Ever thought that you need resilience in the good times?
Don’t know about you, but when things are going well I often forget to keep engaging my positive resilience strategies… until things fall over and I experience the see-sawing of emotions and energy.
When all is going well and life seems easy, we tend to lose our conscious awareness off what we are doing. We let our good habits slip. We forget to check in and see how we are actually travelling. We may get caught up in the fun and excitement of what is going on and forget about ourselves or maintaining the habits that work for us.
These good habits are the things that make us more resilient. They help us to continually build and grow our resilience muscle to bounce forward!
In the good times, we still need to physically and mentally look after ourselves – be active, connect well, eat well, and sleep well. We also need to be okay with allowing ourselves to either ease off or push harder because we have more of a buffer.
Everyday life activities require varying levels of resilience. Even when things are going well you may still experience hiccups, e.g. the train being late, the car breaking down. When this occurs, we still need to pull on our resilience and not let the event ‘ruin the entire day’.
You may be able to dial back the intensity of the strategies you need to conserve your energy and focus on other things, but don’t negate them all together. When you KNOW that something you are doing helps you to be at your best – KEEP IT GOING!
Habits
What are the habits to keep in place that support your resilience:
- Check in – Take a moment to check in with where you are at and how you are feeling, at least once a day. When we forget to check in, we forget to pre-empt the changes that may be happening in life
- Prioritise yourself – write a list of what works for YOU to keep yourself vibrant and healthy, then keep doing them daily
- Set up cues – work out what is going to trigger your memory and active responses to set yourself up to build effective habits of resilience
It is easier to tweak and keep things going than to realise you have fallen in the hole again and need to drag yourself up from the bottom.
Resilience is part of what you need DAILY to get through anything. Keep it in the forefront of your mind to action QUICKLY.
Resilience is also for the good times!
Remember: Resilience is not just for the harsh or tough times but also for the times when things are going GREAT!
Cultivate resilience in the good times to strengthen your resilience muscle and propel yourself forward in the tough times.
Elizabeth Pritchard and Christine Burns