We all know at least one of these people, in our circle of friends or where we work. In their professional lives, they are decisive, self confident, self disciplined, even tempered, energetic, productive, balanced and positive. In their private lives they are supportive, encouraging, patient and fair. These are the successful people that we admire and emulate. We are motivated by their successes and we are driven to obtain what they have achieved.
Most if not all of these people have one skill in common, they have the ability to be resilient. As a result, under duress they remain calm and focused. So how do these people become resilient? Are they just plain lucky? In some cases yes; they were lucky enough to have supportive and encouraging parents who passed this valuable skill onto their children. Normally, people acquire this skill in their adult years by learning to understand what resiliency truly is and what it entails. They are prepared to commit the time and energy that is required to learn and most important to practice resiliency.
The concept of resiliency has been used in reference to how people should respond to life for a long time. Children are told, expected or even forced to be strong and not allow life to affect them, with little or no instruction on how to be so. They learn by exposure, trial and error and by forcing themselves to be so. They develop or learn techniques or methods to deal with the daily demands, expectations and challenges of life. Eventually, these methods would no longer work and at times even work against them. Then, they begin to search for new methods; often looking for the quickest and easiest methods and not being prepared to commit to the time and energy that is required. More often than not, the methods are just another way of forcing oneself to be tough and strong. On and on it goes, looking for new methods , driven by the desire to have the success of the people they so admire.
So, then, what is the secret to becoming resilient? The first step is to understand what resiliency is and what it encompasses. Resiliency is
“1. The ability to recover quickly from sickness, change or misfortune; inner buoyancy.
- The property of a material that enables it to resume its original shape or position after being bent stretched or compressed; elasticity
It is the ability to recover quickly after an emergency, crisis or what we might consider as a stressful situation
There is a concept called the flight or fright response of the nervous system. It is the moment when we are confronted by a stimuli/stressor. Our autonomic nervous system, automatically prepares to confront the situation or flee. For example, when we see a snake while walking in the forest our body reacts to the situation by increasing the breathing rate and the heart rate so that the brain and body will have the important oxygen and nutrients are necessary. The muscles are tensed, our pupils are dilated and inner organs such as the stomach and kidneys decrease functioning so that the energy can be redirected to more important places in the body. All of this in preparation to do battle or to flee. This is an automatic reaction; we are not thinking about increasing our breathing rate or heart rate.
When see that what we thought was a snake is only a piece of rope, our bodies automatically go back to relaxed neutral balanced state. Our bodies do need to be able react to a stimuli/stressor, because it alerts us to danger. In this state we can we can make quick decisions that can prevent a disaster or make us alert to prevent us from making a mistake. There will always be stressors in our lives, distracting us or calling for our attention. The problem that arises is when our bodies remain in that heighten state of alert.
In this alert state, our bodies are tense and we are using up valuable energy. If this state remains constant, our tense muscles begin hurt; we experience pains in our backs, in our necks, in our shoulders and even up into our heads. Our hands become cold and possibly sweaty. We experience problems with our stomachs, kidneys and other organs. In this constant state of vigil we are unable to focus and pay attention. We over react to any stimuli. So, it is in our best interest both in our ability to perform better and to feel better revert back to a neutral state.
In many cases, for what ever the reason, we may be unable to recover quickly or not at all. We try very hard to go to the neutral state but it seems the harder we try to force ourselves to relax, the more tense we become. In desperation, we go to a doctor for medication, for a massage or even a vacation in an effort to release the tension. We may find some relief but soon discover that it s only temporary. Once we return to the crisis or stress situation, our automatic nervous systems become alert once again and the tension returns. These passive and external methods only offer temporary relief.
So what is our alternative? Either we quit the crisis situation or we learn how to recover more quickly. BUT, how can we influence this nervous system that is automatic. Automatic means that we can not control it. Or can we?
Yes, we can, by learning how to mediate, go to yoga or even become a monk. Most of us do not have the time to do this but with the help of modern technology we can learn how to become resilient quicker and in the comfort of our homes or at work. Sensors can be attached to the body to measure the automatic reaction of the body that we were not aware of and believed that we were not able to affect. As we observe our automatic reactions, we learn how we can influence/change those automatic reactions. One way we can influence a body reaction such as our heart rate is by our breathing. As we change/slow down our breathing rate, we change our heart rate which in turns affects the rest of the automatic nervous system. Yes, of course we have known for thousands of years that the pattern of breathing can affect how we feel. But, we have not had something that can tells us if our breathing rate is the right one for us; whether it is good for our hearts. We have had to rely on another person to tell us whether what we were doing is good or bad, which is entirely subjective.
This interactive process is active wellness as opposed to passive wellness. With these tools a person begins to take their life into their own hands by learning what is good for them rather than depending on something or someone on the outside to tells us whether we are doing well.
As we learn and practice to be resilient, we soon learn to recover more quickly. In addition to recovering from a crisis situation quicker we soon begin reacting less dramatically to a crisis situation. We become more calm and focused.
In 2006 the Italian team won the World Football championship in the final penalty shootout. Some people feel that the Italian team was not the best team but the fact remains they won. One of the reasons that they won was because they were more “resilient” than the other teams. They did not react to the stimuli of the thousands of cheering fans. They were able to keep their focus on the task, which was to kick the ball into the net during the penalty shoot out. What was their secret? They did training that utilized the same type of equipment and process as described above.
In business, stress is accepted or even expected. It is not uncommon to hear people in business complain how stressed they are. In many cases, it is more about just letting each other know how hard they are working, that what they do is important and that they are successful. The amount of stress one experiences or reports has become a measuring stick. The more stress, the more successful. The more responsibility you acquire as you progress, the more stressors you acquire. Being stressed almost becomes heroic. In reality, the successful business person should be measured not by how much stress they have but by how resilient they are to the stressors. The successful business leaders of tomorrow will be those who can remain calm and focused.
Resiliency is not a new concept. What is different is how we become resilient. We can either become resilient by forcing ourselves to be resilient or by building our resilience. It becomes an automatic response rather than a controlled response which eventually works against us. Learning how to be resilient is a process that involves time, a commitment, patience and especially practice. We are attempting to change a process that may have taken us years to learn and adopt. As we build our resilience it becomes a powerful tool that can be utilized in all walks of life. The rewards and benefits of resiliency are countless in sports, with our families and at work. The new measuring stick is not how much stress we have in our lives but how resilient we are.
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