How to Make Resilience Your Superpower

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Resilience is a superpower. Resilience is the capacity to adapt successfully in the presence of risk and adversity and to bounce back, or forward, from setbacks, trauma, and high stress.

When I was a senior leader at the Department State, I saw that resilient people and teams were more adaptable, flexible, collaborative, and innovative; they got things done. Resilience was the shield that protected against continuous change, chronic stress, and constant pressures.

Luckily, resilience is not just a trait that some people are lucky to have at birth. It is also a state of being that can change depending on your environment and actions. Everyone can develop the resilience superpower by mastering resilience skills and tools, and making time for resilience enhancing activities.

When I ran the Department of State's Center of Excellence in Foreign Affairs Resilience, we reviewed resilience research and studied successful diplomats and overseas missions to identify the following five factors that are essential for building and maintaining resilience:

Self-Care

Daily physical activity, healthy eating, sufficient sleep, and taking time to recover from stress are necessary for both short-term and long-term resilience. Study your daily and weekly routines and try to schedule the time you need to focus on each of these components. We often overlook the need to recover — which can be as simple as taking a walk in a park, meditating, or working on a jigsaw puzzle. If you have long workdays and overwhelming workloads, build in short breaks that allow time to recover from periods of high-intensity work. Take vacation.

Problem-Solving

Your level of resilience directly correlates to your ability to maintain a sense of control, even over the smallest things. Spend time and mental energy on issues you can control and influence while letting go of things that are outside of your control (e.g., traffic). Set clear boundaries, communicate them to colleagues, friends, and family, and then use your boundaries to say "no" to requests that would otherwise overwhelm you. Ask “why” five times to get to the root of a problem. Ask for help when you need it.

Meaning and Purpose

A person's sense of meaning and purpose directly links to their resilience. Find ways to insert meaning and purpose into your daily life. For some, meaning and purpose come from religion or family, while others engage in service projects, volunteer work, or hobbies. If you don't find meaning in your work, consider finding another job or shifting your work focus. Be passionate about something. Be helpful to others.

Social Support

In-person social interactions are essential to your well-being and resilience. The depth of individual relationships outweighs the number of connections one has. Nurture your friendships and family relationships and build support among your work colleagues. For fellow introverts, resist the temptation when feeling down to isolate yourself and instead spend time with a close friend who won't drain you of energy.

Positive Outlook

Maintaining a positive outlook builds resilience. Consciously focus on what is going well in your life and, as necessary, positively re-frame the parts that aren’t going so well. Positive re-framing might require you to zoom your perspective in or out or look at an issue from a different angle. Spend time every day thinking about what you are grateful for and then express that gratitude to colleagues, friends, and family. Laugh often.

What helps you build and maintain your resilience?  

___________________________

To learn more about how you and your team can thrive in adversity, visit my website, and follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. And, check out my online Resilience Leadership course.

11 Tips on How to Say No

Photo by Isaiah Rustad on Unsplash.

I believe that the ability to say no is an essential resilience skill since it helps us stay in control of our time and provides the space we need to practice the five resilience factors. Unfortunately, it is tough to say no even when we know we should. If you want to become better at saying no, try some of these tips:

Know Why You Say Yes

Many of us say yes because we want to be the perfect employee, don't want to disappoint others, avoid conflict, or have a strong sense of duty. Identify the reasons you say yes when you would prefer to say no and actively counter them. For example, if you tend to avoid conflict, recognize this and prepare yourself to work through the tension this creates.

Set Boundaries

Set clear limits that allow you to evaluate every request to determine whether it falls within your boundaries. If a request crosses a boundary, remind yourself why you established the boundary and the costs associated with saying yes. Setting priorities is one example of setting boundaries, making it easier to explain that a work request is not a priority at the moment and, therefore, cannot be done.

Take Some Time

Replace an instant yes with “Let me check my calendar” or “I’ll get back to you” to give yourself the time to check whether yes is consistent with your boundaries. If you decide to say no, it gives you time to plan how you will deliver this message.

Be Clear

It’s tempting to water-down a no, but doing so can result in miscommunication about expectations that can eventually damage your reputation and relationship.

Explain Why

Give an honest explanation that you think is most credible to the person making the request. Examples include: “My team is down two people, and we are only taking on new assignments if they are in our top five priorities” or “This is outside my area of expertise, and I don’t want to deliver a sub-par product.”

Don’t Argue

Don’t let your requester argue with you about the validity of your reason for declining the request. If he attempts to debate, repeat your explanation over and over until he gives up.

Remember Long Term Impacts

It is tempting to make someone happy in the short term by saying yes, but if you are overwhelmed and cannot fulfill your promise or provide substandard work, you'll have a very frustrated person later on. You also risk developing a reputation for not keeping promises. It is much better to have some minor disappointment in the near term than anger in the long run.

Provide Other Options

If you want to be helpful without saying yes, direct the asker to different ways she can meet her needs. While not always possible, this can lessen potential conflict or disappointment since the asker is achieving her goal.

Don't Blame the Person Asking

It is common to become annoyed or angry with people who ask for something you do not want to provide. Remind yourself that asking for something, if done professionally, is not wrong. If you struggle to say no, that's behavior for you to address and it doesn't help to blame the asker.

Value the Request

By acknowledging a person but saying no to the specific request, you may reduce your guilt and preserve a meaningful relationship. For example, if a colleague asks you to buy a box of Girl Scout cookies from his daughter, you may respond that you admire the Girl Scouts and think their annual cookie sales is a great effort, however, you’re trying to cut back on sweets and already bought the one box of cookies you allow yourself every year.

Drop the Guilt

Guilt signals that you’ve done something wrong and need to make amends. Many of us feel guilty habitually, even when we’ve done nothing wrong. When you feel guilty, ask yourself, “have I harmed someone or acted in conflict with my values?” If yes, apologize, and do better. If no, remind yourself that there is no reason to feel guilty.

What helps you say no?

___________________________

To learn more about how you and your team can thrive in adversity, check out my online Resilience Leadership course.

Want to Be More Resilient? Try Engaging in These Activities

Since resilience is a state of being, our level of resilience is constantly changing. Sometimes we feel very resilient, which allows us to be more adaptive, flexible, and collaborative.

After experiencing high stress or trauma, we may find our resilience has slipped and we know this because we become more irritable or moody, or maybe we have trouble sleeping (see characteristics of low resilience).

To develop and maintain your resilience, you can incorporate resilience enhancing activities into your regular routine. When you sense your resilience slipping, increase the time you spend on these activities to give yourself a resilience boost. 

Luckily, there are hundreds of activities you can engage in that build resilience. Here are just a few examples divided by the five resilience factors:

Self-Care

• Exercise regularly

• Dance

• Sleep 7-9 hours per night

• Eat a healthy diet

• Drink plenty of water

• Avoid toxic people

• Schedule down time for yourself

• Take a vacation

• Take a mental health day

• Engage in breathing exercises

• Get a pet

• Manage your workload

• Engage in quiet reflection and contemplation

• Meditate, practice mindfulness, pray

• Play sports and games

• Read fiction

• Engage in a hobby

• Sing or play music

Social Support

• Work on your relationships with friends and family

• Talk about what you’re going through with a trusted friend or mentor

• Nurture new relationships

• Commit to regular social interaction (virtual during coronavirus)

• Ask a friend or colleague to lunch (virtual during coronavirus)

• Host a dinner party or social gathering (virtual during coronavirus)

• Join a club/team

• Organize an interest group

• Develop peer mentors

Problem Solving

• Ask for help

• Set boundaries and say no

• Ask questions and be a good listener

• Anticipate change and view change as an opportunity for growth

• Give yourself adequate time to process change

• Identify and address the source of problems you’re facing

• Develop a logical way to work through problems – ask why

• Prioritize people and things that are important to you

• Focus on things that you have control over

• Use a to-do list

• Know when to quit

• Drop burdens and negative thoughts

Meaning & Purpose

• Volunteer

• Join a religious community

• Write down your personal and professional goals

• Engage in activities that bring you a sense of personal satisfaction and fulfillment

• Have a passion for something

• Take time to think about the feelings of others

• Identify your core values

• Self-reflect about your meaning and purpose in life

Positive Outlook

• Focus on the part of your life that is going well

• Limit negative and self-defeating thoughts

• Visualize yourself being successful and happy

• Keep a gratitude journal

• Write down three good things each day

• Compliment other people

• Reframe how you view negative events

• Show authentic appreciation to others

What do you do to build resilience? What can you start doing today?

___________________________

To learn more about how you and your team can thrive in adversity, visit my website, and follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. And, check out my online Resilience Leadership course.