FIVE STEPS TO CULTIVATE MORE RESILIENCE THROUGH COACHING

resilience

noun

·       the power or ability of a material to return to its original form, position, etc., after being bent, compressed, or stretched; elasticity.

·       the ability of a person to adjust to or recover readily from illness, adversity, major life changes, etc.; buoyancy.

·       the ability of a system or organization to respond to or recover readily from a crisis, disruptive process, etc. Cities can build resilience to climate change by investing in infrastructure. 

We live in a time of our history where the following saying has been passed down the last few generations. It goes something like this, “hey you, you can have anything you want. Dream big, imagine the impossible. If you work hard enough, try hard, and keep going, eventually you will succeed.”   

The sub text of course, ‘it’s really important that you succeed at something, if you don’t you will be failing, no one wants to fail. You should definitely not want to fail.’  

This approach has helped to cultivate some of the brightest talent and most exciting revolutions of our time. It comes from a good place. From those generations who had it so hard by comparison. Fewer choices, less freedom, and more hardship. They merely want it to be easier and more fun for the following generations.  

As with all interpretations of living well, there is both an upside and a downside. What happens when we don’t succeed? What happens when circumstances prevent us from achieving? What happens when we simply cannot have what we want?  

Resilience has been a buzz word for many years now. In my opinion, it’s been mis interpreted, abused, and often used to encourage or motivate the exact opposite of what it really means.  Often, resilience is appropriated to the elastic band metaphor. To stretch ourselves. To reach, seek, pursue, keep going, enlist dogged determination, to pursue something just out of reach. To take ourselves to the edges of what we believed we were capable and then stretch some more. I’m exhausted even writing these words.  The problem with this interpretation is that it misses half of the equation.  

An elastic band also returns to its original form. It stretches out and returns. For resilience to be an effective strategy, it requires a return to base camp (and more often than you might imagine). It also requires rest and recovery time. We expand, we recover. We expand, we recover. We perform, we recover. We perform, we recover.  

Yet in this day and age we live where everything is super speed and super-sized, we expect ourselves to be in the performance zone all the time. We are not computers; we do not plug into a mainframe of power to keep going. We have finite resources that don’t recharge the faster or harder we work.  

In my work as an executive coach with senior leaders, I see the resilience conflict play out over and over and over again. An over-burdened and often belligerent determination to achieve at all costs. A sense that if one were to choose something different, it would not be received well. In fact, it may even lead you directly to failure, which as I’ve already outlined, is often not an option in these times we live.   

In this western world I grew up in, there was a wonder about the art of the possible. It was liberating and exciting that we could create our own success and abundance. That we could so easily cross previously restricted class divides, enter occupations once only held for certain groups in societies. That there was a strategy for everything. Dream it, act, it’s yours!  I bought into it all and got swept up with those around me making their own sense of how to interpret this modern brief to living a good life.  

A heady mix of working hard and long hours. Tolerating poor behaviours and toxic cultures so as not to upset the ‘system.’  Just keep finding the next goal and go for it. It was in this arena that I burnt out. My body warned me several times beforehand, but I choose to keep going.  

Throw into the mix technological revolutions, a global pandemic of “comparisonitis,” largely fuelled by social media, a culture of anything is possible and you have a recipe for resilience gone wrong.  Burnout is now more widely talked about than resilience. The Resilience movement did indeed lead to the burnt-out movement. The irony of it is not lost on me. Throw in COVID and nearly every manager or leader I speak with right now is hanging on by a thin thread. The elastic is well and truly beyond stretched.  

The leaders I see before me in my coaching work recognise the need, nay the necessity to have their regular coaching slot in this crazy world. The space and time to switch off their fast-paced problem-solving brains. To slow down, take a moment to pause, to breathe and reflect.  

Problem solving at a fast pace can get stuff done and quick. What it misses, is an opportunity to enquire into whether there might be a better way of getting stuff done. Perhaps one that sustains something even more impactful long term than the short-term quick fix. An opportunity to create something better. Those opportunities require a different lens, space, pace, and energy and are more difficult to travel alone.  

Step 1: Hit the pause button 

Executive coaching often becomes a safe space to slow down, to reflect, to make sense, ask questions, explore alternative perspectives. And it also offers a return to self. To return the elasticity, to its original home. To go within. To regroup. To check whether the way you’re working is still working for you, for your team, for your organisation.  

Step 2: Connect with your inner compass 

When I’m coaching individuals around the topic of resiliency, often my first port of call is to get a sense of what ‘contract’ they’re operating from. Who or what says you must live or work like this? I’m curious to understand what choice and freedom they believe they have in working the way they have. In starting here, we get a greater sense of authority and ownership about what else is possible in their worlds. And we’re clear what boundaries we have to work with. Ironically, this opens up more choice, control, and freedom for clients.  

Step 3: Reimagine what’s possible 

What follows depends on the coaching contract we’ve agreed.  Depending on their learning goals, we might spend more time reimagining what success looks like, how they’d like to be living and working. Creating and defining boundaries around what good looks like in their life, based on their own values, beliefs and hopes. How can they make the context they find themselves work more effectively for them? 

Step 4: A realistic audit  

Sometimes more of an audit approach is required to reflect on the reality they find themselves. I find that an energy framework helps in this context. Reviewing the quantity and quality of their physical, emotional, mental, creative, and spiritual energy. Each with their own batteries that operate both independently and co-dependently with each other. This often helps clients to get clear about their current state of play and what might need attention for more short-term triage versus the longer-term changes that may be required. The sprint versus the marathon. 

Step 5: Unblock yourself  

In moving toward what action will be taken, it’s sometimes necessary to turn our lenses to the blocks and barriers, both in the external and internal worlds that either hinder or enhance an individual’s capacity to navigate their own resilience.  What I like to refer to as ‘what’s going on under the hood.’  Our beliefs about ourselves and the meaning we make about the world we find ourselves in, so significantly impact our capacity to create a life that’s worth living. One which is authentically designed to meet our own needs, based on what a good like looks like for us, outside of any societal, parental, or work expectations. From that place we can see more clearly what’s required in order to enhance our quality of life or move further towards what really matters in any given time. 

In summary… 

Clients who commit to regular coaching, experience no less struggle in their lives than clients who don’t. The same external pressures trip them up in the same way as any other human. The coaching journey they commit to, enables them to develop a healthier sense of resilience for how they choose to respond to the challenges of current times. It cultivates resilience in deeper more empowered way which in turn leaves their elastic more robust and, in some ways, less stretchable. They tend to understand their limits, have clearer boundaries, and operate from a healthy adult position. They get triggered less and when they are triggered, they can take responsibility for what’s theirs and respond more appropriately.   

Prioritising what truly matters based on a version of life that authentically belongs to the person living it, makes for an easier and more satisfying life on many levels.  

Jennifer Potter