Thoughts and Musings
Creating habits that work for you
Habits are something you do naturally that you don’t need to think about, behaviours that are ingrained in your daily processes that you just do. Some might be good, and some not so good, and because you do them on autopilot and they’ve built up over your lifetime, you may not even realise they’re habits.
All of your habits, the good and the bad, are serving you in some way. You’re getting something out of them that you at one time thought useful. For example the glass of wine after a stressful day can be a useful way to wind down, so you have a habit of reaching for the bottle when you’re feeling stressed. And don’t get me wrong, that can be an effective way to destress in the here and now. But some habits, and this one as an example, might make you feel immediately less stressed but the after effects of the alcohol may actually make things worse. Our brains prefer the immediate reward though, and we can tend to ignore the potential consequences of that reward (even if at the back of your head you already know you’ll feel sluggish tomorrow and won’t be glad you had that second glass!).
Habits are formed over our lifetimes and one of the influences to them in our earlier years is parents. The habits your parents had can often become yours by default. Sometimes this is a good thing, brushing your teeth regularly for example. Other times we might have picked up habits that we just do now, but that when we think about it aren’t great for us. As a child, I always got a treat on an evening after tea, a bar of chocolate. These days its not something I do, I phased it out as I grew up, but occasionally I do fancy something sweet on an evening and if I want it, I have it. It’s not a habit though, it’s something I do deliberately and occasionally. If I’d kept it going rather than recognising it and choosing to do something different, it would still be a habit though, and one that doesn’t serve me or my goals. We have to recognise the habits we don’t want and actively address them.
Last week I wrote about personality tests (go and read it on the last blog post if you missed it). Often our personalities influence our habits. For example, if you’re an upholder, chances are that you have a strong set of habits that you do every day towards achieving your goals. Similarly if you’re an obliger, I imagine that you might have some habits you develop because they are helpful for others, rather than you: and those might not be habits that serve you and your goals. If you’re a rebel like me, you might find it hard to create habits that stick, because you rebel against your expectations as well as other’s expectations. A questioner would likely only build habits that have been justified.
Building a habit that helps us move in the direction of our goals means we take consistent action and small steps every day towards what we want. We build momentum and do it easily and without drastic action or unnecessary thought. Before we know it we’re making progress and it feels effortless. That’s the power of habit.
One of the easiest ways to create a habit is to anchor it to a habit you already have. For example, if you always make a coffee first thing on a morning, and you want to create a habit to take your multivitamin, putting the multivitamin next to your coffee machine or in the cupboard with your coffee or cups means you’ll see it and remember and that will trigger your new habit. Cues like that are helpful in creating habits that will stick.
Another tip for creating habits is to make them small. Really really small. So small that it feels like they won’t make any difference. Stephen Guise wrote a great book on this called mini habits, about setting the bar so low that even on your worst day you can do them. It leads to momentum and achievement and consistency which all lead towards your goals. It’s an easy but useful read if you want to find out more.
As I’ve already mentioned, as a Rebel I find it hard to stick to expectations, from both myself and others, so I’ve found a way that works for me. I created a list of all of the habits that I know are good for me. A list of things that help me relax, have optimal health, and generally be at my best. There’s about 15-20 on the list. Every day, I tick off the ones I’ve done that day. I don’t do them at a special time, or in a specific order. It’s flexible enough that I don’t need to do them at all! But even on my worst days I’ve usually done at least two or three. But the tracking of them really helps me to see my progress. I have a sum of the habits I’ve done each day and then a sum of the total. I added up Q1 yesterday and it was 253 so now I have some data to use for Q2 to measure against. I can also see which of my habits I do more often, and which less often. This has led me to reflect on what I might change and do differently to build the habits further, but also to check and see if that’s a habit that’s important or whether it should be taken off the list. In the end I decided they’re all important and none were removed, but that I do need some more visual cues for some of them so I’m moving my weights so they’re in my eyeline, putting my running shoes in a similar place, and my cold swim gear in the car so it’s ready to go for a dip whenever I am.
I find it really easy to forgot the little positive consistent steps I take every day and so marking them off on my tracker reminds me. I did also have a jar for a few weeks that I would put a coffee bean into for each habit ticked off each day but keeping that up felt like a chore and it wasn’t accurate, and I couldn’t see the break down. Now I can do all of those things and it’s helped me make tweaks and improvements.
As we start the second quarter of the year it’s a good time to reflect on your goals, and consider your habits and how they’re helping you move towards them. Is there anything you want to tweak or improve? Are they working for your personality type or do you need to make some changes? Sometimes a bit of reflection and course correction is all that’s needed to get you back on track.
Personality tests, and why they’re useful in building resilience
I’ve done quite a few personality tests over the years, either as part of a job or out of interest when I’ve come across a new one. It’s always interesting to read the findings and the suggestions that come with them. It’s a good structured way of understanding yourself better and in the context of other people that you know too. Annoyingly, knowing you are as you are doesn’t magically make you better, in fact sometimes a personality test can feel quite frustrating as it points out the things you find challenging, and doesn’t give you a way to solve those challenges. But understanding yourself and others better is useful. It shows us we’re not all the same and have different motivators and values, so if you’re finding someone difficult to deal with it can be helpful when you reflect on your approach and consider different or more appropriate options. Knowing what works for you can help you achieve your goals too, and setting them in that context will make you more likely to achieve them. I’ll share an example on this later.
There are lots of different personality test options but two that I really like are Insights, and the Four Tendencies. Insights is a good one to do in a corporate setting, and ultimately there are four colours, red yellow blue and green, and everyone fits broadly into one colour and then has a second, third, fourth, in order of their personality. I’m oversimplifying on purpose but if you want more information go and have a look https://www.insights.com.
There are sub categories depending on your responses and a wheel that has all of these on, which you can put on the floor and can physically stand behind your colour and particular bit of pie with everyone else on theirs, and see clearly what colour everyone else is; and most importantly who your opposites are. The last time I did this, the person I was finding most difficult to work with was exactly opposite me. My colour in insights is sunshine yellow, I’m upbeat and optimistic and sociable and enthusiastic. Also scatty and hasty, apparently! What I’m not is considered and thoughtful and logical with attention to detail and a data focus. That was the cool blue that was my opposite and my fourth colour, I had barely any blue at all in my assessment and only then because I can do those things if I really need to.
What I love about doing something like insights is that whilst you might know you’re struggling to get on someone’s wavelength, actually doing an exercise like this means it really resonates when you better understand yourself and them, and you can work out how to adapt your style to meet them where they’re at. You don’t even need the other person to know you’ve done the exercise: whenever I do personality tests and the different descriptions come up, I can usually think of someone that’s exactly like that!
The other personality test I like is the four tendencies. This was created by Gretchen Rubin and you can do it for free, you just need to use your email address to get your results. And it only takes a couple of minutes which is an added bonus. This is a good one to do on your own, and once you know your tendency you can then look at the others and see who you think would be in those categories. There’s an upholder, obliger, questioner, and rebel. Bonus points for guessing which one I am!
I’ve taken this from the website as I think it’s worded in a really clear way and I don’t think it’s possible to simplify it!
Upholders respond readily to outer and inner expectations—“Discipline is my freedom”
Questioners question all expectations; they’ll meet an expectation if they think it makes sense; essentially, they make all expectations into inner expectations—“I’ll comply—if you convince me why”
Obligers meet outer expectations, but struggle to meet expectations they impose on themselves—“You can count on me; and I’m counting on you to count on me”
Rebels resist all expectations, outer and inner alike—“You can’t make me, and neither can I”
If you’re interested, I’m a Rebel. Which is a bit frustrating (!) if you look at the description you’ll see that accountability to either myself or others doesn’t help me get things done! Fortunately I know myself well enough now to know how to get things done but it’s taken a long time to get to this point.
The great thing about the different personality tests is that whilst there may be some overlap, ultimately they’re all quite nuanced and pick out different areas of focus, so doing more than one arms you with extra information. It’s helpful if it’s memorable too, so I find the names like cool blue or obliger really illustrative when I’m thinking about where someone sits in terms of their personality.
Having a toolkit that includes knowledge of the different personality types can help you be more resilient because it increases your self awareness so you can reflect on a situation in the context of different frameworks, and think about your strengths and weaknesses. If you want to go a step further I’d suggest a strengths finder, the one I’ve used is called Clifton Strengths and you can access from the Gallup book Strengths Finder 2.0. which currently costs £27 on Amazon. The quiz can take up to an hour (and it’s more questions to answer!), but the results focus on your strengths (it’s much broader than personality types) and how to maximise them. It’s a really positive way to assess what you’re good at and think about how this can help you.
Getting on with people and being able to work with others are key skills in life, and problems with other people are often a factor in reduced resilience, so it’s worth taking the time to know yourself and others better and build your toolkit for both work and life.
One of the best ways to set you up for success when you’re doing something new and important is to do a practice run beforehand. It might not always be possible to do everything exactly as planned but without a real run through, with equipment and all, you’ve got no way of knowing what might go wrong and so no way of preventing issues if you don’t have the practice.
If what you’re doing is important then a dress rehearsal is always a good idea. We had a couple of them last month for one of the kids food GCSE practical, he’d made all of the dishes individually over the previous year but hadn’t cooked them all together and ran through the order and timings. The first dress rehearsal was done a few days ahead of the practical and it picked up a few issues, including a missed step, a mix up between dishes, and a couple of tweaks that would make it better next time. There was time for another dress rehearsal and whilst doing it all again was a bit of a chore, it went much better and gave him confidence on the day. There was stil one thing that had fallen through the net, apparently he had to make his own ricotta rather than use a tub from the shop! I really enjoy faffing about in the kitchen but even I think that’s a step too far!
Dress rehearsals are also helpful in a work setting, particularly if you’ve got something coming up that’s important and that you want to go well. A practice run through helps you work out where the potential problems are and gives you the opportunity to prevent them. Especially if you’re working with equipment, there really is nothing worse than not being able to get the technology working when you’ve got people taking time out of their day. I always think it should be easier than it is, but I know from experience that getting in and practising the set up will be worth the effort to make sure it runs smoothly on the day.
Next time you’ve got something important coming up, consider whether a dress rehearsal would help make sure you’re confident and competent for the real thing, and if it would, book it in. It will be time well spent doing something proactive and productive.
The thing that separates good from great isn’t talent. It’s this.
Everyone at a certain level is capable. That’s almost the point — by the time you’re looking at a more senior role, capability is the baseline, not the differentiator. So what actually separates the people who get there from the people who stay where they are? In my experience, it’s tenacity. Not loudness, not confidence, not even ambition. It’s that persistent, quiet determination that kicks in exactly when things get hard. And things always get hard. The path to a more senior role is rarely a straight line — it’s more like an obstacle course with a few unexpected plot twists thrown in for good measure. The people who make it through aren’t necessarily the most talented in the room. They’re the ones who don’t give up when it gets difficult.
Tenacity is the ability to keep going, even in the face of challenges and set backs, until a goal is reached. Another description (which I like better) is persistent determination.
When we set goals, or have something we want to achieve, often we see it as a straight like to the end, like it’s a 100m sprint that we just hurtle through and achieve. Whether that’s because we want it to be easy or we really want to achieve it, it doesn’t matter.
Most of the time the reality will not be a flat straight running track with perfect conditions. Most of the time, we are striving to achieve something we know will be challenging for us. Worthwhile goals are not typically easily attainable. I mean, fantastic if it is easy! But also maybe check you haven’t set the bar too low if that’s the case.
Tenacity is important because those things you want to achieve are often on the other side of a mountain, through an obstacle course, several hurdles, and past a few krypton factor style challenges.
If you know what you want (and more importantly why you want it) then it’s easier to keep yourself motivated through the challenges, the long days, the inevitable failures along the way.
Tenacity is the thing that will get you over the line though. Being determined to achieve the goal, being persistently determined, despite what is thrown at you on the way. Tenacity means you won’t give up.
It’s much easier to have tenacity if you’re not tired, so making sure you’re well rested will help you achieve your goals. And rest means both sleeping well, but also taking time out to do more restful things and not overworking. That’s counterproductive as it will lessen your perspective and ultimately lead to burnout.
It’s much easier to have tenacity if you feel well, so look after your health. Go for the check ups. Take time off if you’re ill. Prioritise your health because without it, you’ll need even more tenacity to achieve your goals.
It’s much easier to have tenacity if you’ve got a great network of friends and allies to support you. This doesn’t happen by accident, you need to curate your network. Be a friend, and be an ally. Make time for people in different aspects of your life, and build relationships with them so they know they can rely on you and vice versa. And most importantly , lean on these friends and allies when you need them. Even if you prefer to be independent and not show any weakness. They’ll be more likely to lean back when they need help too.
It’s much easier to have tenacity if you’re looking after yourself. Being resilient enables you to be more tenacious. Which means you’re more likely to achieve your goals. So yes, absolutely strive to achieve your goals, but not at the expense of your health or welllbeing. Working all the time at the expense of a social life and spending time on your hobbies is not only counter productive it’s a one way street to burnout.
How to work out what you want when all you know is what you don’t want.
When I went on one of my first coaching training days, one of the exercises was to set some goals. Anything is possible was the assignment, and we were split into pairs. The girl I was with was ready to go, and without skipping a beat she had it all planned out. Second home, pillar of the community, busy social life and a lot of luxury added to each of those. It sounded amazing.
Mine, on the other hand? Not so good. Best I could come up with was a holiday home somewhere warm! At the time I had two small children and a demanding job and I was tired all the time, and everything that had brought me joy had been relegated to a time when life was easier. And so I’d forgotten what life could be like, I was just trying my best to get through each day. And I knew what I didn’t want, but wasn’t sure how to turn that into something I did. Since then I’ve met a lot of women who are in a similar boat.
Over the years I’ve learned a few ways to help with working out what you want, so if you’re feeling the same you can try one or two of these and see if it helps.
My favourite way to start this is one I call Ideal Day. Basically get a pen and paper and write down your ideal day from start to finish. Who are you with, what are you doing, where are you, how do you feel, how do you look. One good thing that came out of the pandemic for me personally was that working from home became the norm and it was one of the points on my ideal day. Another was spending more time with the kids and it helped with that one too. The pandemic had a lot of downsides but this exercise I’d done helped me to find upsides too, and to test out my ideal day. The biggest limitation with this exercise though is that you don’t often stray far from where your day already is, so it might not allow you to think big, and you could find yourself coming up with a better version rather than a best version, so bear that in mind.
That brings me nicely on to the next exercise which helps you to think anything is possible! This one is called the Magic Wand. Pretty straightforward but what would you do if you had a magic wand. Starting with a blank sheet of paper can be a bit daunting, so if you take your ideal day writing and work though it, you can ask yourself what you would do differently if you had a magic wand. Maybe you’ve said you’d go for a walk in the park. You might look at this and say with a magic wand you’d want to go for a walk on the beach somewhere hot, or in a rainforest, or in Costa Rica! Expand what’s possible to help you develop your ideas and goals.
Another method to use when you’re thinking of what you want is to use opposites. So think of what you don’t want and then what’s the opposite of that. You don’t want a long commute? You do want your workplace to be close to your home or easy to reach and a pleasant journey away. You don’t want long working hours? You do want a shorter working day with set hours that you can leave behind without feeling guilty when you’re finished. It isn’t always completely opposite as you can see from the examples but it’s a great way to help determine what’s important to you.
When we were children we often had a much simpler view of the world and there were things we really enjoyed and were good at. I’d put rollerskating on that list as my favourite thing to do as a ten year old! There are often clues in what we found enjoyable as a child, and often in what we wanted to be when we grew up. Yes, some of that might have been naivety or undue influence but looking back to what you wanted to do can help shape where you want to go. Take some time to think back to what you wanted then and see how if fits now. Maybe your dreams of working in a shop have moved on, but maybe you have a great eye for detail and sourcing and selling products in an online store might be the new updated version of that.
When you have a list of the things that you want, then one good last sense check is to make sure they fit with your values. A holiday house abroad that’s a flight away will be of little use if you value sustainability and it’s important to minimise your carbon footprint. That’s an extreme example but it’s also easy to get swept up in the inspiration so just adding that view is helpful. Think about the things most important to you and make sure that your goals are aligned.
Finally, when you’ve worked out what you want, put some timescales on it. When do you want it by? A goal without a timescale is just a dream. You need the deadline to help you focus and move forward.
I saw an interesting take this week that workplace stress management, wellbeing and resilience shouldn’t be necessary, that’s to say that the workplace or organisation should prevent the need for those things by making fundamental changes to be better for employees proactively.
Now I agree with this to a certain extent. Employers have a responsibility to ensure that their workplace is a positive and healthy environment and one of the focuses in recent years is psychological safety, which means that employees feel it’s safe to share ideas, concerns and feedback, and speak up without fear of retribution or embarrassment. Creating this kind of environment, particularly throughout large organisations, can be a challenge because it relies on everyone understanding it and behaving in a supportive way. The goal is worthy despite the implementation challenges because of the impact that not feeling psychologically safe has. Unfortunately telling someone that it’s safe is different to them feeling that it’s safe and that really depends on their experience and the culture of the organisation.
Past experiences are important in this situation, because anyone who has experienced bullying or conflict in a workplace, particularly with someone more senior, will take this experience and the personal impact it had with them throughout their career.
Similarly, even if a workplace is doing everything extremely well and employees feel they can do their best work and be fully supported, we don’t always know what’s going on in their personal lives. Great workplaces and organisations have supportive policies for major life events, but even these can depend on how they are executed and of course they also rely on the employee being open about their out of work struggles.
A really good example of this would be financial insecurity (not being able to meet financial commitments or a perception that they won’t be met) which is one of the major risk factors for mental illness. Often a workplace would know nothing about this, but conversely for the employee, holding on to their job and a regular salary becomes much more important, and therefore workplace issues are easily magnified .
So, if you create the most amazing and supportive place to work, it stands to reason you would enhance that by providing colleagues with opportunities to focus on their wellbeing, manage their stress, and build their resilience . These things go hand in hand, creating an environment where colleagues can thrive.
Where I don’t think these interventions have a place is a sticking plaster for an organisation that wants to get more out of colleagues and where these interventions are put in place to offset the impact of a higher workload and more stress. If you want to get more out of people, make them feel safe, valued and recognised and understand what motivates them. Yes it takes more time, but the outcome is better all round.
Employers aren’t on the hook for providing stress management, wellbeing initiatives, and resilience training, but unless you’re really confident that your colleagues have those skills already, there is a lot to gain. Helping colleagues build their skills and prioritise their health helps them to feel better and when you feel better, you can do better.
The start of a new year often goes hand in hand with the reflections of the previous year and alongside that, intentions for the coming year. New Year’s resolutions are much maligned as they are often based on setting the bar really high (go big or go home!) and so creating difficult to achieve goals that most people have given up on before January is out.
Whilst resolutions aren’t ideal for this very reason, taking time to reflect on the year that’s passed and what was good about it and what you’d want to do differently if you had the chance is helpful. So often we move straight onto the next thing to do and we don’t take the time to stop and consider what we’ve learned and celebrate what we’ve achieved. It’s something I’m learning to get better at.
The end of the year naturally makes me reflective, and having some down time over the festive period is a good opportunity to think over the good (and not so good) bits of the year just gone. When I looked back at last year I know I learned a lot, both about myself and also new skills. I was lucky enough to have a great mentor who was down to earth and pragmatic. There were some quite big changes and I was flexible and adaptable which helped navigate the choppy waters. I’m also more confident in myself and my abilities than I think I’ve ever been. Whether it’s age related, or experience related, I don’t know but I do know that it feels much easier.
Which brings me to my intentions for this year. I already had some goals set which is not unusual since I’m a coach! It’s important to know where you want to go though and to see your progress on that journey. Sometimes it doesn’t work out as planned and the goals change as you get closer to them but that’s a good thing because we evolve as we make progress.
There are two things I didn’t prioritise last year that I want to do differently this year. The first is hobbies. I’m probably not going to say I’ll devote every Wednesday night to going to a class for example, but there are a few things I want to try once (singing lessons, cookery lessons) and some things I want to pick back up so I can dabble when I need a break. I’m deliberately setting the bar low here, it’s more about loose planning than rigid resolution so it’s hard to fail.
The second thing I want to prioritise is exercise. Bite sized small chunks of exercise is the way forward for me, so I’ve put my weights where I can see them, and then next thing is to find my running shoes and put them somewhere I can see them too. Rome wasn’t built in a day! Seriously, I was thinking of a half marathon but it feels too much like a commitment that I’ll end up regretting and the pressure will put me off, so I’d rather have the option to run when I want and see how it goes and sign up at the last minute. That’s the plan.
It’s not too late to do your reflections and intentions now, whatever the time of the year it’s worth looking back and thinking about what changes you want to make. Just don’t put yourself under pressure to achieve perfection, remember that little bits of progress add up to giant leaps if you do them consistently.
Failure as a concept is much celebrated at the moment, on the basis that firstly if you’re not failing then you’re probably not pushing yourself out of your comfort zone enough and may be held back by fear, and secondly, that if you’re not failing then you’re not learning. Everything going well for you isn’t really very character building.
It’s interesting though, because the thing we don’t hear about often when this narrative comes up is that failure is bloody hard. We’re wired to want to make progress and achieve success and failure is the opposite of that. It doesn’t feel good at all. I mean, it would be great if we could all take the emotion out of events that happen and stand back and say well I failed and learned from that and move on, but life isn’t like that.
We’re wired to be part of a tribe and failure can feel like rejection. Which can feel really big emotionally because we still have that inherent need to fit in, to be connected and part of a community. It could be a team at work, or a group of friends. Feeling like we’re no longer part of that group can raise strong emotions that feel hard.
But when we hear about failure is it about the downsides? No, I don’t think so, its more about positive mindset and drawing a line under the experience and moving on. And whilst I’m a huge fan of a positive mindset, when you’re going through failure, whether you’ve made a mistake or not managed to achieve something you set out to do, no amount of positive mindset inspiration is going to make you feel better.
The downside of failure is sitting with it and having those feelings that are unpleasant. And you do need to feel it and process it, and in doing that it will likely both bring your mood down and chip away at your self esteem. Neither of these are good things in the longer term so you need to work out how and when you draw a line under the situation. That will often depend on the repercussions of the failure, if there’s financial consequences for example.
So what can you do to help you bounce back from failure quickly? Well step number one is to create a plan, ideally with options. One way to do that is “If…Then” thinking. So list all of the things that could happen and if they do, then work out what you could do. Often having written down what might happen you can put into perspective any catastrophising you’re doing. What seems a possibility in your head is filtered to help you see how extreme it is when you put it on paper in black and white. Putting a plan down next to each of these helps you to work out the different options available to you and usually to also realise that if the worst case happens, at least you know what you’d do.
Step number two is to focus on stress management. Failure is stressful and stress, while helpful in some situations, can often lead to poor sleep, impacting wellbeing, and poor choices and decision making. Exercise is your number one ally when it comes to stress, but do whatever works best for you. If you feel like you need to work off nervous energy with a run or some cardio, great. If you feel you need to calm with some yoga or a walk in nature will help, do those things.
Step number three is find an alternative focus, a distraction. Often when we feel like we’ve failed we can ruminate on it and overthink and dwell. None of those things are useful beyond the planning you’ve done in step one and so this is where distraction comes in. A hobby or something that gets you in the flow is a really good way to move on from something that’s bothering you. If you can put your mind to learning something new or tackling a challenge, before long the feeling of failure will be replaced by achievement as you pick up something you’ve worked on. Spending time focused on something different will govern you more perspective too.
The last suggestion I have is to look back on times when you’ve failed that have led to something better. Maybe not getting a particular job paved the way for you to try for a different and better one. Maybe the lessons you’ve learned from a failure have set you on a different life path and helped you make choices that have turned your life around for the better.
There is no benefit in looking back and being ashamed of your failures, because feeling bad rarely helps us get to where we want to be. But if you can look back at your failures and see how they were stepping stones to the things you’ve achieved then maybe you might be more inclined to try and fail in future, and to be okay with that. It’s the story you tell yourself that makes the difference, so tell yourself a better story about failure
It’s the most wonderful time of the year
I’m a huge fan of Christmas. The pretty lights in a dark cold month, the festive get togethers with friends and family, the steady stream of chocolates and snacks. But it can be a lot, and it’s very easy to overstretch ourselves mentally, physically and financially at this time of year, and come out the other side of it in January feeling worse all round.
Now that my kids are older the present buying situation is different. They know how it works and in place of a nice letter to Santa, this year they sent links digitally direct to my phone to make really sure I bought the right things!
Over the years I’ve slimmed down the list of people I buy for and it’s now a small and manageable group. The mental load that comes with having to think about what to get and for whom reduces when you take people off the list, and it reduces for them too. With some we’ve agreed to just buy the kids. With others we’ve agreed to go for a meal in February which is typically a slow month. With another we’ve bought ourselves a ticket to an event in April so we know we’re both going and that’s our gift and we’ve done it a few years in a row now. From a sustainability perspective gifts that we want or need tick more boxes than surprises that we never use.
The fewer gifts you buy, the fewer you have to source, wrap, and deliver so having the conversation to suggest a change is well worth it. Maybe a little late for this year but it’s worth checking and you could agree for next year if it is. This isn’t being grinchy, it’s just taking stock of where you are and considering if a different approach could be better all round.
Another change I made this year that I’m going to carry forward is one that happened by accident, and that’s to spread all the Christmas celebrations out rather than have them all in the last couple of weeks of December. In fact, mine started mid November and whilst that was due to availability really it worked out very well. Buying a secret Santa before the big present rush meant more time to think about it and get the right gift. I’m a fan of wish lists for secret Santa too, especially if you’re buying for someone you dont know well. So it there’s an option to add something you want, do it!
Back to spreading out the Christmas cheer though. By starting early and dotting your celebrations around you can make sure you have some down time and restful weekends. I happily had no plans for this weekend and so I’ve done a bit of impromptu shopping, watched a Christmas film or three, wrapped some presents and read a book. I’m feeling both more organised and more rested as a result. Building in downtime to recharge your batteries will help you enjoy the festive season and if you’re not worn out and run down you’re less likely to pick up the various seasonal lurgies too.
Financially Christmas can be a challenging time and one when it’s easy to overspend. I’m not the best at making sure I budget and stick to it but a few things that work. Firstly, a Christmas savings club is something that I’ve done before and think ill start up again. Putting aside a bit of money each month so you have a lump sum to work with in December makes it much easier. I know people who do this every year and I always wish I had too, so one for next year.
I tend to start my shopping early and put things away as I see them. The trick with this though is to make a note of all the things you’ve bought and for whom. I used to have a Christmas spreadsheet that I would add too each year so it kept a track of what I’d bought previously and anything I’d picked up early. Now I’ve reduced my buying list down I didn’t think I needed to but then I’ve just wrapped up gifts for my nieces and well, I may have gone overboard. Okay, I definitely have!
Going back to the sustainability point, I am a big fan of vinted for both gifts and clothing. I know what brands and styles suit me and so if I’m looking for something specific (I really wanted a velvet dress this year) then I can search the options and see what’s available and I’ve just found a dress that’s still got the tags on that is probably half the cost of the full price version. I love a bargain and for me, vinted is like finding a gem in a charity shop without all the rummaging.
If you look at social media you’d be forgiven for thinking everyone else is having a wonderful time, but don’t forget that you only see the bits that they want to show you. No one is putting on pictures of them cleaning the carpets before putting the tree up or feeling hungover after a big night out and having to get up with the kids the next morning. If seeing what everyone else is doing makes you feel inadequate then stop looking. It’s as simple as that. Just take a social media break for a few days.
Christmas doesn’t have to be perfect. People aren’t perfect, families are not perfect, and you don’t need to all have matching pyjamas and for every minute to feel magical. Spend the time with the people you love and make them your priority. No one will notice if the house isn’t sparkling clean and if they do, who cares. No one will remember you didn’t bother with sprouts this year. Make it as relaxing for yourself as you can, take short cuts, delegate at every opportunity, and make sure you come out the other side feeling well and rested and content
A boundary is a line you set that determines what is acceptable and what’s not. It’s personal to you, and you control the setting of your boundaries, in terms of both what they are, and where that line is. It’s different for everyone and will depend on your values, experiences, and ultimately what is important to you.
Some examples of boundaries are work boundaries, for example not checking emails on an evening or when you are on holiday. You can have financial boundaries for example limiting the amount of money you are prepared to spend on something, or a set of guidelines about how you deal with financial arrangements such as lending money to friends or sharing money. You might also have boundaries around how much time you spend with certain people or how you interact with them.
Boundaries are a helpful way of setting your personal limits specific to what is important to you and help you communicate your needs and protect your wellbeing.
If you’re a people pleaser, you might struggle to set boundaries because you don’t want to rock the boat. You’ll likely find it harder than others to hold your boundaries because you’re more likely to remove them yourself at the first sign you’re inconveniencing someone. If that could be you, taking the time to consider what is important to you and why before you set boundaries can really help. If you believe in them and they’re very important to you and you know why that is, you are more likely to hold them.
Setting boundaries is a skill that improves with practice so if it’s something you want to improve then start small and set your limit and communicate it. Once you’ve done it once you’ll feel more confident about doing it again.
A fairly easy work boundary to set is around lunchtime. You might normally grab something on the go and keep working, but actually want to take a break over lunch and get out for a walk. So your boundary might be that you always have a break and get out for some fresh air. You close your computer and step away from it. You don’t take work calls during that time.
Once you’ve decided that’s your boundary, you then need to communicate it. You might block the time out and show as busy or out of office. That’s one way of communicating that you’re not available. You might want to tell your colleagues you’ve decided you need a proper lunch break and so you won’t be available at that time from now on.
When you’re communicating your boundaries, you don’t need to give a reason. You might want to, in certain circumstances but be mindful that it might make you feel like you’re trying to justify your boundary and you don’t need to do that. A lunch break for example is not unreasonable.
Boundaries are a way of putting your needs first and protecting yourself and your wellbeing. When you’ve successfully set and communicated one, start to think about what else is important to you and build on that and put more in place if they will help.
Maybe you have a friend that calls anytime day or night and you need to set a boundary that on weekends you’d appreciate if they didn’t call before 10am as you’ll be enjoying a lie in. Maybe you have a friend that borrows your belongings and doesn’t return them. These are all boundaries you can set that will communicate your expectations upfront and make things easier down the line.
I’d love to hear what boundaries you have in place and whether you plan to set some, so let me know in the comments.
Active Rest
It sounds like a contradiction doesn’t it? And what exactly is active rest? Essentially it’s doing something you enjoy, like a hobby, and making time for it or scheduling it in. Its something that you might get into that flow state when you do, where you’re concentrating and then suddenly an hour has passed and you can’t believe it, it feels like minutes.
You’re usually doing something that absorbs you, maybe something crafty or dancing or doing yoga, even going for a gentle stroll for example. Active rest helps you to switch off from whatever you’ve been focusing on, whether work or your worries, and helps your brain process the information you’ve been storing up, which is why when you stop trying to solve a problem and go and do something else, you have either a lightbulb moment about how to solve it, or a realisation that it doesn’t really matter anyway.
Active rest isn’t crashing in front of the tv at the end of the night and watching Netflix. That’s passive rest and while I’m sure we can all agree that we need time spent doing that, it’s important to note the distinction.
Active rest is restorative, and you feel better for doing it. When we’re busy and feeling under pressure, we can see these activities as non-essential and deprioritise them, and that’s one of the worst things you can do.
Making time for your hobbies and interests helps you maintain your equilibrium so try and make these plans something you stick to. There’s always more work to do, so having a hard stop because you’ve got a yoga class to get to forces you to make time for it and the benefit you get from it will mean it will be well worth your while.
When I run resilience workshops, I start by giving everyone an elastic band (also known as a rubber band, not something you see much of these days when we’re both climate conscious and paperless but don’t worry, I reuse and recycle!).
Elastic bands come in all shapes and sizes, thin to thick, short to long and everything in between. When you stretch an elastic band, you stress it, and then it bounces back into shape when you release it. Maybe when you’ve put it round a bunch of papers for example, you might stretch it to get it over them and once it is on and in place, it relaxes.
A new fresh elastic band might not have a lot of stretch in it but as it gets more used, it becomes stretchier and more flexible.
You’ll recognise an older elastic band that’s been used and stretched over and over as it starts to look a bit frayed. It loses some of its elasticity and you have to use it carefully as it looks like it might break.
An elastic band that breaks is no use to anyone. It can’t do the things it was meant for, and it won’t ever go back to being a normal elastic band again. You could tie a knot in it, but it might not do what you need it to and it could break somewhere else.
I think of resilience as just like that elastic band. When you’re resilient and new and fresh at things you’ve got elasticity and you can bounce back from the stresses of life. But the more stress you come up against, the more it erodes your bouncebackability. Too much of it and you need to be careful or you might break just like the old elastic band. And just like the band, if you do snap, you won’t be the same again. It will change you.
That’s why resilience is really important. Because in life we will face challenges, some more than others but ultimately everyone comes up against something at some point, even the most blessed of us. It’s how you deal with it, your mindset about it, and the foundations you have in place that will help you both tackle the challenges that come up and thrive when they do. Like a tea bag, we get stronger when we’re in hot water. We rise to the challenges that come our way and we realise we are more capable than we ever thought we could be. Without those, we would never know. We wouldn’t see what we can and will do for ourselves, for others, for our principles and beliefs.
But we need to be prepared for those challenges so that they don’t overwhelm us. Knowing the foundations of resilience, knowing the things that specifically make you more resilient and actively taking steps to keep your resilience levels high means that when you go through challenging times, you might get stretched and stressed, but you’ll also do the right things and bounce back better.
Falling down can’t be helped. Getting back up again is a choice and one that we can prepare to make.
When you’re doing something day in and day out, living and breathing it, you can easily lose all sense of perspective. When something becomes all encompassing, whether it’s your work, an illness, a family issue, if you’re on the ground and in the thick of something challenging and emotive, your world starts to shrink and the focus of your attention becomes ever more important. That’s often by necessity, because whatever is going on is demanding of your attention, and that’s usually manageable if it’s a short sharp shock, like a crisis situation where you can drop everything else and deal with it without any major consequences.
The difficulty arises when it’s not a crisis situation, when it becomes an ongoing challenge with no real end in sight, and when all of the other responsibilities start to fall behind and stack up and become more problems that need solving.
When that happens, when you’re in the weeds of one thing and you’ve got several other challenges lining up behind it, it’s very easy to lose perspective. So what do I mean by perspective? Really I think it’s the ability to stop and look at everything going on in your life from a step back and in the context of being one of billions of human beings in the big wide world. We’re the centre of our own universe but that doesn’t mean we don’t and shouldn’t compare our lived experience with those around us or that we’re aware of.
Whenever we had a bad day at work, an old (as in no longer working together rather than aged!) colleague of mine used to remind us that what we did wasn’t life or death and put it into perspective by saying “nobody died” to reiterate that a bad day for us didn’t really have the same impact as a bad day for a doctor or a surgeon or nurse, or anyone else with truly important life changing jobs.
Perspective is something you get when you can walk away from the situation for an extended period. Remember that feeling when you come back from holiday, and you go back to work, you don’t know what you’ve missed but you also don’t really care because it’s out of your control. You’ve had some time away and maybe spent time with your family and friends, doing things you love, you’ve caught up on your sleep and had some time to think, and work becomes less important because you’re not living and breathing it.
Perspective helps you maintain an emotional equilibrium. It’s difficult to become angry or frustrated if you’re maintaining your perspective and when you can control your emotions you’re far more effective, so it helps you deal with the challenge more productively.
Resilient people know when they’re in the weeds and need to find their perspective, but they also take care to make sure they build in regular holidays and down time to make sure they stay at their best in the longer term. They set and hold boundaries to make sure the challenges they face stay contained and don’t spill over into other areas of life where possible. They know that, in the scheme of things, the challenges they face will soon pass, they think about how they’re going to get through them in the best way, and then they tackle them deliberately and confidently.
A change is as good as a rest, or so they say. In some ways I agree, a change can be a great way to reset, to shake things up, and stop you getting stale. Keep you motivated. But I don’t agree it’s as good as a rest.
Resting gets some bad press, if you’re not being productive and working towards your goals in every spare minute then you’re not trying hard enough.
The morning routine narrative that you should be getting up early and smashing the day has been popularised in recent years. If you want to do great things it’s apparently essential to get up before sunrise, light a candle, meditate, journal, exercise, cleanse your chakras and sip on a green tea.
I know what I’d rather be doing at 5am and (spoiler alert) it’s getting another hour or so’s shut eye so I’m fresh for the day ahead! A great nights sleep that leaves you well rested is one of the best ways to start your day. There’s nothing wrong with a morning routine if it works for you, but my school of thought is to spend the first part of your day easing yourself into it and using this relatively quieter part of the day to do something that needs focus or brain power, whilst your reserves are high.
I like to think about rest in two ways. The first is built into your day to day life, it’s what you do to make sure you recharge during the day and across the week. It means having a super busy day one day and balancing that with a less busy day the following day. Stopping for a cuppa and putting your feet up when you can. Instead of thinking about what else you can do, taking some time just to be. It’s during these moments that you can get a bit more clarity on your thoughts. A bit of reflection time helps you focus on what’s important and the best next action, and you don’t get that from ploughing on through something. Let’s face it, the work is never done, and if you do get to inbox zero it’s guaranteed not to stay that way for long!
The other type of rest is an extended rest. It’s time away from work or responsibilities, in a chunk so that you get a clear break. It’s time away without having to think about those things too, so that it stays restful. Checking in with work and keeping an eye on emails or taking calls means you won’t be able to switch off completely. Delegate and use that wonderful out of office function to manage expectations and then forget about it. Taking time to relax, read, lounge around, spend time with friends and family, it all does us the world of good.
Don’t fall into the trap of filling your time off with all the jobs that need doing, or going on holiday and giving yourself an itinerary to see and do everything either. Holidays are opportunities for extended rest, so make the most of that and don’t feel you need to fill every minute with sightseeing. Make time to actively relax and put your feet up, and recharge your batteries so that when it’s time to go again, you’re ready to get back into the swing of things.
Check in with yourself now. Are you giving yourself enough time to rest? Have you planned in breaks and some fun things to help you relax? If not, take a bit of time to do that this week. Burnout is very unpleasant and much easier to prevent than to come back from, so make resting (and you) a priority.
I read somewhere recently that having it all means doing it all and as far as I’m concerned, I have no intention of being that person. I’m not sure how you can think you have it all if you’re doing it all anyway?
I was out with friends from work pre-covid and we were discussing having a cleaner, and I mentioned mine also did my ironing, and that I have someone to cut the grass and paint the fence too. It’s called staff apparently! But from my perspective, having people to do the repetitive tasks that I struggle with (my ADHD brain is not motivated to mop floors or trim lawns weekly) makes complete sense. My time is valuable and I want to live in a nice clean house with a tidy garden and I don’t need to be the one that keeps it like that because that’s not my strength.
I do think that playing to your strengths and mitigating your weaknesses is important. If we keep trying to do the things we’re not good at, it doesn’t help us feel brilliant, right?
But more importantly, we need to prioritise. We all get pulled in different directions, and have so many demands on our time. Demands that we want to help with, looking after family and friends, being there for the people we love, and doing things for ourselves too. When we have too many things on our plate though, it tests us. It makes us feel more fragile and vulnerable. When you’re spinning all the plates and running around trying to keep them going, the thought of dropping one of them is horrifying so we chase our tail and try to keep going. It can work in the short term, but eventually something will give. And it’s so much better if you decide which plate is going to be sacrificed and put it down yourself rather than letting it crash and break, that does far more damage.
A couple of unexpected plates needed spinning this weekend and I’ve already realised I’m under pressure. I was planning a few jobs that are going to have to wait. The wood floor will live without a reapplication of oil for a few more weeks. A few quick dinners will replace the more complicated things I was going to cook, and I’ve delegated the hell out of anything I can. I’m making sure I make time to exercise though, I need that even more at the moment. And good quality sleep. I’m prioritising the things that I know will help me, and that might be slightly different for you but the principle is the same. Make time for what you need, especially in times like this.
I don’t want to do it all, and having it all means for me that I don’t do it all. It means I do the stuff I’m great at, share and delegate the things that aren’t my strength, and focus on being the best I can be so that when challenging times come calling, I’m prepared to be the person I need to show up as.
Pick your priorities carefully, and don’t be afraid to deprioritise when you’re under pressure. Take the easier options. Be kind to yourself. You won’t be much use to anyone if you burn out, least of all yourself.
Feeling (and being) connected is fundamentally important to humans. We’ve survived for years as groups or tribes, as a collective which is greater than the sum of its parts. And yet in modern times, the importance of this has been completely underestimated. Only a few decades ago, people for the most part stayed in their communities, lived close to family and friends, and by default had a deep connected social and support network. More recently, it’s become common to leave those communities in search of jobs and careers and set up life somewhere far away from that support, and it’s often not until there’s a crisis that the isolation is truly felt, at which point there’s not many options providing immediate help.
When I was running a workshop recently, we talked about Loneliness. Eating alone is one of the biggest indicators of loneliness and according to a survey by Sainsbury’s Living Well Index (in partnership with Oxford Economics and the National Research Centre) eating meals alone is more strongly associated with unhappiness than any single factor other than having a mental illness. We can’t always make sure we eat with others, I know that in my house it’s almost impossible to get everyone together at the same time due to work, school, college and sports commitments, but I make a concerted effort to coordinate schedules so we manage to all eat together at least once a week. Think about how often you eat with others, and work out what you can do to increase it as even small changes will make a difference.
When we talk about friends, we often use it as a broad brush term that covers people we’ve known all of our life to acquaintances we’ve met once or twice, so I think it’s important to break them down into subsets when we think in terms of resilience. The most important friends to have are the friends who you could call anytime, night or day, and know you can rely on them to help you out. These are your SOS friends. You might not see them regularly, because life gets in the way, but you know if the sh*t hits the fan that they’ll be there and have your back. According to the Telegraph less than 3% of your Facebook friends would fall into the category of friends you could turn to. This number is falling in the western world, with some people recently not being able to name even one person they could turn to in a crisis. Everyone needs as a minimum one person, but ideally more than that. We’re social beings and so this is your reminder to prioritise friendships and building deeper relationships. Make plans. Make suggestions. Learn something together. Make a concerted effort to put yourself out there, even when you don’t feel like it. Especially when you don’t feel like it, because that’s when you need your SOS friends the most.
Let’s talk social media friends now. I put these in the category of casual acquaintances, but social media can be tricky. You might know the intricacies of these friends lives, or certainly feel like you do! We need to remember though that what we see is what they want us to see. The show reel of their life rather than the nitty gritty reality. I’m sat writing this in my bedroom, which is currently a mess with piles of clothes on the floor and shopping bags that need sorting and a case half packed and clutter everywhere. Would I share this picture of me working on my socials? No thank you. Are there pictures of me on my social media working in a lovely space, wearing a nice outfit and make up? Absolutely! Social media can be a useful way to stay connected but it doesn’t replace real life friends and time together in person. Having a big number of social media friends won’t make you more resilient.
The next subset of friends I want to mention are Good Friends. These are people that you enjoy being with, make you feel good about yourself, and you’ve got a shared history. Yes you might not feel you could call them at 4am in a crisis, but you’d tell them about your problems and want to help them with theirs too. You might not see them all the time but you know that when you catch up it will be like you’ve never been apart. These friendships are good for the soul, keep nurturing them and don’t let it go too long between actual conversations or face to face time. Maintaining these friendships is good for your resilience, but you need to actively keep them going. When we go through challenging times, friendships like these are one of things we stop making time for and that chips away at our resilience instead of topping it up. If you find yourself doing that, make time to connect, even if it’s a short phone call, it will help.
The next group I’m going to talk about are in the category I would call mates. Usually in your wider network, these are nice connections to have. A word of warning though, they’re usually quite shallow connections and spending too much time with this group can make you feel like you’re missing the deeper connections of good friends. Mates are for fun times, inspiration, and exposure to new ideas. If you’re going through challenging times, a little time spent with mates can be a useful distraction but if time is precious spend it with your SOS and Good Friends instead.
Work friends are another subset, and an interesting one. Often work friends are friends you wouldn’t have picked but because of time spent together you’ve got closer. Two questions to ask yourself about work friends are do I spend time outside of work with them, and would I still be friends with them if I moved jobs and worked elsewhere? I’ve found some unexpected friends from work who I’ve stayed in touch with over the years despite job moves and such like. Similarly I’ve had friendships that have moved on with changes. Both are helpful for your resilience and good allies to have but those that you’ll stay in touch with are where to invest your time and effort.
The last subset is right time right place friends, for the here and now. Often these people come into your life when you need them and fulfil a specific purpose. Maybe you’ve both just come out of a long term relationship and you provide emotional support and company for each other. Maybe you’re going through a hard time at work and someone who has been there and got the tshirt recognises it and wants to help you through it.
I’m not even going to touch on toxic friends because I’m pretty sure you know that anyone you’d describe as toxic isn’t a friend, and definitely won’t make you feel more resilient. Focus on the people that make you feel good, and you can’t go far wrong.
The higher you go, the louder the inner critic gets. Here’s what to do about it.
Here’s something nobody really warns you about when you’re going for a step up: the more visible you become, the more ammunition your inner critic has to work with. When the stakes are higher, the meetings are bigger, and the decisions matter more, that critical voice in your head tends to get a lot louder. I’ve worked with really capable, high-performing people who are absolutely their own worst enemy at the exact moment it counts most — interviews, promotions, stepping into a new leadership role. They second-guess themselves, they pull back, they talk themselves out of things they are more than ready for. If any of that sounds familiar, you’re in good company. And more importantly, it’s something you can actually do something about.
I learned an energy clearing exercise a couple of weeks ago as part of a month-long course I was doing. We had to set our intention for the week ahead (which is something I usually do anyway) but we also had to list five things that we were not available for.
It was coming off the back of a challenging couple of weeks and so I was ready with my list of things I wasn’t available for! At the top of the list I put drama, as it’s easy to get sucked into but honestly, I’m not here for it, I have neither the time or the energy and I find it does make me feel negative and pessimistic. So that was an easy one to put to the top.
I added negativity for the same reason, we can all find problems and moan about them, but it’s rarely helpful (maybe occasionally for shared experience and bonding) but positivity is important to me and I value it highly.
The one I want to talk about today though is the third one on my list which is self doubt. I’m not available for any of that at the moment either. But it does and has cropped up, and when we go through challenging or difficult times, times of change or adjustment, we can often find ourselves doubting our abilities. And trying to do anything from that place is such a challenge, because when we doubt ourselves we don’t come across as confident and in control and capable. It can make other people doubt our abilities too, which can cause a downward spiral.
A few years ago I worked with a hypnotherapist to help me with stress management and weight loss. He was very good and had a range of techniques but one of them stood out and has stayed with me since and it’s about our inner critic. He explained how we’ve developed that critical voice in our head, how it’s trying to keep us safe and not take any risks by telling us the worst things we might hear from other people. I imagined it a bit like the devil on one shoulder, knowing all my past experiences and issues and ready to point out what I’d done wrong and how useless I was, and how I shouldn’t even try.
I’m mid forties now and I’ve made so many mistakes I stopped counting a long time ago. But our subconscious keeps a record and makes sure that negative inner voice pops up and those embarrassing moments that flash into our minds from years ago keep coming to the surface.
For people that have been criticised a lot over the years because they didn’t fit in, didn’t do things in the way most other people did, or didn’t live up to the high standards of a critical parent, the voice of the inner critic can be overpowering. If you had encouraging and supportive parents, it might be a little quieter. If you are a parent, you might want to reflect on which of the above you are…I realised I had a tendency towards critical and have tried very hard to turn that around.
According to ADDitude Magazine, leading ADHD experts estimate that by age 10, children with ADHD receive 20,000 more negative messages – from parents, peers, or otherwise – than they do positive messages. Adults and children with ADHD often report lower self-esteem than neurotypical peers – particularly if the ADHD was undiagnosed or left untreated.
Given the number of women who are now being diagnosed with ADHD later in life the impact of this could be significant. That’s a lot of negative messages.
So, if we have that loud inner critic, the self doubt and the lower self esteem, how do we deal with all of these things so they don’t get in our way, don’t stop us achieving our potential, and don’t hold us back?
The first thing is just knowing it. Listening for your inner critic. Knowing you’re feeling that self doubt and you’re lacking in confidence and self esteem. Recognising it is a great start.
The second thing is you have to be careful how you talk to yourself because you are listening. Don’t even joke that you’re stupid or lazy or a rubbish driver, or anything else you don’t want to be, because your brain registers you saying those things, and it’s paying attention!
Replace the things you say about yourself with positive, affirming statements instead. You’re not stupid, you’re learning and you’ll make mistakes along the way because that’s how you learn. You’re not lazy, you’re tired because you haven’t taken time to rest and you’re doing that now. If you want to really catch your own attention, say these aloud to yourself along with your name. “Lisa you are tired and you’re now taking some time to rest”. “Lisa you’re learning and mistakes are normal”. When it hears your name the brain interprets it as information coming from someone else, which is powerful as it contrasts with your internal thoughts and challenges them.
The third suggestion I would make to reduce both self doubt and self esteem is to keep a record of your achievements. A bit like the folders we used to have at school if you are of a certain age, it was an A4 padded book with space to keep certificates, reports, glowing feedback or similar. Mine was a gloomy burgundy colour and I still have it, 30 years on, although it doesn’t see the light of day often.
I know that when it comes to things I’ve done that deserve celebrating, I’ve probably forgotten about them and moved onto the next thing within a few days, and I don’t think I’m the only person like that. We don’t stop and bask in the glory, we do the very British thing of saying it’s no big deal and then we pick up the next challenge on the list.
But we need to remind ourselves of all the great things we’ve done. When we made the brave but scary choice to have laser eye surgery. When we took the leap and resigned from a good job in the hope of finding something better. When we finished a long hard and painful marathon. All of those are mine, but sometimes I forget I’m the person that did all of those things, and I need reminders. My marathon time sign is one of them, it lives on my desk to remind me it can be a slog but I will keep going because I’m bloody stubborn.
Put reminders of your successes where you’ll see them, exactly like that. Or write a list of your successes and keep adding to it, on paper or on your phone, or take a picture of it and set as your wallpaper so you have that regular reminder.
Next time your inner critic pipes up with something unhelpful, just thank them for doing their job and trying to keep you safe, tell them you’re okay and you’ve got this, find some evidence you’re more than capable and then go and do it. Because you’re not available for self doubt this week, or any week.
You can’t lead well if you can’t say no.
When you step into a more senior role, everyone wants a piece of you. Your time, your input, your presence at the meeting, your sign-off on the thing. And because you’re good at what you do, and because you genuinely want to help, the default answer can easily become yes. The problem is that saying yes to everything else means saying no to your own priorities — and at a senior level, your priorities matter more than ever. This isn’t about being difficult or unhelpful. It’s about recognising that your time and energy are finite, and that the best leaders are deliberate about where they spend them. Learning to say no — clearly, kindly, and without a lengthy explanation — is one of the most important skills you’ll develop on the way up. “no” is in response to a question from someone else. That’s a really important distinction to make here.
When someone else asks you to do something, it is their agenda, not yours.
What’s being asked might be to support a good cause, maybe for charity or for your child’s school, so it’s not completely someone else’s agenda, but similarly it’s also not yours.
We have a finite amount of energy, money, and time. If we say yes to everything else that someone else wants us to do, we are using those precious resources on someone else’s priorities. Not on our own.
I think we say yes to some things because we worry about getting FOMO. Nobody likes to feel like they’ve missed out!
We say yes to others out of duty sometimes, like we “should” help with the fundraising, we should show our face there, and other times out of fear of judgement, that if we don’t say yes it will look bad or we will seem difficult.
We often don’t realise how frequently we’re asked to make plans / pick something up / do someone a favour, so look out for it now and see if you notice it.
Taking the time to actively plan your own future, think about what you want, and how you’d like to spend your time, money and energy is really important. When you can see where you are going, and plan that out, there’s less time to accommodate everyone else’s priorities. If you don’t have a vision board and a set of goals and intentions that’s okay; you don’t need to formalise them, you just need to know where you want to go and who you want to be, so you can use that in your decision making.
The next time someone asks you to do something, ask yourself these questions:
Is this something I already wanted to do but haven’t yet scheduled?
Do I have the time, energy and money to do this without impacting my other priorities?
Do I really want to do this?
If the answers are all yes, then say yes!
If the answer to number one is no, say yes.
If the answer to number two or three is no, say no.
And when I say no, I mean just that. No. You don’t need to apologise, or explain, you can just say no.
If that makes you feel like you’ll come across as rude, soften it as you see fit. “No thanks, but appreciate you thinking of me” is one way to do that without explaining.
Do you have a tendency to say yes to the things that come your way, or are you good at saying no? Let me know in the comments.
Lisa Simpson 11 September 2023
Being prepared is one thing you can do set yourself up for success. It’s not always easy when you’ve got a lot on your plate but making sure you know the demands on you, in both your work and home lives really can help.
Often the overwhelmed feeling comes from not knowing what we don’t know, or not accurately sizing the things we do know about. We feel out of control because there is so much to do and we haven’t given ourself the time to work through what that actually is, and how long it will take.
Sometimes you have to make tough choices to not do one thing, in place of enabling you to be prepared for another. Preparation gives us confidence, clarity, and reduces stress levels so it’s really important when you need to be more resilient.
Preparation can come in the form of doing pre work for a meeting, or research for a piece of work, or it can simply be working through your approach to a problem or an issue that you’re facing so you have an If…then statement. If this happens, then I’ll take this action. The act of thinking through the various scenarios ahead of time and your proposed reaction to those is useful because it removes the uncertainty.
Where there is uncertainty there is often anxiety. The reactions you propose might be uncomfortable, you might not want things to turn out that way and you might not want to take those approaches, but deciding that those are the best courses for a particular scenario will help you connect with that approach and take away some of the challenge, and also give you comfort that you’ve done the thinking and it’s the right thing to do. So not always easy but the process itself helps.
Being prepared can also be really practical steps too. Doing the right things to support a good nights sleep before a big day is one of those, making sure you have a wind down routine to relax into bedtime, maybe an early night and a bath to help you sleep. Whatever works for you. Another practical step to take is making sure you have organised meals or snacks ahead of a busy day, so you’ve got options that will help you stay sharp rather than sluggish, food to hand when you need it, with minimal cooking time so you can fit it into that day. Leftovers is a good way to do this, cook extra for dinner and have it for lunch the next day.
Finally one last way to prepare is to get your stress levels under control, in a supportive way. Often when we’re stressed we’ll reach for the less healthy coping mechanisms (pass the wine!) as they seem easier than the alternatives like fitting in some gentle exercise. Coping mechanisms are fine and I’m not going to be critical of things that do help, but just recognise that the help these provide is limited and often has a down side, for example with the wine, the down side is usually worse quality sleep and feeling sluggish or lethargic the folllowing day. If you’ve got an important day coming up, the wine won’t be the best choice on that basis, but no judgement. Just to say maybe try the exercise option first or as well as and see if that makes a difference. Sometimes a nice walk with a chatty friend is more effective than a solo jog or chilled Pinot Grigio.
And a last note on being prepared is to remind yourself of how capable and competent you are. We so often brush off our success and move on to the next thing immediately rather than wallow in our amazingness (is that even a word? It should be!). If you forget all the great things you’ve done in life, write them down. Make a list of all the things you were really proud to achieve. Passed your driving test? Put it on the list. Helped someone in their hour of need? On the list. Did something daring like left a job you hated or went travelling? Put it on the list. And get the list out every so often when you need to remind yourself of all the great things you’ve done. There will be more than you think, but I f you struggle to write the list, get some help from your friends and loved ones, they will remember the big things you did even if you don’t.
Asking for help is one of the things that resilient people do. They recognise they can’t do everything on their own and they know there is power in sharing a burden.
The issue is, when we’re in challenging times and we’re stressed and just trying to get through the day, we can accidentally isolate ourselves. We put off making plans with friends and family because we’ve just got too much on.
We think that if we just put all our effort into this issue that we have, we’ll get through it. Whether it’s excess workload, competing deadlines, a medical issue, caring responsibilities, it’s too much for us alongside everything else, and so we give up on some of the things that would help. A sign that you’re struggling is when you tell yourself that you just need to get through this.
You stop doing the things you love, the things you’d enjoy, and everything becomes focused on this one major issue. Its really difficult to see that when you’re in it though.
But think about it this way. If you knew that one of your close friends or family members was going through a tough time, would you want to help them? And If you suspected they were struggling but they didn’t tell you? How would you feel?
When we’re going through a stressful situation, we become more self centred. It’s a survival mechanism and we focus on what we need to do to keep our head above the water. When we’re thinking straight we’re more likely to ask for help. But when we’re in a negative spiral we can let feelings of shame and embarrassment stop us. We don’t want even our closest friends to know we haven’t got it all together. But really, if it was one of your close friends, would you care that they didn’t have it all together or would you want to do whatever you can to help them? I know I would want to help and I think that’s true of most people.
I’ve seen for myself that despite how busy people are, they will make time to do things for others because they want to help them feel better, and because we also feel good knowing we’ve made a difference to someone.
There is so much strength is asking for help, and seeking it out can make a huge difference in how quickly you bounce back from adversity. There are always helpers. They might come from the most unexpected places but if you look, you’ll find them.
Managing stress and closing the stress cycle.
This is going to be a dramatic opener….stress is a killer! Yes, a little bit of stress can be a good thing, it can push us to do better than we would have otherwise, but chronic stress, the type that hangs around for weeks, months, years, is not good for us. At all. So if you’re a stressy type of person, it’s something you need to work on.
The good news is that there are things you can to reduce your stress levels and a lot of them are in your control. Firstly, stress starts in the mind. We think ourselves stressed, and we can choose to actively notice those thoughts and change them. Here’s an example. Say you’re running late and it’s making you feel stressed. Consider the impact of running late. Is it really a big deal? Is it life or death? Or even life changing? If it’s not, then just putting into words the consequences of you being late can help reduce the stress you’re feeling.
Secondly, there are things we have control over and things we don’t. So in the example about running late, one of the things we can control is being organised, prepared, knowing how long things are going to take, and even adding in a bit of contingency into the planning so that you do what you can to be on time. The flip side of that is there are things out of your control, like a road closure or accident that mean, despite your best intentions, that you’re not on time. Resilient people put their energy into the things they can control rather than the things they can’t control, so they don’t spend time worrying about the latter because it doesn’t serve anyone to do so. Focusing on the things you can control helps because it means you’re taking useful action to help things turn out right. That’s the difference. No guarantees but it’s more likely to be the outcome you want it you’re intentional about it and take action towards it.
Finally, there are things you can do to actively manage your stress levels and the good news is most of them are free and relatively easy to do. Exercise is the first that’s usually suggested and I have to agree it’s not just useful in reducing stress levels, it’s all round great for us too. But a word of caution. If you’re already feeling stressed or you’re prone to stress, finding an exercise that calms you can make a big difference. Pushing yourself too hard when you’re already stressed can have a negative effect on you, whereas something like a gentle walk in nature or yoga might be a better option. Listen to your body and notice how you feel afterwards.
Spending time actively pursing your hobbies is another way to reduce your stress levels; getting into a flow state signals to our body that we’re safe. Other signals that help our body feel less stressed are breathing changes. Deep breathing and concentrating on your breath can help, there are breathing exercises you can do online, but also a simple breath in, hold, exhale, hold (all for a count of four) will help regulate too. It’s an easy one to try. Meditation is something that I find works for me, I do a guided meditation as I find the repetition helps me relax into it quickly and I feel much better in a short space of time (I do ten minutes).
When I’m feeling very stressed one of the things I’ve found works for me is tapping. Now I think this is a bit woo woo but ultimately it’s acupressure, so a relative of accupuncture which has been scientifically proven to work, so on that basis I don’t think it’s too crazy. Tapping is also known as EFT or emotional freedom technique. You can find guidance online for free that shows you what do but essentially you use your fingers to tap on various points around your head face and upper body. I’m not sure whether it’s the routine or doing it, or the acupressure, but it’s the one thing that has helped me in moments of intense pressure when other things didn’t so I think it’s worth a try.
There are two other things that are really effective at closing the stress cycle. The first is crying. Holding in emotions literally keeps them inside, but having a cry does get it out of your system so next time you feel upset or angry or frustrated and feel those tears, go with it.
The last thing I want to mention is my favourite way to close the stress cycle and it’s something I do regularly and which I credit with reducing my stress levels significantly and that’s cold water therapy. With a blast of a cold shower, a dip in a cold tub, or best of all a swim in the sea, the shock from the cold gives you an acute stressor and when your body adapts it closes the stress cycle for the low level ongoing stressors too. I’m my experience, there is something else you get from the swim in the sea, possibly relating to the sea water or the muscles used, or just being in nature, but it makes me feel relaxed like nothing else does, and I sleep like a log afterwards. If it’s something you want to try just make sure you do it under the right guidance and supervision, join a wild swimming group, build up slowly and always make sure you’re safe. Let me know your favourite ways to de-stress in the comments!
Knowledge isn’t useful unless we apply it
Wouldn’t life be so amazing if we could do all the things that we know are good for us! Like we know that eating fruit and veg is good for us, gives us vitamins and fibre and is better for our body than something full of sugar and fat, for example a doughnut. But do we crave a nice salad? Usually not! Do we eat the healthy options all of the time? Maybe you do, but I know I don’t always make the best choices, despite knowing what’s better for me. And it’s the same with exercise, I know it’s good for me, and I know I feel better afterwards, but do I fancy going for a nice run? No thanks. Will I make myself do it? Maybe later! That’s why knowledge is not power, because knowing the right things to do doesn’t actually mean you’ll take the right actions. So knowledge in action is actually power because there’s no power in knowing but not applying that knowledge.
But if we know what’s good for us, and we know it will make us feel good in the long run, why don’t we just do that? It’s a good question and one with a few different perspectives. Firstly, eating a salad or going for a run can be thought of as longer term rewards. On their own they don’t do much, by which I mean you won’t suddenly drop a dress size because you did either of those things. You might in a few months if you keep doing those things but we don’t see an immediate reward. Whereas the doughnut? That sweet spot of fat and sugar will give a lovely dopamine boost immediately. Although the down side is that longer term, it’s not so great for you, but it’s harder to focus on the longer term far away possibilities when the doughnut is right here right now, enticing your senses.
We also need to think about outside factors too, so for example the companies marketing the doughnut. The doughnut doesn’t just pop into your head, you walk past a picture of it, you see it on the tv, you walk past a display of them all laid out, maybe the shop has some doughnut-y smells wafting out as you pass! Because it pays to do those things, because it makes you more likely to get your money out and buy one, which ultimately makes someone somewhere more money. Money that they don’t get if you eat a salad. Don’t underestimate the force of these persuasive tactics. And it’s not just doughnuts. But you know that. But it’s also hard to ignore.
So sometimes we need tools to use to help us put into action what we know is good for us, and pass over the things that are tempting. There are a few different options but I’m going to talk about habits and pre-commitment as these are two I find very helpful.
Let’s start with habits. These are easier to form for some people than others and I fall into the latter category as I have ADHD. It doesn’t mean I can’t form habits, but I just find it hard to do repetitive and routine things. There are some habits that I pretty much always do, like brushing my teeth before bed. Then there are others that I either have visual cues for (taking medication for example, it lives on my bedside table so I see it and therefore remember) or a habit tracker that reminds me of the good habits I want to build and so I tick them off when I’ve done them each day. That’s what works for me, because without the intention or reminders and cues I would end up absorbed in something else and forget to do them. Anchoring a new habit to an old habit is also a good way of building habits, basically linking a new one to one you’ve already got. For example, if your habit is to make coffee in the morning as soon as you get up, putting your vitamins on your coffee machine or in the cupboard where the coffee cups live will remind you to take it and therefore build that habit too. One more thought on habits though…set the bar low for the habits you want to build. Stephen Guise has written some great books on habits and mini habits, and emphasises the importance of momentum in building consistency. You’ve got to make a habit easy enough to do on your hardest days.
Pre-commitment is another tool you can use and it’s one I was thinking about yesterday. I’ve not been well, had a nasty cold and fever and felt rubbish, and so I bought some biscuits. Now, I love a biscuit, they’re the ultimate comfort food for me. A Viennese, chocolate digestive or a crunch cream. Or shortbread. You get the picture! But I never buy them. Because if I do, I know I’ll eat them. And so the easiest thing is to not buy them in the first place. I can have chocolate and sweets around and won’t bother with them, but as soon as I know there are biscuits in the house and I’ve got a cuppa in my hand? I’m going to find them and dunk and demolish! Pre-commitment is not buying them, so they’re not there to eat. Much easier than buying them and relying on will power to just have one. And yes sometimes it’s fine to buy them, like it if you’re not well and it’s what you fancy and will make you feel a bit better. But as my youngest son ate the last biscuit from the stash last night I knew they wouldn’t be replaced any time soon!
Pre-commitment can also be buying the things you want to eat, so stocking up on fruit and veg so you have it readily available. Chopping your veg and preparing it so you’ve got some crudites ready if you want to snack. Put the things you want to eat (because you know they’re good for you) in your line of sight, put the fruit bowl where you’ll walk past it and the crudites in your eye line when you open the fridge. Lots of visual cues will help you do the things you know are good for you.
Resilience Levers to pull when you need a boost
When I think about resilience, two things strike me. The first is that most people haven’t heard about it until they need it. That’s to say that people who are going along nicely through life don’t really dwell on how they will deal with challenging times, either because they don’t have a frame of reference because nothing particularly challenging has happened for them, or because they prefer the ostrich head buried in the sand approach.
The second is that people usually realise they are properly “in the shit” when they’ve gone too far down the path to bring it back easily. Sometimes challenging times happen in part out of a situation we create ourselves. What I mean by that is that we make certain choices, such as cancelling plans or not making plans, which make us feel more isolated and that makes the challenging times feel worse as we’ve got less support to share the mental and physical load, and also we can become fixated on our issues and problems and feel very “woe is me” at the same time believing that everyone else is going just fine. Chances are they’re not and if you stopped to ask you’d find that out, but the smaller your world becomes the more miserable it feels.
So what is resilience? Well it’s a toolkit of things that you can do in the long term to stay healthy and happy, with some levers you can also pull in the short term to boost your resilience. One of the most important of these in my experience is the encouragement of others. Often we get so caught up in our own small perspectives that we are scared to get out of our comfort zones and take what we perceive to be risks. Having someone who encourages and believes in you makes a big difference to what you are then willing to do. It’s almost like it gives you permission to be bold, to take the action, to do the thing. When our perspective is narrow and we focus too much on ourselves things can feel too difficult and scary and we talk ourselves out of doing the very things we know deep down will help. So I’d call encouragement a lever that you can use.
Another lever that I recommend is helpful when your resilience is being tested is to find a way to help someone else. It’s usually the last thing you will feel like doing when you’re in the middle of a challenging situation but here is why it’s important. When our resilience is tested and our world shrinks we lose our sense of perspective and often everything can become about that specific situation. Finding someone else who you can make a difference to is a tangible method of widening that perspective. Whether it’s helping a friend with a job application or moving boxes to help them move house; or just carrying someone’s bag for them if it looks heavy, it forges a connection and takes you out of your issues for a little while. A study carried out gave participants some money to spend on what they need wanted to make them happier. In the western world, the participants treated themselves to something but it made little difference to their happiness. In countries like Japan, the participants spent the money on someone else or donated it for example, because they know that the route to happiness is in helping others. Something to think about next time you’re in a challenging spot.
Anyway, whilst we’re on levers to pull, I’m going to throw exercise into the mix. I know I’m as guilty of putting this off when I’m “too busy” as the next person, but when all of the research tells you how good it is for you, when we know how it changes the way we feel, and the fact it makes us more productive afterwards, why wouldn’t we do it! It’s just a reminder that sometimes throwing everything at the problem and keeping your head down and carrying on regardless isn’t always the right approach. After exercising you’ve got blood pumped to all the right places, you’re more energetic, you’re primed and you’ve had some time away for the cogs to whirl a bit and process your issue. Sometimes that’s all you need to get a bit of perspective and come up with a different approach. Whether it’s a swim, a run, a gentle jog, some strength training or some yoga, it doesn’t matter. It’s the doing of it that matters.
Resilience - Nature or Nurture?
A question I was asked recently is whether people can be naturally resilient or whether it’s something that can be learnt, and my answer was both. Resilience is like a muscle. You exercise the muscle to keep it strong and build it up, sometimes you have a bit of time off and the muscle weakens but if you’ve got the right foundations then it builds back up again quickly from that muscle memory.
Where I believe some people are naturally resilient, I don’t think they’re necessarily born that way, although to an extent there are qualities that can support resilience for example if someone is naturally laid back. My belief is that resilience is more nurture than nature, and resilient parents raise resilient children. Think about it. If your parent already role models some of the key foundations of resilience, then you’ll typically follow their lead and do them too. So if a parent eats healthily, chances are they know the importance of that and will pass on both the taste for healthy food, but also the knowledge of what’s good for you and how to make that. Similarly with exercise, if a parent regularly does some form of exercise, whatever that may be, it role models that for the child who sees it as normal and builds it into their daily life.
This isn’t something easily proven, but it’s my opinion, and I’m open to other perspectives here but I think that upbringing can have a strong impact on self esteem too. These are all important when it comes to resilience, and we’ve talked about role modelling the good behaviours, but in some instances growing up those may not have been seen in parents.
Some may instead have had parents who struggled, had mental health issues, addiction, and trauma and maybe they hadn’t seen resilience in action either, didn’t have the experience of their parents dealing with challenges successfully, and so didn’t have the role model behaviour of those foundations. It’s not an excuse for treating anyone badly, but more an explanation about learned behaviour and those lucky enough to have the right examples passed down versus those who might find resilience a bit more challenging as they don’t have the strong foundations in place and instead may have different coping mechanisms and responses.
Often people who have been in those situations can recognise they don’t have the right tools in place but don’t know how to change that. Sometimes those tools work better for the neurotypical brain than the neurodivergent brain, which can be less used to consistency and routine, but done is better than perfect and every little helps, which is work remembering.
So what do you do if you don’t have a resilient parent that role modelled helpful behaviours? The first thing I’d suggest is to find someone else that does. It could be someone you know who always handles challenges calmly for example, or someone who exercises regularly, or someone who has been through struggles and has come through the other side. Or it might be someone you know of rather than know, or maybe a famous person that you admire. The point of this is to look at the behaviours of that person so you can see what they do and reflect on how you can develop similar behaviours to help you. Remember no one is perfect so you might want to take aspects you admire from more than one person. If you haven’t had behaviours role modelled for you it might be something to try.
The second thing I would suggest you do would be to get a pen and paper and write down the challenges you’ve come through in your life so far, and how you’ve dealt with them. Have you leaned on friends and your network during tough times, or did you stop going out and isolate yourself instead? Did you face issues head on or did you avoid them and hope they’d go away? It a tough exercise to do but it’s not about beating yourself up, it’s about trying to recognise how you’ve reacted in the past so you’re aware of that and prepared when things come up in the future. If you understand that this is the approach you’ve taken before, you’re more likely to recognise the warning signs which will enable you to take corrective action. And that might be going along to your girls night and pouring your heart out to them rather than staying at home and keeping it all in, and that just might be the better option for your resilience. Having an understanding of how resilient you are and your past approaches will help you make different and better choices in the future.
How resilient we are depends on our behaviours and habits. Strong foundational behaviours that support resilience are regular exercise, and good nutrition, because if you do both of these things then you’re less likely to rely on some of the other less healthy (but still perfectly valid) coping mechanisms.
Both exercise and nutrition support overall health, which is a critical factor in resilience, but which we often take for granted until we don’t have it. Often exercise and eating well are the first things to go when we have challenging times, so when we have too much on our plate, and too many of those plates spinning, we cancel our workout plans, and grab some food on the go, usually not the healthiest of options.
Exercise has been hailed as potentially being the silver bullet when it comes to resilience and I’m tempted to broadly agree with this. If you exercise regularly and it’s a habit you are in, then often it works as a preventative measure against the build up of stress and keeps your resilience topped up.
When we exercise we have more energy which also helps us deal with the challenges that come our way, and we are also more productive, and that helps us too. But one of the even more important benefits of exercise is that it gives us space for our brain to process whatever is going on and find those lightbulb moments, or even just take us away from the immediate problem and find the perspective that we need to realise that in the grand scheme of things it’s not a big deal. One of my friends used to say on bad days at work “nobody died and we still got paid” and whatever had gone on, that was still true and I think does help take away the importance that often builds up in workplaces against relatively inconsequential issues.
We know exercise releases endorphins that make us feel good, and we know that getting that blood pumping round our body helps us, so why do we find it so hard to do? I know that I enjoy exercise and feeling fit but find it hard to get and stay in the habit myself. We know it’s good for us, but that knowledge isn’t power unless we apply it consistently. Unfortunately we humans were built to conserve energy, so essentially we are lazy beings and prefer to take the easy option of lift over stairs every time. Conserving energy was useful in our past because we needed it for the occasions when we had to go Hunter Gathering to eat, but these days it’s much less useful as we have all the creature comforts and are more sedentary than ever before.
So how can you make exercise a habit that sticks, so your resilience levels stay topped up and your stress levels stay in control? The first thing is to do something that you enjoy. So maybe getting sweaty at a spinning class isn’t for you. It’s not for me either! But walking the dog is something I do enjoy doing. I’m not a fan of classes but I like a gentle swim in the sea.
Which brings me on to the second thing you can do and that’s to do something with others. I much prefer my sea swim when my friends are with me and we’re catching up on the goss and having a good giggle. In fact, those are some of my happiest times, and I always want to go. And the final thing that’s important when it comes to exercise, healthy eating, or good habits in general is that it’s better to set the bar really low and build up achievement momentum than set the bar high and give up because you feel like a failure. If you had one flat tyre you wouldn’t slash the other three would you?
So if you miss a workout don’t decide it’s not for you and stop, or try and make up for it and then it feels too hard. Just give yourself grace and permission to miss that one and keep going. Don’t undo all your good work because you’ve had one bad day or week.
The Power of Self-Compassion in Building Resilience: Embracing Kindness in Challenging Times
Life is full of ups and downs, and in the face of adversity, resilience becomes our guiding light. While resilience is essential, it is equally crucial to recognise the power of self-compassion as we navigate the challenging moments that come our way. Self-compassion has a profound impact on building resilience, along with practical strategies to embrace kindness towards ourselves during difficult times. By cultivating self-compassion, we can strengthen our resilience and emerge stronger than ever before.
1. Understanding Self-Compassion:
Resilience goes hand in hand with self-compassion. Self-compassion involves extending kindness, understanding, and acceptance towards ourselves, especially when we face setbacks or hardships. Rather than engaging in self-criticism or harsh judgment, self-compassion allows us to treat ourselves with the same kindness and support we would offer to a dear friend. It serves as a foundation for building resilience.
2. Embracing Imperfections:
Resilience requires acknowledging that we are not perfect and that making mistakes or facing challenges is a natural part of life. By embracing our imperfections, we can release the burden of unrealistic expectations and develop a compassionate response to our own shortcomings. Instead of berating ourselves for our perceived failures, we can cultivate resilience by seeing these moments as opportunities for growth and learning.
3. Nurturing Self-Care:
Self-compassion involves taking care of ourselves physically, emotionally, and mentally. Engaging in self-care practices such as regular exercise, nourishing our bodies with healthy food, getting enough restful sleep, and engaging in activities that bring us joy and relaxation can significantly enhance our resilience. By prioritising our well-being, we build a strong foundation to weather life's storms with resilience and strength.
4. Cultivating a Supportive Inner Dialogue:
The way we speak to ourselves internally has a profound impact on our resilience. Developing a supportive inner dialogue involves replacing self-critical thoughts with words of encouragement, self-compassion, and understanding. When faced with adversity, remind yourself that it is okay to struggle, and offer words of kindness and support. By reframing negative self-talk, we can strengthen our resilience and cultivate a positive mindset.
5. Practicing Mindfulness:
Mindfulness, the practice of being fully present in the current moment without judgment, can enhance self-compassion and resilience. By observing our thoughts and emotions with curiosity and non-judgment, we create space for self-compassion to flourish. Mindfulness helps us become aware of our own suffering and respond with compassion and kindness, leading to increased resilience in the face of challenges.
In the journey of building resilience, self-compassion is a powerful ally. By embracing kindness, understanding, and acceptance towards ourselves, we can strengthen our resilience and navigate life's challenges with grace and determination. Remember that self-compassion is not a sign of weakness, but a testament to our inner strength and courage.