Building resilience requires us to reflect on our narrative in adversity i.e. noticing how our narrative plays a part in our judgment and interpretation of the situation. We ask ourselves – can I reframe my narrative by seeing the situation in a different light?
When it’s difficult to move away from our narratives at the moment, Byron Katie’s 4 questions are very helpful to challenge our thoughts. First of all, compose a statement to capture the core of our narrative and then ask these 4 questions:
- Is it true?
- Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
- How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
- Who would you be without that thought?
- Then practice Turn it Around; i.e. see things from different perspectives.
These questions and the exercise of “Turn it Around” can support us to re-evaluate the situation in adversity and help us build resilience.
To deepen the learning, we want to examine our emotions next.
The steps can be as follows:
– Noticing what emotion is triggered, what the trigger is, and what our default response is. This is practicing self-awareness.
For example, I feel anxious (emotion) when my team does not deliver as expected (trigger). I would push them to work harder (default response).
– Noticing a trigger, acknowledging the emotions triggered, halting our default response, and responding in a new way. This is practicing self-management.
For example, I feel anxious when my team does not deliver as expected. Instead of pushing them to work harder, I negotiate one more week to deliver. We all feel relieved.
With self-management, we build our resilience accordingly. David Drake says “Resilience is a continuous process of calibration”. That speaks to building resilience too. It takes intentions to calibrate and it’s a process!
What other tools do you use to build resilience?