(written by Helen Chapman, first published by Fulcrum Pharma News 2008)

The first step in developing a resilient approach is to recognise when you are no longer performing at your best. There may be ‘tell tale’ signs such as your inability to concentrate or your continual feeling of tiredness, or it may be your lack of patience with your work colleagues. If you can identify when you are no longer functioning optimally you can begin to take the necessary steps.

How effective are you being at the moment on a scale of 1-10?

Taking time out to reflect on what you can do differently or more effectively will enable you to look at things from different perspectives and develop more resilient approaches. Just stopping and reflecting for 15 minutes by walking to the coffee machine might have a profound effect on how you think about the task at hand. Have you ever struggled to complete something and then given up, only to find that when you come to try it again it seems so much easier?  When you are at your most reluctant to stop and reflect you probably most need to. 

How can you build reflection time into your day?

When we are at our least resilient we also tend to run out of patience with ourselves. Do you find that you often treat yourself far more harshly than you’d ever treat a member of staff or a colleague? Resilient people are gentler on themselves, they give themselves reassurance and try to make things as easy as possible for themselves. 

Do you tend to give yourself a hard time? How might you cut yourself some slack?

4. Acknowledge your feelings 

Sometimes even the most resilient of us feel lousy. We may be below par health wise or may have a very difficult event to deal with or may just be having a bad day. If we can learn to acknowledge and understand our feelings we can begin to do whatever is necessary to make ourselves feel better. Pretending we don’t feel bad is not the answer as we will not get the help we need.

How can you take time to acknowledge your feelings?

We all know what makes us feel good, it may be going to a special place, spending time with people who are important to us or perhaps a particular hobby or sport. Or it may just be spending time alone quietly or with a good book or relaxing piece of music. Whatever it is that makes us feel good tends to get pushed to the end of our priority list when we begin to feel stressed, the temptation is to get on with the pressing business facing us.  When we feel good we are more effective and more resilient.

What are you going to do more of to make you feel good more often?

We can feel more resilient if we use our bodies to help us. It is very difficult to feel miserable and to focus on our pressing business issues when we are smiling and laughing. Many companies are experimenting with ‘laughter clubs’ as research has proven the biochemical effects of laughter lead to a happier more productive workforce.

It is also very difficult to feel miserable when looking up. The expression ‘things are looking up’ was written for a reason!  

So how are you going to build more of this ‘fun stuff’ into your day?

Taking action is a great way to develop resilience. Resilient people are usually action-orientated. It often doesn’t matter what you decide to do, taking some action will move you forward. Resilient people are also prepared to try new things if what they are doing is not working. As Einstein said  “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”!

What are you going to get on and do or do differently?

8. Think and act assertively 

When we are at our least resilient we are also usually at our least assertive. 

We tend to think and act as if we have no control over what happens to us or we lash out at what is happening around us potentially alienating ourselves from those who can make things better for us.  If we think assertively we can begin to focus on what is within our control and what we would like the outcome to be. We can also spend less time worrying about the things we cannot influence.

In which situations will you begin to think more assertively?

We hear a lot about positive thinking these days and it is easy to dismiss the idea as impractical and perhaps a little nauseating. But resilient people do tend to think more positively and notice the effect this has on them and on the people around them. It increases your levels of stress when you think negatively about yourself, about others or about the situation you are in. Thinking negatively also tends to become a bit of a ‘self fulfilling prophesy’, you think negatively and then you look for things to support your negative view of the world and low and behold they come true!  

So where might you be able to think more positively?

Finally, I think the best resilience tip of all is to decide what you are going to allow to wind you up.  You really do have a choice about what you take on board and what you don’t.  You cannot change what happens around you but you can choose your reaction to it. If you are feeling good and somebody comes and shouts at you, are you going to let their issues spoil your good feeling? If you are travelling home from work and somebody cuts in front of you are you going to set your pulse racing by gesticulating at them or worse still chasing them and cutting in front of them or are you going to think ‘they must be having a bad day’ and turn up your nice relaxing music on the radio. The choice really is yours.