INTRODUCTION
The theme of this year's BIALL conference was ‘50 not out: past, present and future’. As I started thinking about a possible topic to speak on, I considered what it is that really helps us achieve longevity in successful ventures, and indeed whatever it is we are aiming for in life, and I think the answer is resilience.
While my talk and article are primarily aimed at people who feel they do not have enough resilience and are perhaps consistently bothered by everyday worries with a tendency to think the worst, in fact I hope it will benefit anyone. At some time or another all of us will face something we don't want to and it never hurts to have a reminder of how to cope when bad things happen. It is better to build resilience in the good times than try and do the theory in the midst of a crisis.
I will offer a disclaimer at the start however that I am in no way qualified to speak in this area except as a fellow human with a natural tendency to worry (!) but this is how I first became interested in the topic.
To begin with, a couple of years ago I was asked to fill in a questionnaire for a management course which required you to circle how you feel about a statement on a scale of 1–10. It was the type of questionnaire where you get asked the same thing over and over again in slightly different ways to eliminate bias in the answers. Anyhow the outcome of that was that on a scale of 1–10 my resilience level was 2! I had taken the test at a particularly stressful time in my life and I was curious to know whether I was doomed to be forever overly sensitive or whether there was anything I could do about that.
Secondly, I am a fundraising volunteer for Samaritans, a charity that obviously deals with people in crisis every day and thus I am drawn to thinking about how we can help people in that situation or indeed help people before they get that to that stage. At the same time, I recently completed a mental health first aid training course at work which discussed issues around assisting colleagues or being available to them if they are having difficulties in this area.
It is possible some of you will find the suggestions I make simplistic but it is worth bearing in mind it is often the basics we forget when confronted with anxiety-inducing situations.
WHAT IS RESILIENCE AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT
What do we actually mean by resilience? The Oxford Dictionaries online define it as ‘the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness’Footnote 1. I think that is a really great definition and I don't think I need to expand greatly on that. It is really about recovering from difficulties when they occur not acting like they don't. Nobody (I think) is naïve to believe that you can go through life without any issues but what separates resilient people from those who are not, is how quickly they recover from the knocks in life.
There are a number of reasons why resilience is so important for us – not least because when things go wrong it is not practical to hide ourselves in darkened rooms or stay under our duvet all day! Our ability to bounce back also has a massive effect on our health. In the book Thrive by Ariana Huffington she talks about a study by the university of Chicago where they studied 25, 000 employees of Illinois Bell Telephone after the company was downsized 50%. Two thirds of those studied broke down in some way. That could include ill health, depressive disorders, abusing drugs/alcohol or experiencing relationship breakdown. One third on the other hand either thrived if they stayed and rose to the top or, if they left, they started their own companies or got important jobs elsewhere.Footnote 2
Meanwhile in Angela Duckworth's book Grit one of the things she found was that people who were most successful at things weren't necessarily those with the highest natural ability they were the ones who persevered i.e. had resilience.Footnote 3
So ideally, we all want to be striving to be that kind of person. Everybody reading this wants to be the person who can carry on and go on to achieve the best things. However, I'm sure some of you are thinking ‘I'm not that kind of person’ or ‘I can't do that, I fall to pieces when anything goes wrong.’ Well this raises the question of whether we can do anything about that. We might not be that type of person right now but is it possible to get there?
Luckily for you (and for me as otherwise this would be a short article) the answer is yes.
Angela Duckworth expands on this in Grit. Her conclusions based on various scientific studies are that grit can partly be attributed to genes and partly to do with experience but the conclusion we can draw is it's worth improving that segment which is experience based.
RESILIENCE STRATEGIES
A lot of people drawn to this article probably do not feel that resilient right now. If you're anything like I was in the past you're the kind of person who the minute you get a paper cut you assume you're going to have your hand amputated (incidentally my top tip for anyone like this is never use Dr Google!).
Joking aside catastrophising does not do us any good; it is just putting us in a low state where we can not do anything about our problem rather than empowering us to move forward.
I am going to talk now about 3 strategies to employ when things go wrong.
Number 1:
In order to deal with the problem you have to know what it is. This sounds obvious but you would be surprised. I am sure we have all sat in a work meeting where we knew there were lots of issues and various perceived grievances got discussed but nothing productive happened – this is often because nobody took the time to identify the precise problem you were working on.
So, gather the facts, then work out and write down the possible solutions. Most importantly though choose one and then accept you have done all you can.Footnote 4
Number 2:
Get perspective on the issue. Think about how you will feel about this in 10 years’ time. It is easy to sit and worry about something for days on end that really in a few weeks or, most definitely years, is not going to matter. A good example of this is an early piece of public speaking I did. I was talking at a judicial conference and I was under-prepared and when an audience member heckled me I looked like a rabbit in the headlights. Fortunately one of the suppliers stepped in to help out but now I look back and think how far I've come in that not only do I volunteer to give talks in public I actually enjoy doing so. That experience taught me several things, not least, never try and blag it on the day (!) but it's also made me a better speaker and so now I look back and reflect on how that negative experience shaped something positive in the long run.
Number 3:
At this point, it seems that number 1 and 2 have not worked and new things are on the horizon but you still find yourself waking up in the night or having flashbacks about that embarrassing thing you did or how you can't get over what that person said to you etc.
A book/technique that was recommended to me by a friend (probably after one too many occasions of hearing me moan on about an incident at work) is SUMO or shut up and move on!Footnote 5
Harsh? Well it might sound that way initially but if you read the book in greater detail all it's really saying is you can't dwell on things forever. There are circumstances e.g. major life changes (missing a promotion) or things that are really personally important to you (England losing on penalties) where certainly you should allow yourself ‘hippo’ time first where you actually wallow. Nobody is saying we have to become robots or switch off our emotions in order to become resilient. We are all human and we all need to have that moment where we just say ‘that sucked’, but there are a few things to be cautious of during that period.
Firstly, who we talk to – definitely talk to somebody but is that person the best one to hear you and acknowledge your feelings without either trying to fix anything or just making you feel worse? Ask yourself is it going to help to speak to Aunty Annie who always says ‘that's awful, you'll probably never get over that’ or that friend who will say ‘yes that happened to me it's never been the same since!’ Secondly, think about how often you are re-living the incident. How many times and how widely are you re-telling the story? The more you are reliving it the worse you are probably going to feel. And finally, think about how long you spend in this wallowing time. The longer it lasts the harder it can be to move on.
One caveat about this strategy is obviously around mental health. I am talking about SUMO in scenarios where it is just bothering you with cringe-like embarrassment or is a nagging feeling stopping you from being the most productive. If you are feeling depressed or in crisis then obviously you should be speaking to someone and I'll come back to some of those options at the end. This is more thinking about what is the story you keep telling about a situation, and how helpful is that as opposed not talking to someone when you're at the limit.
SOME INSPIRATIONAL EXAMPLES OF RESILIENCE
A recent example of resilience which came to me was watching Gareth Southgate manage the England team at the World Cup. We all probably remember holding our head in our hands when he missed a penalty when he played in the 1998 tournament. Seeing him today though made me think this was a perfect demonstration of some of the techniques I mentioned above.
Firstly, back in the 90s he had his time for wallowing and then moved on swiftly. You may remember he made light of the incident in a Pizza Hut ad after the event which helped to make the situation seem lighter than it must have felt at the time. Secondly, he has not told himself he'll never get over it and stopped playing football. He went out there, carried on and more importantly he's used that experience to help the next generation.
For some people, though, things do happen that genuinely come in the category of catastrophe or tragedy when you first think about their impact.
Nelson Mandela. He was imprisoned for 27 years for fighting for what he believed in and in the end he succeeded but what a sacrifice he had to make. He gave this quote in his biography: ‘I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.’Footnote 6 This goes back to what I was saying at the start. Having resilience is not about shutting down emotion or not acknowledging that things are bad/scary etc. It's about being about to carry on despite those things.
In Grit Angela Duckworth gives an example of two veterans who were injured around the same time. One had not left his bed while the other was already up and about walking again. The difference according to doctors was down to the attitude and mindset they had going into recovery.Footnote 7 Now of course this is not a criticism of the person who was not in that position. I am going to talk later about how internal resilience isn't the answer to everything but at the same time if something like that happened to us wouldn't we rather be in the more resilient camp if we could?
CHANGING OUR MINDSET
There is clearly something separating the people who are more resilient in difficult situations. I think over all it is really about their mindset and how they are looking at the situation. Basically, we want to be moving towards a growth mindset.
In Sam Owens book on resilience he says ‘You are in charge of your life… Resilience requires you to take responsibility’.Footnote 8 I really like this because it is about taking back control. Most issues or events are nor what cause our problems – it is our reactions to them. Every day we are making choices about how we react to things. We will say ‘this person made me angry or this person made me upset’ but the reality is we do that ourselves. We could instead choose to say ‘I feel sorry for that person because bitterness makes them speak that way to me’ or ‘maybe Joe had a bad day and he overreacted’.
How do you normally look at the world? Half glass empty or half-full? This has a significant effect on how resilient you are going to feel. We have already seen people who take a more positive view thrive better in these circumstances. We want to be approaching things with a mindset that there are always other options. If we look at things from a scarcity mindset – there will only be this job or this person then we set ourselves up in a position of weakness and lose out on opportunities.
This is not an easy thing to do if you are naturally risk adverse like me but you often only have to make a small shift in mindset to see results. I am not suggesting you don't try and cultivate or value what you have in order to keep it but you have to look at the fact there will always be another option if it doesn't work out otherwise all you're left with is fear.
Other things to help your mindset can be listed as follows. Thinking about the way you talk to yourself. What's going on in your mind after something goes wrong? Are you saying ‘oh I'm so stupid’ or ‘I'm an idiot’? If so, is that how you would talk to a friend who came to you and told you the story? It takes somewhere between 5–7 positive comments to cancel out a negative so we need to start re-framing things. Some people might find this silly but I find it helpful to have useful mantras to turn to when things are going bad such as ‘you've got this’. It might be a quote or song lyric or film reference but it's a good way of reminding your brain of something good rather than bad.
Next, make time to do things you enjoy. Now I know some people are thinking but I do not have any time – that is the issue. All I will say is if are a smartphone user I want you to download Moment as an app and then record how long you spend on your phone each day. If it is more than an hour ask yourself if you really can't spare half hour to go for a walk or meditate for ten minutes. Alternatively, if that does not apply look at your Netflix history and see if you were watching things for the sake of it rather than enjoyment! The point is we can make time for things if we want to. I would say looking after your mental wellbeing deserves some time as well.
Finally, I find volunteering can help with mental wellbeing and resilience– helping others is a positive way to make you feel better.
WHEN RESILIENCE IS NOT ENOUGH
What I have been talking about has mostly been about coping with everyday difficulties such as when you make a mistake at work, you have an argument with somebody etc. While this can all be extrapolated for serious situations, saying you are resilient does not mean sometimes you don't need extra help to cope with something.
Remember your friends, family, colleagues will want to help you when you are having a tough time but if you do not think you can confide in them and your anxiety or feelings are persistent consider going to your GP.
If you don't feel comfortable at your GP or it is tricky getting an appointment then look at other support organisations. I am biased because I am a fundraising volunteer for them but Samaritans offer an excellent service with 24/7 phone lines, email and text service. Despite the name they aren't a religious organisation and it is all completely anonymous. They are just there to listen. Equally there are other charities with helplines like Mind plus many of you will work in organisations that have some kind of wellbeing support line which might be run through a third party or a charity. Remember you are not alone and that while resilience is helpful it does not mean you have to act as an island.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, I believe resilience is one of the most important skills we can develop in life. I hope some of these techniques will be useful and I highly recommend reading through some of the books from which I have quoted in this article if you would like to explore the topic further.
