“Resilience is more than just coping,” says Larry Mallak, who teaches organizational management at Western Michigan U. “That’s keeping your head above water. Being resilient means being able to walk out of the water.”
Learning to develop your Resilience is a proactive way of meeting the challenge of today’s fast-changing environment.
WHEN STRESS MANAGEMENT ISN’T ENOUGH
“Manage stress in the workplace?” asks Rachele Kanigel in her article, “Are You Resilient?” in The New England Financial Journal. “Many companies no longer even attempt to. The new corporate goal is to help employees develop their coping skills and ability to thrive even in the toughest times.”
“Organizations need people who are resilient,” says Al Siebert Ph.D, “people who can adapt quickly, change directions, bounce back.” Mallak agrees: “Resilient workers are able to satisfy customers’ needs on the spot, act quickly in times of crisis, and take advantage of opportunities that might otherwise be missed.”
The benefits accrue. “People with a high adversity quotient’ (AQ) make more money, are more innovative, and are better problem solvers than those less adept at handling misfortune,” says Paul Stolz, corporate consultant.
But we are more than our jobs. It’s become irrefutable that increasing your Emotional Intelligence is good for your career, relationships and health. Researchers are finding people who are “psychologically hardy” have stronger immunity, (Journal of Behavioral Medicine, June 2001) and that optimists live 19% longer (Seligman, Ph.D.). The field of psychoneuroimmunology continues to prove the connection between our feelings and our health.
RESILIENCE & HEALTH
Research by Maddi and Kobasa at the University of Chicago, show “Workers who are resilient get sick less often and use fewer health benefits than less hardy colleagues. [They are] less prone to burnout, stress, and other pitfalls of the workaday world.”
Martin Seligman’s research holds that optimists not only live longer, they enjoy better health and recover faster from serious illness. Wouldn’t you like to learn Optimism? It, like Resilience, can be learned.
There’s also anger management. Paul Pearsall, Ph.D., psychoneuroimmunologist, believes anger expressed is just as bad for us as anger repressed. Go ahead and tell your war stories and fight to win, he says, “but to the victor goes the bypass.”
HOW CAN YOU LEARN RESILIENCE?
(1) One way is through life experience, preferably just-manageable difficulties. “People who are able to learn from ever-greater challenges…are more likely to become resilient than those who are coddled or those who face enormous obstacles right from the get-go,” says Kanigel. However, not everyone builds resilience. Some people become brittle and cynical. If you’re in over your head, please get EQ coaching or therapy.
(2) Proactively study Emotional Intelligence and practice your skills in a learning lab. Developing Emotional Intelligence competencies such as Resilience is limbic learning, which takes time, and social and emotional skills need to be practiced in social and emotional situations. (For more on the brain and emotions, take The EQ Foundation Course.)
(3) Work with a certified EQ coach.
AND ONCE YOU’RE THERE
“Sweet are the uses of adversity,” wrote the Bard, ” which like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a jewel in his head.”
As we all learned from 9-11, crises and traumas can change our way of thinking and responding. Often they require the best of us and we rise to the occasion, at the same time realizing what’s important in life, and rethinking our priorities as we flex our “coping” muscles.
Al Siebert, Ph.D., author of The Survivor Personality has studied survivors–Vietnam vets, Holocaust survivors, gunshot victims, parents who lost children. He finds they tended to have “curious, playful, adaptive personality traits. Other common attributes included persistence, optimism, flexibility, and self-confidence.”
“Most researchers agree that resiliency is a learned trait,” says Kanigel. Learn resilience now so it will be there when you need it. “Hardiness isn’t just about surviving trauma,” says Maddi, it’s about having a good life.”
RECOMMENDED READING:
“The Pleasure Prescription,” Paul Pearsall, Ph.D., psychoneuroimmunologist,
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0897 932072/susandunnmome-20 )
“Living Your Life with Emotional Intelligence,” Susan Dunn, MA.
( http://www.webstrategies.cc/ebooklibrary.html )
“The Survivor Personality: Why Some People Are Stronger, Smarter, and More Skillful at Handling Life’s Difficulties…and How You Can Be, Too,
( http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0399522301/ susandunnmome-20 )
“Conquer Tobacco Naturally,” Edward Blomgren, Ph.D. It’s about living a healthy life.
( http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1588320847/ susandunnmome-20 )
Susan Dunn, MA, Marketing Coach,
http://www.webstrategies.cc. Marketing consultation,
implementation, website review, SEO optimization, article
writing and submission, help with ebooks and other
strategies. Susan is the author or How to Write an eBook
and Market It on the Internet. Mailto:sdunn@susandunn.cc
for information and free ezine. Specify Checklist.
