Work tends to create a lot of pressure in our lives - and is responsible for high levels of stress for many. Resilience at work isn’t about never getting anything wrong or always showing up perfectly. In fact, research has found that those individuals and teams that are challenged tend to build up much more resilience as a result. Key elements of resilience include optimism, being able to remain psychologically steady and having the mindset and habits that will support you in your career. Here are some simple ways to boost your resilience at work.
Get into the mindfulness habit
There are lots of benefits to regularly practising mindfulness, from cognitive flexibility to having more accurate judgment and insight-related problem solving. Learned resilience skills like mindfulness tend to insulate against stress too and improve productivity and engagement. One of the simplest ways to get into mindfulness is to be more aware of how you’re feeling in any given moment - and note the impact this has on your body. There are also plenty of apps and books that you can use to explore this as a habit.
Compartmentalise your cognitive tasks
Continuously switching from one task to another has a negative impact on productivity and makes it harder not to get distracted. So, one of the simplest ways to be more resilient and productive is to combine related tasks together and do them at the same time.
Switch off regularly during the day
Our mental focus, energy and clarity cycles usually last up to 120 minutes - we can continuously sustain a high level of this throughout the day. That’s why it’s so important to take regular breaks to ‘switch off’ so that you get the time to reset and return to work in a new cycle of focus, energy and clarity. That means regularly scheduling in breaks to your day where you’re doing something completely different, for example physical activity or mental rest.
Focus on nurturing mental agility
This is what will give you the ability to respond, rather than react, to situations that are happening around you. One of the simplest ways to do this is to develop more self-compassion. Self-compassionate people have the power to step back in challenging times, retain perspective and continue to make smart and well-informed decisions that aren’t being driven by emotion or stress. Without this we can get stuck in cycles of shame, blame or self-punishment that reduce agility and block access to the thinking brain.
Learn how to reframe situations
The art of cognitive reframing can be incredibly useful in a work setting, as it allows you to change the way you’re perceiving what’s happening without actually making practical changes. That could be looking at a situation in which you feel like you’ve made an unforgivable error as an opportunity to get curious about how to do things differently and what you could learn, for example. Reframing is vital for a growth mindset, which will allow you to keep moving forward through failure and not get stuck.
If you’re keen to boost your resilience at work - and enjoy all the benefits of that - then these are some great first steps to take. Find out more by booking onto our Introduction to Building Personal Resilience training course.