Five Steps to Build Resilience 

What comes into your mind when you think of ‘resilience’? It can be an elusive quality and though we know we want more of it, it can be hard to know how to get started. 

When I asked our Coaching Catalyst Community members they came up with some brilliant definitions: 

“For me it’s being able to adjust and adapt and believing that I have the resources within me or around me to make it to better days ahead”

“Strength is the word which comes to mind regarding resilience. Strength to carry on, adapt, change.”

“Putting things into perspective, not allowing thoughts/feelings to get carried away, keeping grounded I find helps with being resilient.”

“For me, it’s remembering that when the going gets tough, the tough get going. It’s about accepting that things worth having will involve challenges, and not giving up.”
 

From these definitions, three key aspects seem to emerge: 

1)    Strength- accepting the inevitable curve balls life throws and persevering through difficulty 

2)    Flexibility- willingness to adapt and change when we are met with challenges

3)    Hope- a sense of perspective that “this too shall pass” and there will be better times ahead.

While some people appear to have more natural resilience and seem to have the ability to just ‘bounce back’ from challenging situations, resilience is a muscle that we can all build.

Here are five simple tips to get started: 

1. Get some sleep!

Yes, I have three children and understand this is not 100% within our control!

Yet, without sleep it is incredibly difficult to be resilient. Of course, broken sleep comes with the territory of having small children and we learn to adapt and function on incredibly little sleep. But, sleep deprivation takes its toll on our emotional and physical health over the course of time. 

With regard to sleep, what is within your control? And what is outside your control? 

What changes could you start to make to your daily habits that may impact on the quality of your sleep? 

How can you create opportunities to rest to help compensate for the lack of sleep? 
 

2. Prioritise Self-Care

Again, this was a hard-won lesson I didn’t nail until baby no 3, but it has been transformative.

When we think of self-care it conjures images of things we might do irregularly: like a trip to the spa, but for me, it’s about the habits that we create.

I’m a huge fan of Audre Lorde’s quote: Self care is not indulgent; it is an act of survival. 

It is essential that we take care of ourselves first, so that we can take care of others.

Imagine that your wellbeing is like a table. A table has four legs that support it. If one of those table legs is damaged, the table becomes wobbly. If one table leg is missing, the table is now unstable. And if more than one leg is missing, the table will collapse. 

The four legs or pillars that support my resilience are: sleep, exercise, meditation, connection with loved ones.

What are the four ‘legs’ that support your resilience table?

3. Manage Your Mindset

Unfortunately our brains are pre-disposed to negativity, but the good news is that we can train our brains for resilience. 

So how do we do this? 

Start by becoming aware of your internal negative chatter. What is it saying to you?

When you hear this negative voice, STOP and CHOOSE something different. 

For example, when I catch myself saying “I’m not good enough” I catch this now and reframe: “I’m doing the best I can with the resources I have”.

4. Lower your standards

As high achieving women we often hold ourselves to an incredibly high standard. This can be a positive but when it becomes perfectionism or beating ourselves up, we need to stop this in its tracks. 

When I returned to work after my first baby, I realised I had to cut myself some slack, both in my personal and professional life. So I made myself a promise that I would function at 70% of my previous capacity. This meant putting boundaries in place at work; accepting that I couldn’t attend every baby class and realising that I would need some support on the domestic front.

A few years later, at a conference for women in leadership, the Keynote speaker shared her best tip on how she had managed motherhood and career success. Her advice was that ‘good is good enough’ and that when we are consistently good over time, this leads to outstanding practice. This permission to let go of perfect has served me well ever since. 

Where in your life could you let go of perfect and accept that ‘good is good enough’?

4. Get Support

We know it takes a village to raise a child and yet so many of us find ourselves doing so much without the support we need. 

Think about your support network. It can be really hard to ask for help but when we do, it gives others permission to ask us for help, and we start to lighten the load. 

Remember you don’t need to do this alone. Sometimes we don’t have the internal resources to increase our resilience and if you are struggling, make sure you seek appropriate support. 

Resilience is built gradually and over time. What is one small action that you can commit to daily that will help you build your resilience?

BIO: About Us

Rebecca Daniel and Sarah Bramall are the co-founders of 'The Coaching Catalysts’. They are both highly qualified and experienced ex-teachers, transformation coaches, neuro-linguistic programming and DISC personality profiling practitioners.

Through their private membership community and 1:1 coaching, Rebecca and Sarah support female professionals and entrepreneurs to thrive in all areas of their lives.