Resilience in the Workplace

Resilience is what gives us the emotional strength to cope with difficult situations, ongoing trauma and adversity. Being a resilient person means you can utilise your resources, inner strengths, and be better prepared when facing challenges and continual workplace change.

If you have not developed skills to be resilient when required you are more likely to feel overwhelmed or helpless, and rely on unhealthy coping strategies (such as avoidance, isolation, and self-medication). 

All people experience stress, setbacks, and difficult emotions, but if you have resilience you can tap into your strengths and resource help from support systems to overcome challenges and work through the problems. This enables you to accept and adapt to a situation and move forward to become strong and an overcomer.

As individuals we all process stress, trauma and adversity in different ways, the following factors can help us to build resilience by improving our coping skills and adaptability. 

These Factors Include:

  • Social Support – this provides us with support in times of crisis or trauma. Social support can include immediate or extended family, community, friends, and organizations.

  • Realistic Planning - by developing the skills to think through and make realistic plans and using our individual strengths we can focus on achievable goals.

  • Self-Esteem - a positive sense of self and confidence in one’s strengths can stave off feelings of helplessness when confronted with adversity.

  • Coping Skills - coping and problem-solving skills help empower a person who has to work through adversity and overcome hardship. A Life Skills Mentor can assist in helping you to develop problem solving skills, and strategies for managing stress.

  • Communication Skills - being able to communicate clearly and effectively helps you to seek the relevant support, mobilise your resources, and take action to help you move forward.

  • Emotional Regulation – is having the capacity to manage potentially overwhelming emotions (if you find this difficult you can seek assistance from a counsellor or mentor to develop emotional regulation skills) this helps you to maintain focus when overcoming a challenge.

Winston S. Churchill Wrote:

Success is not final,

Failure is not fatal,

It is the Courage to Continue that Counts