#600 Everyday actions for everyday resilience

Helen Tupper (0:00)

Hi, it's Helen from the Squiggly Careers Podcast, and you are listening to one of our Squiggly Career Shortcuts. These episodes come out every Thursday, and they are quite a lot shorter than our Tuesday ones, so they're quick to listen and easy for you to take action. And today's topic is actually one that feels particularly pertinent for me. It is about everyday actions for everyday resilience. And the context for this is I see a lot of people who are maybe feeling a bit overwhelmed by their workload, or they're really struggling with something, and they've almost left resilience too late, as something that they need to consider. So when they come to us for some Squiggly Career support, they're already feeling tired, drained, like things are feeling really, really difficult. And the reality is that we all have ups and downs in our work, but it is a lot easier to maintain your resilience if you are regularly investing in it. And I said this is something that feels quite pertinent to me right now. I have a really, really full on work week, but because I know the science behind resilience, I know that it is equally important for me this week to invest in my resilience reserves as it is to do all the things I've got to do. Because if I don't, I'm much more likely to struggle, to make mistakes, to honestly feel exhausted by Friday, you know, the Friday flop. And so I will be prioritising everything I'm going to talk to you about now. And I'm going to go through six everyday actions that can help you increase your everyday resilience. My recommendation would be, don't try to do all of these. So as I go through them, maybe pick one or two that feel like something that you could regularly invest in, that you could almost do routinely, because it's far better for you to do one or two consistently than to try them all out, feel that that's too much and then not do anything at all. So let's go through each one at a time. I'll tell you exactly how I do it as well so it makes it really real for you. So the first action for everyday resilience is about your optimism. So the research on this shows that the people that have higher levels of resilience are optimistic. They can see the good in the work. They can see the light at the end of the tunnel. The people who struggle are often a bit more pessimistic. And when pessimism takes over, it's really, really hard for us to get through times that might feel quite difficult. So an easy way that we add optimism into our week in our company is we do, so each week we have our, what's your high energy moment? So on a Monday, everyone in my company does this, we share what is your high energy moment? And it is a way that you have something to look forward to, even in a week that can feel quite hard. You can do it as a team, you can do that on your own.

The second thing is about asking for help. So people that have higher levels of resilience are really good at recognising what they might need help with and then they have the confidence to ask people for help. So again, in your week, just have a think about what am I finding hard and who could be helpful for me? And just asking yourself that means you're less likely to be struggling with a situation on your own. So for example, for me this week, I am in lots of meetings, I've got travel, there's just a lot I've got to do. So the help that I need is for somebody to kind of be progressing things behind the scenes. So things that might go into my inbox or actions that people need to do, I need some of that to move forward without me being on it because for the next five days, I just can't. So that's an ask that I will make to some people in my team. So just think about what help do you need, who do you need that help from and be confident enough to ask for it.

The third thing is about celebrating success. So people who are really resilient, recognize what they are doing well. We lose our resilience when we make a mistake, which we all do, but what we do is we kind of struggle with that mistake.

Our inner critic can take control. The way that you counter that inner critic is by building your confidence and making sure that you see and you celebrate your successes. So one of the ways that we do practically this in our team is we have Win of the Week. You could do this on your own, but it's a really nice thing to do together as a team, and resilient teams are helpful for everybody.