4 simple techniques for building resilience

Imagine white water rafting down a fast flowing river, you’re being thrown from side to side; your raft is rising and falling, pitching and rolling – you feel sick, it’s relentless and you can’t even catch your breath. Then, you spot an eddy ahead, a placid area of water that’s protected from the torrent around you. You know you have to get back into the rapids, but you just need those few moments to gather your thoughts and summon the strength to keep going.

Now, thinking about your work, does any of this seem familiar? In the modern workplace, deadlines change, goalposts move and we’re expected to do more with less - it’s increasingly difficult to stay at peak performance. Ever feel like you need a second to catch your breath? You’re not alone.

Feeling overwhelmed at work is nothing new and the effects of this are well documented. In 2015/16, 11.7 million working days were lost to workplace stress[1].  Clearly, there are thousands of people out there desperately in need of their own eddy.

So, what can you do?  Well, firstly it’s important to recognise there are some things it’s difficult to change – your workload and the expectations placed on you by others. So, the logical place to start would be to focus your energy on what you can change. Below are some simple tips for building resilience that, when routinely enacted, will help you deal with the challenges of today’s volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world and maintain a more consistent level of performance in your role.