Understanding resilience
Even when problems seem insurmountable, resilience can help you keep going, deal with them positively and continue on towards your goals. Learn more about this useful skill and how it can work for you.
What is it?
It may seem like a personality trait, but resilience is a skill you can learn to help you confront challenges and deal with them positively and quickly. It allows you to move forward and gain valuable learning experiences along the way.
Why is it important?
When difficulties arise in the workplace, resilience allows you to control your emotions, put things in perspective and work through solutions without getting derailed. You can even anticipate or prepare for issues before they occur. But for those challenges that arrive seemingly out of nowhere to sink you and your plans, resilience allows you to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and leap back.
What’s an example?
Yesterday you sent your boss the final version of a customer report that’s taken you six weeks to prepare and three rounds of changes to get right. You’re tired, but proud of your work and your boss is happy with the outcome. Today, however, she has grabbed you for a chat. She informs you that the customer has made some amendments; not because of the quality of your work but because their focus has ‘shifted’. In short, you’re going to have to redraft pretty much the entire report. Oh, and the customer is also going to need it in a fraction of the time it took you to create the original version – basically by the end of the week. Given that you are racing to complete another major project while handling work for a teammate who is out with the flu, it’s fair to say that the timing couldn’t be any worse.
While it’s natural to feel like crawling under your desk, hiding away from the world is not going to fix things. So how do you find the strength to push through the pain and go another round?
This is where resilience is your greatest ally. Without allowing frustration and disappointment to overwhelm you, you remain calm and take stock. You understand that you’re dealing with forces outside your control and not a situation of your own making. You reflect that everyone has their own personal take on what makes a piece of work perfect so it isn’t a criticism of you or your style, it’s just a difference of opinion. Taking this perspective allows you to rationally assess what is required to complete the job. You realise that having done all the groundwork and knowing the project inside and out, you can actually create another draft meeting the latest requirements quite quickly. Knuckling down, you manage to deliver a new draft of the report on time, impressing your boss and proving your resilience. Which comes in very handy when the customer returns with more changes.
In whichever industry you work, recurring issues can grind you down, putting your professionalism and abilities to the test. Resilience is key to helping you carry on. Click here to get some tips on finding and using your resilience and then start testing out some challenges with our practical exercise.
