I asked a group of managers today how they would describe ‘resilience’. Their respose was ‘how you bounce back’. We then proceeded to have a conversation about maintaining one’s resilience in times of change and stress. I know from my own experiences of the last few years, resilience can be a resource that slowly wears down. I don’t ‘bounce-back’ as easily as I did 5 years ago, and the conversation got me wondering about we, as Business Leaders and busy women increase our bounce-back-ability.
Rest
For me, a key part of my diminishing ‘elasticity’ is in large part attributed to my new parenting role. My eldest turned five last month, my second and youngest is two and a half. There is rarely a night where I’m not interrupted at least once by at least one of them. The interruptions are short and easily dealt with now, but long gone are the days of a solid eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. I’m also guilty of working late into the evening, largely because I want to and I find that I’m quite productive when I do. However this has a knock-on effect in terms of sleep. Late to bed, interrupted and still early-up to meet the day’s commitments. There’s no doubt more sleep would make the world of difference. In addition to the sleep is of course just ‘down-time’. I know I’m not alone that as working parents (this is no longer a women-only issue) we are always ‘on’ and there is little opportunity for our own rest and rejuvenation. That of course impacts our resilience resources.
Network
Another contributor to our resilience I think is our ability to bounce ideas and share a common reality. Being a business owner can be lonely at times and there are often few people we can ‘unload’ to. This means thoughts, emotions and frustrations are often bottled up or, if you’re like me, continue in a monotous loop of random internal dialogue. If you’re going through a challenging time, this internal dialogue can have a very slow yet profound impact on your state of mind and therefore your resilience. I noticed in the group I was working with today, the very fact they came from the same organisation and had together experienced rapid change at least normalised their feelings, they were all a bit ‘battered and bruised’ but their resilience was as affected as people who go through such experiences on their own.
Physicality
We know the importance of diet, exercise and personal health and well-being. Nothing more needs to be said. Except that it is important for reasons other than our physical health. Our mental health is dramatically affected too. I know my resilience drops when my exercise drops so finding any time for exercise is important. They’re my random ramblings about improving my own resilience, my mental notes-to-self about improving my ability to bounce-back. I’m therefore curious and keen to share – what do you do? What works for you?
