I hope you will enjoy watching my latest you tube video! (One of my challenges during COVID was to develop my YouTube channel (Jill Webb Training) – and my latest video is about resilience.
I’ve been thinking about resilience a lot this week. There are loads of different definitions around – I like the really simple ones. My personal favourite is pictured above – a weeble. Do you remember the advert – Weebles wobble but we don’t fall down? When I think about my own resilience, I think that life events can make me very wobbly but resilience is the ability to right myself again.
It’s been a particular challenge this week due to the fact that I live in the part of the country that has been locked down again. It’s amazing how many emotions that’s provoked amongst myself, friends and colleagues:
- ‘It’s not fair’
- ‘The rules don’t make sense’
- ‘We are back where we started’
Once you calm down and rearrange your already rearranged diary, you realise that you have the resilience to manage this! Yes, we’ve been in a similar situation before, but we have more freedom than we had then. And that to me really links to our resilience. A resilient individual can face life’s challenges. It doesn’t mean we’re not going to get knocked and we’re not going to wobble but it does mean that we can keep ourselves in a safe place emotionally (or ‘right or balance ourselves’).
So, the challenge for most of us is to check out how we are building our resilience. I like to keep things really simple and think about the different areas of my life:
- Am I eating sensibly and moderating my alcohol and caffeine intake?
- I’m no gym fan, but am I getting out for as many walks as I can – knowing that fresh air does me good as well as the physical exercise?
- Am I spending time with family and friends – even if it has to be virtual? While thinking about this, many thanks to my friend Alison Gordon who taught me about drains and radiators. Being aware of friends and colleagues you spend time with and how you feel afterwards is important. Who are those people that when you spend time with them you end up feeling like a radiator warm and hopefully re-energised? Are there others who you actually feel quite drained afterwards? I’ve been aware of those people that it’s been a challenge for me in the last few months to try to get that balance right.
There is so much more I could say but I’m sure you have your own ideas which I’d love to hear!