What is resilience?
Resilience is having the ability to overcome challenges, trauma, set backs, personal crises and obstacles and bounce back stronger, and wiser, feeling empowered.
Resilience is an emotional intelligence in contrast to our intellectual intelligence. It is how we manage our emotional world to deal with the uncertainties and difficulties in life. People with higher levels of resilience can deal with work better, are more likely to succeed and will be able to harness the skills and attributes they have.
We all have different levels of resilience and at different times will feel more or less resilient. A good analogy is the one of a glass. We get up in the morning and the dishwasher has leaked all over the floor; we can add a good measure to our glass. We miss our train, there is not one for 20 minutes as there are delays; we can add another measure to our glass. Someone pushes into us on the train and is rude when we mention it; add another. We get to work and our boss asks us to help out with something that we do not usually do, the glass may spill over.
As resilience is an emotional intelligence it makes sense that our capacity for it is dependent on our emotional well-being. For example if we are tired, stressed and over worked we will have much less ability to be resilient. It makes it even more important that we take actions to ensure our emotional welfare and health as it helps us access the skills needed to be resilient.
In our next Insight Article we explore Why resilience is Important to success.
Insights Article written by Leanne Hoffman – Developing People Trainer/Consultant and practising Psychotherapist