Equipping Ourselves For Adversity

In our crazy world, it’s easy to become over-stretched. The gravity of ‘busy’ drags us away from nurturing vital parts of our lives. We need to regain balance. It’s about building strengths in five areas – Physical, Family, Social, Emotional and Spiritual – and developing the perspective to know what’s really important.

I arrived at the end of 2016 metaphorically on my knees. The overwhelm and pace of running hard in my consultancy business whilst also preserving my family life had taken its toll. And I know I’m not alone.

In the lead up to the Christmas break, I remember three distinct, yet essentially identical conversations. The first was with a mentoring client, the CEO of a fast-growth tech business. He’d had one hell of a year and was feeling the resultant pressure both at work and home.

The second was with a senior corporate leader who bemoaned the increasing joylessness within his big 4 ‘employer of choice’ bank. Finally, another mentoring client, a psychologist, told me how he is seeing increasing incidences of mental health, substance abuse and relationship breakdowns. Our resilience is being tested as never before – and we’re coming up short.

Developing Resilience Is Fundamental, Yet Largely Overlooked

Unless we address the fundamental need to equip ourselves to show up more or less happy and in good shape for the long haul, our personal aspirations and business plans will go unrealised. Building resilience is foundational to EVERYTHING.

How Did We Get Here?

Whether you work in an organisation or for yourself, you’ve probably never experienced a more competitive environment. To be at the races, let alone win them, we all need to do more with less and faster. We have to constantly adapt to stay relevant to our customers and we must learn to live with failure and fear.

Any divide between our personal and professional lives has evaporated. Busy execs and time-strapped entrepreneurs are just as likely as gaming teenagers to be busted for breach of the ‘no devices at the table’ rule. We can find ourselves stuck in an exhausting ‘always on’ mode – ‘enabled’ by new technology.

Steve Jobs has a lot to answer for!

It’s easy to get overwhelmed. These pressures are very real. The expectation and technologies are not going away. Part of our self-leadership success story must therefore be to manage our personal resources and energies so that we can perform well without burning out. In a word we need to become more RESILIENT.

Equipping Ourselves For Adversity

My resilience model captures the essential elements we need to recognise and balance to maximise our resilience. It’s based on the thinking behind the US Army’s Comprehensive Soldier (and family) Fitness programme.

The CSF was born from frustration at the high number of combatants returning from war theatres with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The Army’s traditional response was essentially reactive, with few preventative measures in place.

Research suggested that soldiers were often over-reliant on a few pillars of strength for their overall wellbeing (typically physical fitness, and sense of belonging to the army unit – Physical and Social in the model). If these become undermined by exposure to the stresses of war, it becomes almost inevitable that PTSD will follow.

A positive psychology approach has since been developed and implemented across the entire US Army. Simplistically, it encourages soldiers to develop a broader range of supports on which they can draw to retain balance and wellbeing in times of adversity. So rather than standing on a two legs, we instead create greater stability by developing five! I call this the Resilience 5 Pack!

The Resilience 5 Pack

It’s all about perspective

Whilst we’re not soldiers, I believe the same principles are just as valid for the rest of us. It’s about recognising and developing strengths in five areas of our lives – Physical, Family, Social, Emotional and Spiritual.

1. Physical • work it out

Pretty obvious, but many of us still do not do this well. Whilst we are not about to go ‘over the top’ into a hail of bullets, keeping ourselves physically fit is important. We need to exercise and balance our diet, drinking and sleep.

This is part of the integration of mind, body and heart. I run, row and swim regularly – a great way to clear the head. The CEO I mentioned has taken up a daily yoga regime and is already feeling the benefits. 

2. Family • share the load

They may drive you crazy on occasion, but family trumps all! We need to value those who are close to us. I know I’ve got this out of whack at times in the last couple to years. A good way to re-focus is to answer that golden question – “what’s my why”. Forget all the Facebook friend crap – cultivating real relationships is critical.

3. Social • buddy up

Dr. Brené Brown states that “connection is the why we are here”. We are social animals. We need to connect with others outside of work and, within it, ensure we nurture the social skills that engage different neural networks. It’s so easy to consign this one to the ‘too busy’ basket. I play rugby mainly for the social element. It’s great to chew the fat with a bunch of guys who have nothing to do with my day to day. At a recent leadership workshop I ran, one of the group decisions was to socialise less with each other to re-build a healthier work/home separation. 

4. Emotional • mental muscle

Make no mistake, the pressures of managing ourselves to deliver against a multiplicity of demands and expectations (from others or ourselves) can take a very real toll. We need to find a way to feed our emotional strength. I think that starts with first making ourselves vulnerable. I have a few male friends who I can confide in at a deep level. This works for me, but counselling or other strategies are great too.

5. Spiritual • feed my soul

A very personal one, but, again, worth naming, addressing and nurturing. I am a Christian and I know I get great strength from this – especially on the tough days. Like the other 5 strengths, I have to work at it. When I do I know that I am better at what I do. Others may look to meditation, helping others or connecting with nature.

Perspective Sits In The Middle Of Everything

To maximise our resilience, there is nothing better than taking the time to know where we are:

In relation to others

The vast majority of people on the planet will always worse off than anyone reading this. Losing a sale, missing a plane or dropping our iphone is not the world’s biggest tragedy!

As a Lifeline crisis telephone support worker, I speak to a lot of achingly lonely people. This has heightened my awareness of just how important our need to connect is.

In relation to ourselves

Run a health check around these five pillars. What are you doing well – what do you need to fix up? Score yourself out of 5 for each and put in place 3 actions to top up any area in which you are weak.

Mastering resilience is key to achieving and maintaining our success – whatever that means for you. We are not sprinters – we need to condition ourselves for the longer haul – to suffer the slings and arrows and still turn up the next day with a smile!

If you can do that, you are in the game.