I’m not going to lie.? I sometimes don’t look after myself enough, there are times when I put myself under immense pressure because I have people relying on me.? However, I have created a great support network around me that calls me out.? We rely on each other to take care and be a gentler with ourselves.? So, learn the signs of when you are not quite right and need a bit of time out.? Be brave and say you when are not okay.? Yes, it may feel like you are being weak, but without talking about this, we will not improve how we deal with bouncing back and mental health wellbeing.

So here are some ways to understand when you may not be bouncing back as you usually do.? Use these to ask yourself if you need to stop.

• Irritability and overreaction
• Over-emotional/crying
• Dwelling on problems and overthinking
• Trouble sleeping
• You blame others
• You go beyond your limits
• You are afraid to ask for help
• You compare yourself to others
• Run down/persistent illness

Everyone can learn about resilience/bouncebackability, not only personally, but for those around us.? If you are a leader, do you have an environment that contributes positively for resilience, do you keep an eye out for your team, do you have regular 1:1s with them, do the team have proper breaks, are they listened to and treated as adults, do they respond as adults and not as children?

As an individual, do you feel safe to speak up, do you help your leader create the conditions to look after one another, supporting working environments, do you learn from those times when you have not bounced back as normal, creating strategies to look after yourself, caring about those around you if you think they are not themselves?

If we all invest in this together, how much better would you feel?

So, I’m going to end on that I’m still a work in progress.? I actively look out for my team, especially if they are not quite themselves and I try hard to care for myself.? Why? Because I wouldn’t wish being in that dark place on anyone else.? I sometimes slip up and don’t look after myself, but I keep on learning and improving.?

Some strategies that you may find helps – and they aren’t for everyone, you just need to try and find out what works for you:-

• Meditation – for relaxation
• Mindfulness – for relaxation
• Walking in Nature
• Exercise
• Singing
• Laughter/Humour
• Maintain perspective
• Good sleep routines
• Caring for yourself, bit it a warm bath before bed, or a facial
• Be flexible
• Create a support network
• Be a plant – feed and water yourself in order for you to grow and bloom!

Support Materials

Lucy Hone – 3 Secrets of Resilient People

Raphael Rose – NASA Research

Simon Sinek – Building Cohesive and Resilient Teams Based on Mutual Trust

Mind – How can I become more resilient?

Beano for Schools - Bouncebackability - Mental Health & Wellbeing KS1 & KS2

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