How to become resilient

How resilience can help us navigate challenges at work

In this series on workplace wellbeing, we’re discussing how to manage our personal wellbeing at work. Today, we are shining a light on how resilience can help us navigate difficulties at work.

The Cambridge Dictionary defines resilience as “the ability to be happy, successful, etc. again after something difficult or bad has happened.” Resilience therefore allows us to better navigate difficulties or trauma, which can of course be helpful both at work and in our personal lives. We can think of resilience as a strong foundation, which is not easily shaken. Resilience is the result of proactive work we do to strengthen our coping skills.

If we consider the many stressors we can face at work, it is clear that being resilient is highly relevant for workers. Resilience can help us navigate bigger changes at work that cause anxiety, such as the restructuring of the organisation, as well as support us with managing ongoing stressors or conflicts. For insights into the topic of conflict at work, please take a look at last week’s blog entry.

So how do we become more resilient? Let’s start with our fundamental needs according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: our physiological wellbeing. To assess your resilience, you can ask yourself “am I getting enough sleep?”, “am I eating well?”, “am I making time to exercise?”. If you are overworked, not sleeping, and skipping meals, you should be looking to address this imbalance as a first step.

Next, we need to make sure that we are safe and that we are looking after our mental health. If we feel unsafe at home or at work, our threat system will be activated, making it more challenging to deal with conflict or stressors. If you lack a sense of safety, you can ask yourself “what do I need to feel safe again?” . It might be helpful to speak to HR or to speak to a counsellor to get support. Similarly, if we are dealing with mental health difficulties such as panic attacks or depressive thoughts, we should be prioritising getting support from a clinician.

Besides dealing with mental health difficulties, we can proactively use positive mental health practices to boost our resilience. These are wellbeing strategies that help us live more mindfully, practice self-compassion, and shift our perspective on a problem. Examples of wellbeing strategies are writing a daily gratitude journal, using self-compassionate statements to acknowledge how you are feeling, and rewarding yourself for dealing with challenges. If you don’t relate to reflecting on your thoughts, there are other ways of looking after your wellbeing such as spending time in nature and investing time in your hobbies and interests.

It can also be helpful to look at our mindset as we build up our resilience. If we can reframe challenges as opportunities for growth and remind ourselves of times in the past in which we have coped, we are becoming more psychologically flexible. You can ask yourself “is there a different way of looking at the challenge I am facing?” and “what skills do I have to cope?”.

Besides looking after our physical and mental health, it is important to invest in our social wellbeing to strengthen our foundations. You can ask yourself “am I getting support from friends and family?” or “how can I connect more with others?”. Having meaningful conversations with friends about difficulties at work can build up our resilience and can give us additional perspectives on the situation.

To sum up, resilience building is highly relevant for our wellbeing at work. The basis of resilience is looking after our physical, mental and social wellbeing. If we are able to proactively develop healthy coping strategies to process and manage our thoughts and emotions, as well as leverage additional strategies such as social support, we will have relevant tools to to deal with more challenging situation at work.

Here are three questions for you to assess and build up your resilience:

💡 How are you looking after your physical, mental and social wellbeing?

💡 What positive mental health practices would you like to strengthen?

💡 What mindset shift will help you deal with future challenges?

In this blog series, we will be looking at topics relating to workplace wellbeing. For personalised support, please get in touch. For more content on navigating change, please subscribe to my newsletter.