First – Identify Your Stressors

Most people lead fast hectic lifestyles, with the result that multiple sources of potential stress can occur in the workplace, family and social life. My clients often report their tipping point comes when ‘that something extra occurs’, such as unexpected demands at work or experiencing the emotional changes of a death, divorce, redundancy.  Emotionally resilient people have the tools to manage pressure and therefore do not suffer the negative effects of prolonged stress. Without resilience, a person may find that prolonged bouts of stress can harm confidence and self-esteem and may even lead to worse mental and physical conditions.

Second – Identify Your Beliefs and Behaviours

A person’s belief structure is important. Emotionally resilient people retain a positive outlook on life, and they have a belief in their own ability to return to a normal state of wellbeing.

So, the next time pressure starts to build up and you experience the negative effects, note the changes in your perception. For example, stress can manifest itself in varied forms, through physical, psychological and social dysfunction.  In other words, people with stress may experience symptoms of increased respiration, palpitations, headaches and they may present changed and negative behaviours to other people, suffer self doubt, and even withdraw from social activity.

Third – Just How Balanced is Your Mindset and Lifestyle?

Emotionally resilient people bounce back quickly. Some have good defences against adversity –  they have a history  that has formed a narrative for coping mechanisms; others, have learnt the tools, gained through having a  better understanding of themselves.

In learning the tools, it is very important to set realistic goals in our daily life and not to over face ourselves.  Different personality profiles adopt different behaviours – and behaviours can be modified. People with absolutist mindsets who are unable to compromise increase their own expectations with deadlines and self-pressure.  Whereas, people who seek to please tend to lack assertiveness and take on too much work.  Many people procrastinate endlessly over decisions – and this increases pressure. The result is that when goals are not met, negative behaviours can arise and self belief can become affected.

So, when we have a narrative or the tools to cope, we move in a balanced zone of wellbeing.

Regular exercise and a support network are very important to a balanced life, along with the knowledge that we have other skills and abilities we can be proud of outside the workplace – such as a hobby, and thus creating the idea of ‘work-life balance.’

How to Work Towards Resilience

It is key that we recognise the importance of enabling behaviours

• Maintain our self belief and feel a sense of control
• Have motivation during difficult times
• Set ourselves realistic goals we can achieve
• Be empathetic and caring towards other people
• Communicate well and feel good about ourselves
• Accept our own mistakes as part of our learning framework

If you would like a more in-depth discussion on the subject of Resilience and how you can learn the tools to increase your well-being to enable you to become more effective contact Executive Coach and Hypno-psychotherapist, Sara Howard for a free phone consultation. Tel: 07827 505389 or email sara-howard@sky.com