Founder of Regenerate, a training firm focused on sustainable performance for high-pressure career professionals and fast-paced companies.
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What’s on your plate today? If you’re a business leader, you likely have a full slate of meetings and a lengthy to-do list. Are you relying on having enough time to handle them? If so, you’re already out of luck.
Even as many of us continue working remotely, we’re still reporting more work hours than ever. We can’t manage the overwhelming responsibility unless we’re relying on something greater than the hours available in our day. That’s when we need energy to fuel our resilience. When we rely on energy to meet greater demands, we expand our capacity for productivity, leadership and engagement.
How Resilience Works
People often think of resilience as recovering from stress quickly and efficiently. That’s true. But the second part of resilience is the one that can be a game-changer. Along with the ability to recover, resilience also raises the threshold for stress, so you can competently handle more without burning out. When we regularly cultivate resilience, we are stronger in the face of challenges and the relentless onslaught of the modern workplace.
I’ve personally experienced the need for resilience. In fact, it led me to work in this field and guide others to greater personal sustainability. Career changes, a move to a new city and a serious medical diagnosis for my son all hit me at once. I wanted to prove myself as a professional and be the hero for my family. However, as demands on my time and focus increased, my capacity to meet those demands diminished. I was able to juggle a lot until I wasn’t. The strain I was experiencing—physically, emotionally and mentally—was wearing me down.
What Changed For Me And How To Make The Change For Yourself
A conversation with my son sparked a mindset shift regarding my personal bandwidth and priorities. I began making purposeful changes to the ways I worked, connected and recharged.
For example, I saw the strain my constant connection to work was putting on my relationship with my family, so I made conscious efforts to compartmentalize instead of allowing work to spill over into every aspect of life. I made even bigger shifts related to my perspective and the way I handled demands on my time and energy. Instead of reacting immediately to every stressor, I pulled back, taking time to respond mindfully and use my energy more effectively.
Gaining greater resilience didn’t happen overnight. I had to work at it, building my toolbox for handling stress and shifting my responses. Challenging situations still occurred. But when they did, I was able to recognize they were temporary and resiliently move past them.
I talk often about challenge stress. It’s the stress that drives us when we’re working through a crisis, trying to land a key sales deal or pushing our teams to meet deadlines. Many of us do our best work under its influence. However, you can only perform under pressure if you’ve cultivated resilience before the challenge is staring you in the face. When you focus on building your resilience in times of peace, you can call upon it in times of difficulty.
It all starts with the brain. You have the power to choose which part of it responds when you face a challenge. The amygdala (primitive, reactive part of the brain) generates knee-jerk responses. When you give your amygdala free rein, you push your body into a state of chronic stress and increase its production of stress-related hormones that reduce your capacity. When you’re depleted, your body and mind are on the defensive. Thinking from the primitive portion of your brain makes you more likely to take offense or perceive an innocent comment as a negative slight.
You can change your response by keeping your antennae up for your own reactivity, then working with your brain. Take a pause—literally stop for a moment to consider what's happening rather than making an immediate and reactive judgment. This one small action can shift you from the amygdala—caught in the grip of perceived fear and conflict—to the prefrontal cortex, the beautiful domain of your brain where you can make higher-level, more reasoned decisions.
How To Stop Being The Hero And Be There For Yourself
So many high-achieving leaders I work with want to be superhuman. However, being the hero doesn’t mean you’ve developed resilience. On the contrary, I worked with a client who was considered a rising star, yet spent many mornings before work stress-vomiting. They put on a good face for the office even while running in survival mode.
We’re all going to function in survival mode at some point. When you develop resilience, you equip yourself so you have the tools to get through survival mode and come back stronger.
I encourage my clients to conduct frequent cognitive reappraisals and create a framework for managing their stress. To complete a cognitive reappraisal, separate the reality of a situation from your natural emotional reaction. Move from your initial subjective interpretation of an event and shift your thoughts from the emotional centers of the brain to areas with higher reasoning/cognitive function.
Start by:
• Reviewing the stressors that are affecting your time and energy. How are you relating to them emotionally?
• Noticing whether you experience a knee-jerk reaction to adverse events because you don’t have the current capacity/energy to face them.
• Considering whether stressors become a major disruption to your life/work, or whether you recognize them as temporary challenges/growth opportunities.
I worked with my client to change their unsustainable energy processes and responses. We established boundaries between work and renewal time, optimized their time/energy management and utilized the brain science tools I mentioned—all with a goal of improving their resilience and well-being.
Resilient leaders take charge of the narrative around their own stress, so they’re running the show instead of allowing their minds/emotions to run wild. When you set yourself up for resilience and growth, you prepare for life’s challenges and create the pathways to successfully navigate through them.
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