Resilience is a skill that can be learned and the more you use it the better or stronger it is. Especially when it comes to career resilience. Developing the ability to bounce back from setbacks and being able to cope with the emotions those bring, and then dusting off to try again is a skill that can be honed. 

No matter how confident, experienced, or good at your job you are, there will be a time in your career that things won’t always go your way. It’s in those times you’ll need to develop resilience. Gone are the days where you could join a company and stay there until retirement, the chances are today that you’ll see out your career within several companies, and with that comes challenges and significant changes. 

Developing resilience will help you navigate your way through your career, remain engaged in your work, spot opportunities even when times are tough, evolve as your career or role does, and keep focussed on the future. 

We’re not all born resilient, well, not in the way you need to be in developing your career, instead we learn and develop tools and techniques, and adapt a positive mindset along the way that help us reach success.

How to develop resilience.

When it comes to developing our resilience there are a number of areas you can focus on starting with looking at your energy levels. When faced with challenges its easy to fall into the low energy category, feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, stressed, anxious and this all impacts our performance and the decisions we make.

Here you want to think about spending more time in the higher energy category – happiness, excitement, joy. Are you eating and sleeping well? Investing in our health is a great way to improve stamina, focus and allows us to perform at our best. 

Now, let’s take some time to look at those around you, as you’re going to need to develop a strong support network to help you reach your success. There will be times when you need to draw on the expertise of those around you, to bounce ideas off and to cheer you on when you need it too. Developing your network and investing in the relationships with your peers is going to serve you really well when times get tricky. 

You’ll have heard me say it many times before, and that’s because it’s true – Mindset is everything! Trying to keep in a more positive mindset on a day to day basis will build that muscle so when times do get tricky or don’t go so well, you’ll be able to bounce back quicker.

Having the flexibility in your thinking to adapt to change that comes along, will serve you well. Being open to expanding your knowledge, looking for opportunities to make a difference, to add value and impact in a positive way. All these are positive things.

Try by thinking about where you are with your own resilience today, think about what is impacting you, what you can control and what opportunities you have. Focus on the positives, if it helps write it down, keep a diary and document what you feel when things happen. Remember focusing on the positive only for this particular exercise. Don’t get me wrong, there’s times to reflect on the things that didn’t go so well as we need to take our learnings from this and grow from this but for today’s exercise we’re focusing on building that positivity muscle and resilience!

Developing resilience now will certainly have positive impacts on all areas of your life including your future career success. It’s so important. I’ve definitely built up resilience through personal experiences and work experiences and it’s really equipped me to deal with challenges in a much more productive way. I don’t always get it right but who does, right?!

If you’re struggling with motivation, unsure of your purpose or what steps to take next, then do check out my coaching packages. I have worked with many HR people, Line Mangers, operational people and execs on building resilience for career success and I can help you too. 

Let’s have a chat and see how we can work together to get you closer to the life you want to live!