Stress is not my favourite emotion at all! – and for me as someone who works in Professional Development and Enterprise formation, opportunities to be stressed out are everywhere!
To prevent myself from getting overwhelmed, I like to build my personal resilience up by maintaining the following behaviours:
Reminding myself that I do have control over my decisions and actions. This is also very important especially when I feel disempowered. For example, instead of feeling frustrated that my train is delayed I like to instantly plan other options for my journey so that I can focus on what I can control rather than feeling frustrated about what I can’t.
Understanding that not everything is in my control is also actually quite nice. Maybe even a ‘get out of jail free card’ for some situations. Sometimes I even think London Transport is running late to gift me sometime to clear my mind before arriving at work.
Gifting time to myself where I’m able to relax and unwind either listening to music or any other stress relieving activities that feel good and the moment is also really helpful for refreshing the body and the mind.
Smiling and laughing often is also really good. I don’t need to be feeling sad to find the opportunity to smile. Sometimes I even catch myself as I’m working by the computer and remind myself to smile just to keep my mood at bay when working on ‘boring’ or ‘stressful’ tasks.
This ties into having a positive outlook on my future. Looking at the differences between where I am now and where I would like to be provides me with opportunities to think positively about what I could do to bridge the gap and arrive at any given future destination as well as feel gratitude for how far I have come since starting my career.
Physical movement is another thing that really helps. I’m not a fan of actual ‘exercise’ (ha ha) but I do make a point of getting my 10,000 steps in per day and making sure I have plenty of fresh air on a regular basis as the day goes by.
I also try to work on quality and consistency of the relationships around me. I find having positive interactions with those I spend my time with (my son, my dog, colleagues, friends and family) to be a great help especially when I’m feeling down.
None of these are that easy to do on down days, but I do find are they help me build and maintain my personal resilience overall.
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I’d love to learn about you!
What do you do to maintain your resilience?
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