5 Tips To Build Your Resilence
By Paula Conway
If you feel emotionally and physically empty well before the end of the day, you’re not alone. Many of us are feeling depleted in far less time than the average work day because of the added stress of adjusting to the new normals in life. Our ability to muster up the energy and courage to meet the day’s demands and the mercurial nature of the pandemic we face requires added endurance and strength, something we need right now but also need to build for future reserves so that we may emerge even stronger.
According to the American Psychological Association, resilience is the process of “adapting well in the face of adversity, tragedy, threats or significant sources of stress…” To do so, we need to be both mentally and physically strong, which requires some focus and work. Here are 5 ways to muster strength now and build your resilience reserves for the road ahead
Keep Up With Your Connections
Your friends, family and long-time supporters are the lifeblood of your happiness. At your core you want to know that they are safe and well and discover new ways of connecting.
Facebook research reveals that talking online or off to friends is associated with improvements in well-being. Take the time to check in on everyone you care about. Having the emotional support right now will help you face these daily challenges with a fresh perspective. This also applies to business connections. You may read a social media post that someone is struggling in business, or quite the opposite that they are thriving. No matter which way the chips fall, reconnect with them. The wheel keeps turning so everyone you know is valuable to your wellbeing.
Think Positively About Your Future
Having a mental image of the great things to come will help you move the balls forward. This is simply positive thinking; visualizing all of the wonderful things you will be doing two, three, six months out and so forth,and being excited about it. Johns Hopkins Medicine sites the link between positive thinking and cardiovascular disease. A study on positive thinking by Lisa R. Yanek, a master of public health and associate professor at Johns Hopkins University, found that people with a family history of risk factors for coronary artery disease who were positive thinkers were 13 percent less likely to have a heart attack or coronary event than their negative counterparts. Your ability to forge ahead in difficult times is directly linked to your health, so take extra measures to infuse your body with good positive thinking.
Take Care Of Yourself
We know that mental and physical health is linked, and that you need to perform regular maintenance on your body to impact your mental health. Physical fitness is critical right now to be prepared for the challenges ahead. Being physically fit does not mean you need to lose 15 pounds immediately. Getting fit is simply taking care of your body, building strength and building up your cardiovascular strength to be able to bounce back in tough times. There are many low-impact ways to get fit, including walking daily, bike riding, and low-impact weight training. Companies like Team Body Project offer hundreds of on-demand fitness programs to choose from, including this free low-impact video workout for beginners.
Embrace Change
The book Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson was published in 1998 and became an instant New York Times business best-seller. The book is a fable about two mice and the typical reactions and responses to change in work and life. The lesson illustrates that change is inevitable and embracing it is the key to success, and that instead of getting stuck in the moment, you must grow to move forward. While some goals might not be attainable right now, look to the ones that can be fulfilled and accept that the only certainty is that things will change. If you work at changing your perspective on inevitable change and welcome the unknown, your resistance to negative forces will build.
Maintain Perspective
No matter how deeply you look at the situation, the reality is rarely ever as bad as it may seem. In a list of 50 quotes on perspective from Psychology Today, these standouts provide some enlightenment we can all draw from:
“Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough.” ― Oprah Winfrey;
“Life is 10 percent what you make it and 90 percent how you take it.” ― Irving Berlin;
“The optimist sees the donut, the pessimist sees the hole.” ― Oscar Wilde;
“And those who were seen dancing, were thought to be crazy, by those who could not hear the music.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche;
“If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is—infinite.” ― William Blake
Paula Conway is a best-selling author with Harper Collins and the President and Founder of Astonish Media Group in New York City. Follow Astonish on Instagram @astonishmediagroup.
