Radical Resilience - Why and How to Build it!
Pete Harrington
Founder & CEO, Recruitment & Talent Search Consultant, Professional Coach, Mentor (Digital, Media & Technology sectors) across Asia-Pacific (Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines).
4 Steps to Build Resilience for High Performance & Work/Life Fulfilment
As this November/December period approaches, I realized that everyone in my immediate circle (friends, clients, myself) is facing an excess of challenges. In particular, a woman I know has just taken on a challenging leadership role - she had been brought in to 'turn the ship around' and her typical day now includes putting out fires, sometimes literally!
While satisfying in many ways, her work is draining as she learns a new role in a new environment and tries to bring her new team together under challenging circumstances. Then crisis struck at home. Just when she was looking forward to some time off, two of her family members fell critically ill requiring out-of-town hospitalization in different hospitals. She spent her PTO commuting daily between hospitals and home, while trying to create a happy sense of normality for her children.
Work-Life Challenges
The daily reality for many leaders can involve juggling an ever-increasing amount of complex, high priorities at work while managing the demands of family life. The stressors add up while the sense of fulfilment can easily diminish, along with the energy for the usual challenges and responsibilities of life. Layer onto this those out-of-left-field challenges that knock us off balance.
If we are already running on empty, big life stressors like a family crisis, new job or corporate merger can completely deplete our capacity for even the smallest of challenges, let alone leading a team and running a family.
Now layer onto that our own thoughts, habits and beliefs. Examples include wanting to be the perfect parent, have a beautiful home, be the renowned executive, deliver the perfect presentation, and measure up to the 'Joneses' who seem to have it all, plus all those unique ways we have to beat ourselves up. Let's face it, in many ways we are not our own best allies. And when we're giving our time and energy to everyone else we tend to forgo our own needs for sleep, nourishment and regeneration. We become unkind to ourselves.
Returning to the woman I describe above, we might ask what transpired when she returned to work following her stressful annual leave period. Was she able to handle the challenges of her new leadership role with aplomb and continue to engage her team in their vision? Or did she find herself more irritable and reactive and less connected?
The answer depends on the depth of her 'well of resilience' leading up to the crises - and the current commitment she is making to her energy renewal.
Make Radical Resilience the First Priority!
Making radical resilience a first priority requires a shift in how we think of energy.
I wholeheartedly believe that only focusing on our management of time and stressors is misguided. I believe we will be more fulfilled and better able to sustain optimal performance if we focus on how we manage our energy. All of us have the same amount of time available and stressors are not something we can avoid. However, why do some people seem to thrive regardless of the pressures and others burn out?
How We Manage Our Energy Shapes Our Resilience
You may be wondering, "How do I return to and sustain my energy so I can thrive under pressure and feel I'm operating at my best?"
The people that thrive manage their energy in ways that keep their 'wells of resilience' full.
When our energy output exceeds our energy inputs we can become chronically exhausted. This leads to impatience and reactivity at work, and a lack of energy for the second shift of home and family life. Too exhausted to enjoy our downtime when we have it, we may choose non-regenerative activities (like binge-watching television) and are too worried about our responsibilities to gain a sense of renewed energy.
How Deep is your 'Well of Resilience'?
Our thoughts, behaviours and emotions all have an energy consequence which can be negative or positive, depleting or renewing. Think of resilience as a well. When the going gets tough during your day you tap into your 'well or resilience'. When kids are cranky in the morning, the traffic is slow and you're running late, you tap into this well to handle the stress. And if your 'well of resilience' is deep and full, you quickly return to a sense of calm and clarity as you arrive for your work day. But whether you can do this depends on how you've been maintaining your well - balancing your energy output against replenishing inputs.
As the day progresses, various demands require your energy, thus drawing down your 'well of resilience'. As the days go by and the stressors mount, if you do not have energy habits that refill your well, and if your well is not deep, you run the risk of running your well dry - resulting in burnout.
What is available when your 'Well of Resilience' is deep and replenished?
- Contemplation and reflection
- Intention
- Planning
- Calmness and clarity
- Renewal and invigoration
- Confidence and capacity
- Fulfilment
- Meaningful connection
What results when your 'Well of Resilience' is depleted?
- Impulsiveness
- Fearfulness
- Reactivity
- Impatience or rigidity
- Negativity and resentment
- Overburden and exhaustion
- Anxiety or depression
- Disengagement
What does Radical Resilience include?
We think of resilience as our ability to cope and to rebound quickly. But I believe a more radical approach is to consider how resilience is dependent on the balance of our energy renewal versus daily energy drains in four main realms - physical, cognitive, emotional and spiritual.
The following are 4 key areas of focus suggested by current health and neuroscience literature for the renewal of energy to support resilience:
1) Physical Energy:
- Healthy sleep habits
- Cardio and strength fitness routines
- Regular healthy nourishment and hydration (water)
- Regular renewal breaks throughout the day
2) Cognitive Energy:
- Mindfulness practice
- Visualization
- Nourishment and sleep habits that supports optimal brain activity
- Mentally preparing self
3) Emotional Energy:
- Engaging inner sage while recognizing inner critic
- Healthy sleep habits to support optimal recovery and hormone activity
- Bust limiting beliefs and engage positivity
- Mindfulness practice
4) Spiritual Energy:
- Connection - cultivating a sense of connection with others and to what is meaningful, including:
- Values
- Vision
- Purpose
Here's a Four-Step Approach to Support Yourself in Radical Resilience:
Step 1: Invite
Invite yourself to consider energy as a high priority for management, and explore how you currently enhance and deplete your energy. It can be helpful to consider a typical day and how the energy flows throughout that day's activities. Finally, consider when it would be beneficial to engage in energy renewal.
Step 2: Envision
Who do you get to be and how does life feel, when you are fully engaged and your 'well of resilience' is deep and replenished regularly? What does a fulfilling career and life include? The clearer your vision, the more powerful this step is.
As an example, for myself, a fulfilling and resilient life includes feeling eager to engage in my work, and happy to come home with positive energy to spare for family time, chores and renewal activities. My workday has a sense of flow to it with time for ideation, planning, key actions and energy recovery (e.g. after long meetings). Family time is fun, as are my fitness activities. It includes having clear boundaries, a sense of accountability and feeling aligned with goals and values. I'm creative and my interactions are meaningful, respectful and supportive.
Step 3: Explore
If you are to attain your vision of who you get to be when at your best, fully engaged self, what could balancing your energy drains and recovery look like?
Step 4: Reality Check
Get curious about how your beliefs, thoughts and habits might be limiting you. Bust through these limiting beliefs and thoughts that drain your energy and might be driving habits that deplete your 'well of resilience'.
Examples include:
- Perfectionism
- A "go-go-go!" mentality
- An inner critic voice that tells you, you are not good enough
- Habitually choosing TV or Internet surfing for rest
- Choosing junk food and stimulants for quick energy
- Working through lunch
- A "sleep-is-for-sissies" attitude
- Believing your needs come last
- Not asking for support
- Fear of delegating
Finally, what are new and more supportive beliefs you could adopt? How could you reframe inner thoughts to better support positivity and connection?