One thing that can be predicted in the future of work is that periods of significant disruption. They are are likely to be the norm rather than the exception. New opportunities and possibilities often come from this kind of change, which is exciting and energising. However it’s also true that constant change, new conditions to adjust to, uncertainty and ambiguity can have a negative impact. This may test our resilience.
Few weeks ago, I attended some career building sessions and one of the sessions is building resilience in the career. Here’s a few things I learnt from this session.
What is Resilience?
If you look at dictionary definitions, you’ll see resilience described in different ways. Here are two:
- toughness – a capacity to recover from challenges
- springing back into shape – when talking about materials or substances
For me, it is the ability to withstand adversity and bounce back and grow despite life’s ups and downs.
Being Resilient
Being resilient does not mean that people don’t experience stress, emotional upheaval, and suffering. Some people equate resilience with mental toughness. Demonstrating resilience includes working through emotional pain and suffering is what being resilient is.
The next question is how do these ideas relate to your career?
Resilience and Career
Even the most optimistic and future-focused among us can find that there are times when our resilience reserves become depleted. Our ability to recover or bounce back is reduced, sometimes when we least expect it. If our capacity to respond and be agile is diminished, this can impact on our career and inhibit us from working in the way that we want to.
Although we don’t have control over external events, there are things we can do to preserve our resilience reserves and help to build them up again in tough times.
When we’re talking about ‘career resilience’ we mean your capacity to adapt to changes in the workplace and to be ready for what those changes will bring. Part of this is being able to access a set of personal resources and support from others that enable you to recover quickly from set-backs or transitions.
You need resilience when unexpected or challenging change happens, such as a project dramatically altering direction, or being asked to deliver more with less, or having to instantaneously start working remotely as happened in the lockdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic. Your resilience is not in endless supply. When you’re firefighting, it’s not uncommon for your resilience reserves to come under pressure.
If your resilience reserves are low it may not be wise to assume that things will get better on their own, or when conditions improve. However, when you pay attention to building your resilience resources, you will have the capacity and energy to do things well, and achieve more.
Examples of resilience
There is emotional resilience, in which a person can tap into realistic optimism, even when dealing with a crisis. Physical resilience refers to the body’s ability to adapt to challenges and recover quickly. Community resilience refers to the ability of groups of people to respond to and recover from adverse situations, such as natural disasters, acts of violence, or economic hardship.
In my next post I will share the assets that support resilience and then the 7 Cs of resilience.
