Coach – Workplace Resilience

Treading Water

Do you know someone that is going through a bad time or has ever experienced a rough patch in their life?

Let’s be honest-no one is immune to heartache. At some point in your life, you will go through a difficult time. You will be disappointed, disheartened, and feel like you can’t go on. You will think that this new CHANGE that has occurred is just way too much to handle.

How do I know this? Because there isn’t a person alive that gets through life without some bad scrapes and bruises. It’s part of the whole journey that is referred to as “life”. And at some point, it will be your turn to endure some difficult experience.

I have heard countless stories of getting fired from a job, grieving a loved one, not achieving your dream, having a loved one disappoint you and the list goes on.

So, here’s a couple things to remember so that you’re a bit more prepared and resilient for the next low point that you encounter:

This is only a moment in time.

When you’re going through this bad time, you don’t have perspective. You become so immersed in your pain and sadness that you neglect to understand that this is a temporary condition. This horrible pain is not going to last for eternity. This feeling is just for now and will eventually subside. The fact that the sadness is for now and will pass is always a tough concept for people to accept when they are in the midst of a disappointment. They feel trapped and can’t see outside the walls of their agony. But trust me, it will pass, and things will lighten up. Just keep repeating this to yourself.

You are not unique-we all have some burden to carry.

When you are going through a challenging time, it’s easy to look around and think that you are unique. It feels like everyone else is living a fairytale life while you are struggling to get through another day. Remind yourself of the truth-no one’s life is perfect and you are presently seeing the world through a distorted lens. Wallowing in this is not going to help you move forward.

You need to allow yourself to let go of the loss

People don’t like to feel pain. They will go to great lengths to avoid any hurtful feelings. However, there is a certain amount of pain you must walk through in order to get to the other side. Numbing the pain won’t work and neither will distractions and positive talk. Yes, they might give you some temporary relief, but the only way to truly move forward is to be honest and vulnerable with your feelings and be willing to trudge through it until you reach acceptance. Maybe then, you can get some understanding and put the pain and the experience in the right place.

You can’t rush the experience of finding meaning in your heartache. That comes only with time and the willingness to truly dig through your feelings. So have the strength and courage to face the situation and know that better times are ahead

Making Change Happen

I was working out at the gym recently when I spied a new piece of cardio equipment. I noticed a few people trying it out and I was curious as to what I might be missing. Finally, I worked my way over to check it out. On my way, I passed one of the employees and I inquired about the machine.

She informed me that she already had used the new equipment and had stayed on this “climbing apparatus” for 70 minutes. Well, if she could do it, so could I. As I journeyed toward the machine, I came across a few other people that had tried it out. They all reassured me that it was very hard. I got snapped in and quickly started climbing. Within seconds, I felt myself struggling to catch my breath— it took all my willpower to stay on for 2 whole minutes. When I got off the machine, I was shaking and gasping for air.

I made it through a whole 2 minutes of climbing. Now, what irritated me about this experience was that I consider myself to be in pretty good shape. I bike long distances every weekend and I have built up my endurance. Yet, I struggled to make it through 2 minutes!

I decided that I was capable of much more than that first try. Two days later, I got on the climber and told myself that I was not getting off until it hit 5 minutes. A couple of days after that, I told myself that I was going to make it 10, and so on, until last week, when I made it through 45 minutes on that evil machine.

Now, how did that happen?

Along the way, people would come over to assess my progress. I would listen to their multitude of rationalizations as to why they shouldn’t and wouldn’t work out on this particular piece of equipment. In other words, they had excuses to not take action.

There’s a reason that I’m sharing this story and it’s not to impress everyone with my physical prowess. I don’t think that this experience is much different than anything you attempt to take on in life. The first time you try something new can be quite difficult and to be honest, failing miserably is not a good feeling. I’m betting that you’re a lot like me and you like to feel confident and comfortable in what you attempt in life. However, the key to making it to the other side is being willing to walk through the bad feelings.

You see, the individuals that I witnessed trying it out and never going back could not get past that uncomfortable feeling. They were not able to wait it out for those good feelings that finally kick in when you make it to 45 minutes. They could not see past RIGHT NOW.

And there you have it. Whether it’s a potential career opportunity at work, a new diet that you need to adopt, or the thought of a career switch, the future can look quite unpredictable and downright uncomfortable. However, if you can just acknowledge the way you feel, WHY you feel the way you do, recognize the rationalizations for what they truly are (excuses), and STILL push through the uncomfortable feelings, you’re going to achieve your life goals.

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The Art of Optimism

I have a friend that struggles to stay positive. Whatever happens in her life, she imagines the worst possible scenario. She has difficulty accepting that her situation is often just temporary and that it’s possible for things to turn around and improve. Frankly, she thinks people that who are optimistic are just kidding themselves. Her belief is that in real life, things don’t work out the way you want.

Do you know anyone with this perspective on life?

Elizabeth Tenney, a Professor of Business Management at the University of Utah, was curious about the role that optimism played in the workplace. What she found surprised her. Her research concluded that optimism didn’t help a person improve their performance as much as she had initially thought. However, the research revealed that having optimism helped individuals to stick with an arduous task and persevere. As you can imagine, this would be an important quality to possess in the workplace.

A show of hands please— how many of you would like to spend your workday surrounded by pessimistic colleagues? How about optimistic colleagues? That’s what I thought.

Martin Seligman, who has done vast research surrounding this topic, explains 0ptimism as the ability to always view the positive side of the situation. No matter how dark and discouraging things look, an optimistic individual has the ability to see the upside and know that things will work out. Pessimists have difficulty seeing the upside of any situation that exists in their life. They assume that things will stay bad forever. Optimists, on the other hand, view their current situation as only temporary. Deep down, they believe that things will improve soon and it only takes some patience to wait it out.

In today’s world, the workplace can be stressful. Whether you’re working in a corporate environment, or as an entrepreneur, the expectations and rules to succeed are constantly changing and evolving. Your ability to ride the wave through the good times and bad is essential to your success. Having an optimistic perspective enables you to see the possibilities and be creative in your problem solving.

Your ability to be resilient is the key ingredient to you and your workers achieving your goals.

There are going to be good days and bad days at the job— sometimes you’ll just want to give up. However, you must learn to persevere and drown out the distracting noise around you. Sometimes the most distracting noise is happening right inside your own head. I’m here to tell you that it’s possible to retrain your brain. With practice, you can learn to view these times as temporary setbacks that will soon turn around. If you’re determined to change, you can become a much more optimistic person.

I’m quite optimistic that things can change for you.

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Bad Habits

My husband recently had business in Virginia for a couple days and I decided to go along with him. I was a bit nervous to take this trip because I had two big projects looming over my head. However, the chance to ride my bike up and down the mountains held great appeal. If I was going to take the time to ride, I had no choice but to be extremely productive all day Friday. I planned on spending the day making progress on my massive to-do list.

I exercised early in the morning, changed my clothes and went downstairs in the lobby of the hotel to find a place to work. I spied the perfect desk away from the activity of the lobby. I unpacked my bag and got organized. And there I sat, for the next 4 hours. Slowly, but surely, I worked my way through two big projects with incredible focus and speed check this. By the time I stopped for lunch, I marveled at what I had accomplished.

I took a 10-minute walk, found a place to eat and continued to work. Two more hours flew by and I couldn’t believe how much progress I had made.

When I got back home, I gave thought as to why I was able to accomplish so much. It truly was amazing. After doing some thinking, I surmised that my unbelievable productivity was due to habits.

Being in a new environment enabled me to break the habits that had become so routine at work.

Let me explain further. According to author Charles Duhigg, the habit loop is a three-part process— a cue, a behavior and a reward. The cue signals your brain to go into the automatic behavior. It triggers the whole process. The routine is the behavior that takes place and the reward is pleasure for your brain, helping it remember the loop. Habits make up 40% of our function during the day. They enable us to take part in these behaviors without much energy and while not being mentally aware. Therefore, many of my usual distractions during the day that drastically decrease my productivity are really just my habits— bad habits.

For example, when I’m working at my desk at home, I get up numerous times to go to the kitchen and get a drink or something to eat. I’m sure you can imagine my reward for this behavior. At home, I also interrupt what I’m doing numerous times to check my email. I get a great rush every time I hear the ding of another message. My reward is the endorphin rush. When I’m working at my desk at home, I interrupt what I’m doing numerous times to go on social media or to check on the dog.

However, I didn’t do any of those things in this new setting. I just worked. In this new environment, my usual routine, which unfolds without much thought, was interrupted and I changed my habits. Actually, I should say that I changed my bad habits.

If you’re struggling with being productive in the workplace, give some thought to some of your daily habits. When we work in the same place every day, we acquire routines. Some of them are positive, but I’m pretty sure that some are also negative and get in the way of you being productive. Of course, being honest with YOU is the first step to making some much-needed changes.

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Say Yes To Failure

A number of years ago, I was speaking to a group of 300 women at a conference. This was at the beginning of my speaking career and I was still feeling my way through the motions of presenting. I was confident at the beginning and my presentation started off with a bang. However, as I got further into my hour, I started to lose them. I could feel it happening so I tried every trick imaginable to keep them interested. However, they had an option of either attending my presentation or 4 others in the rooms down the hall. As my presentation began its descent, my audience began theirs.

One by one, they walked out, oblivious as to how it affected me. I might add that they didn’t even try to be polite or discreet about their exit. I hung in there, pushing myself to ignore my dwindling audience by focusing on one or two that seemed interested. With a quarter of my audience left, I had never been so glad to end a presentation. I look back on that afternoon as sheer torture— the stuff of nightmares.

That presentation was an epic FAILURE.

How about the time when I was rocking and rolling through a workshop and then took a quick break? I went to the restroom and came out before I realized that I had left my microphone on during the whole experience. In other words, the entire room experienced my “break” right along with me. And then there was the time in my college Anatomy class where I was responsible for learning the parts of my dissected animal for the major exam. I studied and studied but when it came time for the Final Exam, the Professor’s labeled animal parts looked absolutely nothing like mine. I was lost while I looked around at all the pre-med students that knew exactly what they were doing. I failed that class miserably.

That day was another epic failure in my life.

Do I even need to share about when I was fired from my job? Can you spell F-A-I-L?

I’m sure I could fill this page with many other experiences that stand out but I certainly don’t want to bore you. I have a point to make about failure and I’m slowly getting to it. I believe that we look at failure all wrong. Our failures are kept a secret: a shameful, covered up secret. The more we try to cover them up and pretend they don’t exist, the bigger and more powerful they become. If you give some thought to how you view your failures in life, you would agree with me.

I was recently having a conversation with a friend when she got very serious. She whispered a secret about a big fat failure in her life. As we got to the end of the story, I could tell that the failure was weighing her down in life.

I shared with her that instead of hiding our failures, we should be proud and flaunt them. We should be passionate about sharing how we failed and lived through the experience. We should realize that having the courage to try is everything. We should know that failing is a part of life and spurs us on to greater things.

I had the courage to __________________and I failed.

I know this is a tough concept to grasp since our society does not really condone failure. Take a look at social media and you’ll quickly see everyone putting their absolute best self forward— the one that they WANT you to see. But that’s not really the true story. You are a combination of your successes and your failures, and without your failures you won’t have your eventual success.

So be proud to share the tire marks where life ran you over and you still lived to tell the story. Stop giving so much power to your failures and internalize the fact that trying and failing takes courage, strength and true grit.

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Lifting Limits

I was working out with my trainer today when he asked me to push up with my legs and lift the weight on the machine. My feet didn’t move. “I can’t do this— I can’t even move my feet”, I said. He replied with no emotion— “sure you can”. I sat there awhile and looked at him. He didn’t change his stance and it was apparent that my plea was going nowhere. I truly believed that what he was trying to get me to do was virtually impossible. I was angry that he didn’t understand how I really couldn’t do it. However, as I looked at this face, I realized that he wasn’t buying any of it.

I harnessed all the energy I had in my body and willed it into my feet. I stopped talking and just focused on the action. You will never believe what happened next. Somehow, I was able to lift the weight up and down. It certainly wasn’t easy and I barely made it through the process but I was able to get through it. I proceeded to do 3 sets of 12 reps. Let’s remember that I originally said that I couldn’t even move my legs at all, yet, somehow I was able to accomplish this feat.

How did that happen? How was I able to accomplish this when I originally felt that I wasn’t capable of this type of endeavor?

After I was done working out, I thought about this experience. I consider myself to be someone that’s always pushing to try new things and get outside my comfort zone. However, this experience made me realize that I need to closely monitor my responses to new challenges. Even I get into my habits and safe places in life. It just feels so good in my comfort zone.

This lead me to think about how pushing myself out of my comfort zone is a day-to-day process. Maybe some days I challenge myself and move forward, but other days I fall back into believing that self-defeating stuff. The talk in my head really had done a bang up job convincing me that my challenge was an impossible task.

I’m sure there are a couple of things right now in your life that you would like to change. Maybe your excuse for not moving forward is that “it just can’t be done”. Maybe it’s that you’ve failed before, so the process is futile. Maybe you feel that the challenge is overwhelming and way to huge to even consider. Whatever it is, I want you to question that voice in your head that vehemently believes it can’t be done.

I want you to realize that you are capable of accomplishing great things.

After you question that person in your head, I want you to do just one thing. I want you to harness all your energy and will your body to focus on taking that ONE STEP. It doesn’t have to be something big— just a little step forward that will move you closer to your goal.

Just TRY giving it everything you’ve got. Yes, I know it won’t be easy. However, you just might surprise yourself.

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Accountability

I still remember going to my older son’s 3^rd grade school conference. The teacher loved him and shared many wonderful stories. She relayed that he was smart, kind and had a great personality. Then she asked about a paper that he had recently brought home.

“I suppose you saw the math paper where he received a D. He was very upset about the grade and worried about what you would think of it.” I gave her a confused look and asked her when he brought it home. Apparently, it was supposed to come home in his backpack— it was 5 days later and I had never seen it. She chuckled and asked me not to come down too hard on him. Obviously, the paper had disappeared somewhere between school and home.

When I got home, I went upstairs to his room and sat down on his bed to have the talk. I told him how much his teacher raved about him and ended the story with the mystery of the missing “D” paper. I saw the look in his eyes and just waited for the explanation.

After much discussion, it was revealed that he had gotten off the bus and proceeded to take the paper and put it down the sewer drain. I’m imagining that the scenario was conjured up on the bus ride home. I suppose for a 3^rd grader that was a logical way to solve the problem.

Now, I’m happy to report that my son, who’s now an adult, has learned to handle mistakes and missteps in a more responsible manner. However, in your travels through life, I’m pretty certain that you have come across a number of individuals that refuse to take accountability for their actions— they’re still throwing their “D” papers down the sewer drain. Their excuses and justifications for their actions can be downright exhausting.

Copping out on responsibility can become a habit and theme in every facet of your life. It inhibits your ability to move ahead in your career and find happiness and success in your personal life. Stop and think about someone that makes this behavior part of their daily routine. After awhile, the excuses just roll off their tongue and the more practice they get, the more proficient they become at this skill. In time, they truly believe their own explanations.

Right now, some of you are thinking that this does not describe you— but hold on a minute. Maybe you’re not a serial storyteller. However, there are times when each one of us is guilty of rationalizing our situation in order to feel better.

Take a step back and be honest. Maybe you didn’t get that sale today because the buyer was simply in a bad mood. You lost out on the promotion last week to the other employee because he always “sucks up” to the boss. You didn’t lose your goal of 5 lbs. this week because you just retain too much water. Never mind that you didn’t close the sale or you didn’t possess managerial skills or you ate more than you really should have on your diet.

We are ALL guilty of not taking accountability at some point.

The thing to remember is that your outcomes directly reflect your actions. Your success in life is in direct relation to your ability to be painfully honest with YOU. Do you make things happen or do things happen to you? A big part of your resilience in life is tied up in your skill of taking accountability for your actions. It’s realizing that you control your own destiny: your happiness and success is dependent upon you.

The next time you struggle with reaching a goal daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly, step back and give this some thought: take responsibility for your place in life.

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