Mental Health and Resilience
“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honourable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.” – George Bernard Shaw.
When it comes to training delivery we spend a great deal of time and effort ensuring a relevant and consistent learning environment, while also mindful of participates physical and mental wellbeing. As important as this is, we occasionally neglect our own mental wellbeing.
Considering the concept of Integrated Experience, if we lack mental health resilience how can we be productive and consistent delivering this message? Stress/anxiety is often seen by us a negative response, this however is not the case. The ability to show resilience during these times enables us to learn and grow as individuals.
Believe in yourself
A positive sense of self and confidence in your strengths build resilience and improves coping strategies and adaptability. Resilience empowers us to accept and adapt to situations and move forward.
Finding ways to cope and manage in both our personal and professional lives is essential to our survival. How do we remain strong and healthy during difficult times?
Tips to promote our resilience:
1) Reflection
Resilience is not the absence of stress but more the recovery and bounce back. Personal reflection allows us to regain a sense of control. In essence resilience is the ability to avoid becoming overwhelmed by our challenges, adapting and regaining a sense of control. A problem shared is a problem halved can never be truer when looking at resilience. Not letting the small details impact on the bigger picture. Believe in your own ability and remember offloading and sharing a problem with a trusted colleague confirms how we can truly learn from our setbacks and so overcome negative events.
2) Being adaptable
Resilience focuses on adaptability and flexibility. To understand our negative emotions (Emotional Brain) and how they can maximise our ability to rationalise or to use our Thinking Brain therefore promoting our strategies to problem solve and adapt to the many challenges we face. When faced with a negative experience remember to look at this as an opportunity for growth and development and to allow our `thinking brain` to be the prominent decision maker
3) Driving forward
Understanding our resilience strategies, we become more confident in overcoming future challenges. Therefore reducing potential Trauma Informed Responses – Live in the moment not in the past. The ability to feel grounded in our own mental health enables us to not only think clearer but also adapt a flexible approach. If we can successfully navigate challenges we face we will ultimately thrive as individuals.
4) Development
Remember – adversity is no more than a springboard for our growth and development. To successfully learn from stressful events enables us to not only show growth but to develop/ enhance new skills. As we face future demands and pressures, showing resilience is the best way to future proof ourselves against the negative impact of stress.
“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” – Charles Darwin.