Building Resilience at Work

"It's not what happens to you, it's how you get back up"!

Have you ever had a setback? I would assume you have had something in your life either personally or with work or both that knocked you down and set you back. How did you recover? Maybe you haven't totally bounced back yet.

There is a lot of research showing that happiness is strongly connected to how well you rebound from setbacks. Did you know that we can actually train our brains to withstand hard times?

I'm not suggesting that you ignore the problems that you face, but I am suggesting that you work on building your resilience much like you workout your muscles. Since we talk about being an entrepreneur in direct sales and network marketing here, we will relate this to setbacks with work but, of course, it can help you be more resilient in all aspects of your life.

Here are some tips to help you be more resilient so that you CAN become even stronger.

• Give yourself grace: When something happens, let yourself feel whatever feelings you have, then give yourself some grace and then start talking to your brain about how you can get through the problem, or past it. Don't beat yourself up when you lose a sale. Give yourself a break and learn from what happened so that you can find a new customer etc.

• Do something that scares you: When you face a fear, it automatically gives you more confidence and therefore helps you to combat the next fear, and the next setback. Challenge yourself on a regular basis to step outside of your comfortzone, and you will be amazed at how you react. What fears do you face with your work? Have you held yourself back from going LIVE on social media because you are afraid? Do you tense up and garble your words if you need to call a potential customer or new team member? Now is the time to face the fear. Start small, if you need to. Perhaps go live in a small Facebook group that you create with just yourself as a member. Practice, and then go do it LIVE in a bigger forum. Once you get past that first fear, it makes it so much easier to go onto the next thing.

• Exercise: It's been proven that working out, whether it's running, taking a walk, lifting weights etc, helps you combat stress. When you add regular exercise into your daily life, you will naturally become less stressed; allowing you to face setbacks with more resilience. It's important, especially when working from home, to find time to MOVE. Take breaks throughout your day to even walk around your house for 10 minutes! This will make a lot of difference in your outlook and your productivity.

• Meditate & Breathe: Find what works best for you. Develop a mindfulness routine, and this can help you long after the actual period of time you are meditating. Find a way to meditate that works for you. Search classes, apps, etc. When you find you are in the middle of a stressful day, stop and do a breathing exercise. The few minutes you take to let it all go, will bring great returns, and you will be able to face the problems easier.

• Create a Morning Routine that includes Affirmations: Mindset is key when you want to be resilient. We've talked about exercise, meditating/breathing, and these both contribute to a morning routine that can set your mind on track for a positive day. My suggestion is to start creating a list of affirmations that you can say to yourself each day. You are training your mind to believe the affirmations you are telling it. You can use my mojo morning template to help create your own routine here.

• Don't dwell on the past: It does not help you to keep dwelling on what has happened. Take the time to learn from the setback, and decide what you can do going forward. As you know, you cannot change what has already happened, so lingering in the sadness, madness, unhappiness doesn't help you at all. Try to step away and look at what happened in the past as if you were an outsider, and think of things that you can learn from it.

• Ask for Support: Reach out to friends, family, coworkers to help you get through the tough time. Even just having someone to listen to you can help you. I am a big proponent of talking and sharing with a community of people who have each other's backs and cheer each other on. You may have that with your team, sideline and upline peeps. There are also communities online with others in direct sales and network marketing that can be helpful for good and bad times. Having people who understand what you are going through, can be extraordinarily helpful. (We created The Growth Project Membership for just that also. If you'd like more information on our community, join the waitlist here, and reach out to me with any questions!)

• Work on maintaining a positive outlook: I don't mean looking at everything "through rose colored glasses"! You can choose to face a situation in a positive way or a negative way. It takes practice, but when you do this, you will find that you can get through a lot of things.

In conclusion, resilience can be learned. You can workout your brain and train your brain to build strength in the right places and for the right times. Remember, just like you workout your muscles in your body, you need to continually work on your brain/mind to help you build your resilience so that you can face any obstacles that co me your way as you grow your business.