By Steve Beseke, Doctor of Life Resiliency, beseke1@earthlink.net, steve.beseke@resiliencyfirst.com (Check out my new work and life resiliency e-books at www.resiliencyfirst.com)
Early in his successful presidential run, Barack Obama mentioned he used a resilient mindset in keeping on track, staying focused, understanding how other people see him and staying emotionally healthy. Wow! In times of struggle for all of us, the lesson I learned from the President is the need to look hard at your resilient self and understand the needs you want achieved.
Now, this is not a political article, and I am not going to discuss Democrats or Republicans. Although both could learn a lot from applying my resilient strategies – especially the art of compromise.:)
Sometimes, I think we are our own worst “enemies” when it comes to our own work and life resiliency. Been there and done that…many times!
Yes…the world these days can definitely be a bit daunting if we let it. Whether you are looking for work or are employed but maxed out, all of us should adopt or fine-tune our own resilient mindset that can keep us from going nuts!
Ever-increasing budget cuts, college expenses for your kids, workload expectations going through the ceiling panels, working more with a lot less and, yes, the notion that layoffs are not over yet sometimes stare us in the face.
You may be at a wonderful resilient edge of a new promotion, partnership, new job or personal relationship. But, for some reason, you get unnecessarily nervous. You begin, ever so slightly, to doubt yourself. You lose a bit of confidence not maybe shown to the outside world but inside where you think about it over and over again.
Why? A simple, yet thought-provoking answer is I think all of us want everything to go just perfect in this imperfect world. But we realize that there are some life aspects none of us cannot have ultimate control.
All of us go through those dark side moments – whether we want to admit them or not. You can be a CEO of a top Fortune 100 company, or someone just looking for his/her first job after college. It is not that we want to go there. Those are the shared human experiences in dealing with the emotions of the good and the “warts” of the not as pleasant. Coy as it seems, as one of Frank Sinatra hits is titled, That’s Life.”
It really is how we react, dust ourselves off and get through those sometimes agonizing inner-moments that allow most of us to stay happy, successful and liking ourselves – on most days.:)
As you look at your work and life resilience, you may want to mull through the following questions you may face every day:
- What resilient strategies are you using to get past those potentially black-hole moments in your life and work?
- How do you deal with difficult customers, colleagues, supervisors or even friends/loved ones?
- Are you involved in chaotic or exhausting work or life events that you feel very little control over?
- Does it seem like you have to solve the challenges and problems of your loved ones, colleagues or direct reports even before your first cup of coffee every morning?
- Are you asked to overcome work or life issues that seem overwhelming or unsolvable?
- Do you find you are becoming less resilient to taking sometime challenging life or work events in stride?
If you’ve said “yes” to any of these, don’t feel alone.
A survey of employees found that 78 percent said “yes” to at least one of these questions. Ninety percent said “yes” in their personal lives. More than 50 percent said “yes” to all of them…
Are you surprised? I wasn’t. I have spent nearly 30 years successfully (or mostly successfully) stamping out the fires that probably keep you up at nights. Some of my fun – that we may all have gone through has included:
- The last second “request” by the CEO to totally rewrite his approved upcoming speech – and do it in the next hour for his plane ride review…
- The teenager who just can’t see how his/her sometimes-insensitive actions can hurt others.
- The direct report who was to present a white paper at a conference but accidentally deleted the presentation 15 minutes before his presentation – the IT guys had fun with that one.
- The spouse who goes nuts because he/she cannot control certain family situations.
- Staying up all night to meet a project deadline that unknowingly that day had been pushed back two weeks.
You, of course, can fill in your own additional, unique examples…
The number of times I have been “knocked down” trying to navigate through the turbulent currents that we call “the office” or “life,” has taught a number of emotional and practical realities. The most important is I have used my resilient mindset as a guiding post to get back/or stay on the right path.
I use the phrase “resilient mindset,” which I define as dealing effectively with all aspects of your work and life. These may include sometimes challenging loved ones, customers, colleagues or possibly being nervous that our challenging economy might affect your job/way of life.
This also means springing back from adversity to take pleasure in the quiet moments with your spouse, significant person, children, friends or yourself – and even realizing that work/life balance is more than just a concept on a corporation’s blotter.
To keep your work and life resilience at a healthy level, I have found the art of compromise, adaptability, finding common ground, and understanding my strengths and weaknesses very important.
I have highlighted many examples of these strategies over the last two years in my more than 120 resiliency articles worldwide and nearly 100 talks with corporations and groups. Be looking for additional poignant examples – including those of you who have given me permission to mention a few of yours – in the future.
A consistent act of resilient vigilance is that we should never get ourselves in a position to see ourselves as our own worst enemies as I defined earlier. A colleague of mine says it simply and best: It serves very little purpose and only challenges our own confidence and fuels unnecessary doubts.
Similar to the President and so many others throughout our history, we need to uncover our resilient selves to overcome such inner (and outward) craziness that inevitable gets in our way…
Like in this piece, I receive many resilient article ideas from you. I definitely appreciate your input, support and readership.
Please, again, take a look at my two newest resiliency e-books with another being published shortly. My web site is www.resiliencyfirst.com.
I hope you are having a resilient day!
Photo By: thebadastronomer