Resilience: It’s proactive too!
The word “resiliency” has become sort of a corporate buzzword used in many scenarios as a scapegoat for some less than stellar managers to lean on to not face the issues their people are conflicted with head on. In personal lives, most people associate resilience with a tragic event, tying its use to words such as “condolences” or “overcoming hardships”. However, did you know that with some cognitive training and practice, you can prevent those hard times from overwhelming you when they come.
One of the strongest pillars that uphold our ability to “bounce back” from obstacles is our social networks. For most people, this would include family and friends. However, when you truly think about it, our spouses, loved ones, and even best friends don’t really know what we go through in our professional lives. If you are working a standard 40-hour work week, you spend more time in your profession than you do at home! Therefore, it would strengthen your psychological safety net to bolster those social connections within your professional sphere.
As I stated earlier, resilience often is tied in with very large, and very negative emotions. Yet, there are simple acts that can be done each day to ensure a more positive and resilient environment. The first strategy is very simple, and it merely involves celebrating news with others. Most of us can recall a time when we shared some information on something we were passionate about only to be met with disingenuous head nods or feeling dismissed altogether. Well, you can change that trend with some well-placed active listening. Taking the time to genuinely give interest to the people around you as they share their news with you will weave a blanket of trust and emotional/psychological safety that will produce further honesty and create a more committed environment. This is a simple act, such as turning off your computer’s monitor when someone comes to speak to you, that can really stand out and build your image as someone who cares. This in turn will have people wanting to care for you, as well.
Toxic positivity, or being overly optimistic to the point of naivete, can be detrimental when people are suffering. With that being said, pointing out the positives each day can help rewire people’s brains to less focus on what has gone wrong. Most, if not all, people have an ingrained negativity bias. You can witness this on the local news as you struggle to point out how many positive events are reported on versus tragedies. When you start to feel that the general consensus is getting bitter or jaded, and you can tell that most side conversations are venting or purely complaining, you can take it upon yourself to be that beacon of light and try and subtly steer their mentalities towards one of appreciation. This can foster a more wholesome connection between you and your peers or teams where they will associate you with less negatives, and more as someone they want to be around.
Of course, these are just a few examples, but putting in the time and effort to establish and maintain a social support structure in the workplace can be critical when you come to a point where you feel you have too much on your shoulders. Treating others as people, caring for their ideas, and using empathy (as always) can create the type of resilient safety net that may prevent burnout, morale loss, or even losing your team members all together. We all work with each other and for each other, both up and down. Making it a priority to recognize we all need one another will always pay dividends down the line.
