“Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.”

KHALIL GIBRAN

Everyone will be faced with change, challenge and stress at some point in their lives. While some people manage stressful periods effectively, others struggle to cope and find stresses impact their performance at work and at home. If left unmanaged, these stresses can significantly impact the mental and physical health of workers—affecting their ability to focus, communicate effectively, build constructive workplace relationships and deliver quality outcomes.

Where does resilience come in?

People who demonstrate resilience bounce back from adversity, manage stress effectively, build trusting relationships, and show adaptability and agility to unpredictable or changing situations. Rather than simply pushing through and surviving, resilient people adapt to the events in their life—bouncing back more quickly and with less stress.

It’s important to understand that resilience isn’t a personally trait or a genetic attribution. It’s not something that you’re either born with or you’re not. Rather, it is a skill that can be practiced and built upon. Everybody has the ability to improve their resilience.

 

The Five Practices of Resilience

So, how do you build your resilience? There are certain practices you can master to help you cope with stress, improve your mental agility and more effectively navigate challenge and change. We call these The Five Practices of Resilience.

1. Active and Engaged

Practicing health and wellbeing behaviours that build endurance and promote mental and emotional recovery.
These are the physical behaviours that contribute to improved emotional wellbeing and resilience. This includes things like physical activity, healthy nutrition, controlled breathing and quality sleep.

2. Optimistic and solution-focused

Practicing cognitive flexibility strategies that promote an emotional capacity for resilience.
These are the thinking skills that help us to transform challenges into opportunities and problems into solutions. This includes our sense of control, ability to reframe situations and attitudes and our level of optimism.

3. Living with purpose

Practicing the pursuit of meaningful goals that accentuate one’s strengths and values.
These are the things that drive us to get out of bed in the morning and the things that give us a personal sense of achievement. This includes our ability to set and achieve goals, our adoption of a growth mindset and our ability to play to our strengths.

4. Connected and aware

Practicing self-awareness and social intelligence to build positive relationships and a sense of acceptance and belonging.
These are the things that fulfil our fundamental human need for social connection and belonging. This includes our ability to understand, use and manage our emotions in helpful ways, practice empathy towards others and foster quality relationships.

5. Social citizen

Practicing kindness and contribution to foster community connectedness.
These are the things we do to give back and make a difference in the world—no matter how big or small. This includes how we practice kindness and contribution, live our values and have a positive impact on those around us.

Where to from here?

We all want to live a good, happy life. Some of us may be focused on finding ways to be the best version of ourselves at work, in our relationships or in the pursuit of the things we enjoy. Some of us just need some tips on staying in control and getting through life’s challenges in one piece. Whatever your situation, we can all benefit from investing in our wellbeing and building our resilience.

wellMIND is an evidence-based program incorporating skills and strategies shown to cause lasting psychological and physical health benefits and build resilience at work and at home.

Learn more about how wellMIND can help your people thrive at work and in life here.