We all have *#%! happen in our lives. Sometimes the disasters come one at a time; sometimes they seem to all land at once. Sometimes it's just a long period of nothing quite working out.The critical skill of resiliency (how we recover from the setbacks and knockdowns), will determine how easily we move through our life challenges and thrive again.  

Resiliency has become a hot topic these days as more and more of us face challenges of big proportion in our business and personal lives.  RQ (Resilience Quotient) is a term coined by psychologists Jane Clarke and John Nicholson to measure your resilience level (using psychometric testing) just as IQ measures your intelligence level. There are a host of free assessments online to measure your RQ. The good news says Clarke is that everyone can boost their RQ and resilience is a skill that one can learn. Building resiliency will positively affect both your personal well being and your personal and your business success.

3 Key Steps to Developing Resiliency

Step One: FULLY ACKNOWLEDGE

When you get hit with a crisis, disaster, or setback, it is important to give yourself the space to openly acknowledge and allow full expression of the feelings you are experiencing. Whatever the reasons for your knockdown - big or small - if you attempt to avoid your feelings they become amplified and can accelerate a further downward spiral and hamper your resiliency. Actively build some 'quiet' moments into your schedule to give space to feel and process your changing or potentially conflicting emotions that arise at different times of the day or week. Journal about your feelings. Share your feelings. Allow yourself full expression of whatever emotions your feel.  

A friend said something very wise to me the other day after I apologized to her for still being upset, 2 months after my mom's passing. She said "Hey, however long you want to talk about your mom and have it be all about you is perfectly fine." She gave me permission and space to grieve.  Have you given yourself permission to grieve your setback? Or do you think you should be 'over it' by now? There is no right or wrong way to deal with your feelings, not any prescribed time frame. Deal with your challenges how you need to. Don't deny. There is a difference between denial and transcendence.

STEP TWO: FILL YOUR RESILIENCY BANK ACCOUNT (RBA)

Think of your Resiliency Capacity as a Bank Account - your RBA. How full is it? What is your Resiliency Bank Balance? Is it depleted? Overdrawn? Make a conscious effort to restore and replenish your RBA on an ongoing basis so it is full when you need to draw on it.  

How to Fill your RBA:

• Put on your own oxygen mask: Make self-value an integral and non-negotiable part of your life. Positive thoughts, sleep, exercise, nutrition - you know the drill.  You have much more capacity to rebound when you fill your RBA by making a practice of consciously and consistently valuing your physical, mental and emotional needs.
• Remind yourself of who you are: Your unique strengths, your brilliance, your values are the constant wealth in your RBA to draw on whenever you feel the need.
• Acknowledge your supports: Who in your life strengthens your RBA? How can you reach out to them? Who gives you the kind of support you want? Accept that everyone cannot give you everything, yet each support can contribute in their unique way. 
• Daily Small Comforts: Find the little things that might make the most difference for you in this period and give you the energy and resiliency to look forward again. Give yourself some daily consistency that is immovable. For example, when my client was struggling with the stresses of taking care of her parent in hospice, she gained strength by a morning ritual of visiting Starbucks for a bagel and coffee. That 'constant' routine gave her a solid start of normalcy and calm to begin each day of parent-care. Having some 'small comforts' give you a sense of structure and control and add to your RBA.
• Develop a Gratitude attitude: Beef up your RBA daily by adopting a Gratitude attitude for everything in your life. If you have lost a loved one, remember their life and the good times you shared. Celebrate rather than shoving the memories away. If you have had a business setback, remember and celebrate your past successes and acknowledge the elements that contributed to those successes. Notice the small things and bless them daily.

  Step Three: REGAIN PERSPECTIVE AND HOLD TO PURPOSE

Perspective: All of us get knocked down to varying degrees at some point in our lives.  As the *#$! is swirling around you it is easy to lose perspective. Is everything messed up? Or - when you take a breath and look at your life, is it mostly OK? What do you know you can hang onto? One of my coaching clients had a rough run with her business - an entrepreneur; she went from one setback and crippling challenge to another. An incredibly resilient businesswoman, she gained great strength by recalling past successes and storms she had weathered. That reminded her that she was successful and that current setbacks did not define her, nor would they destroy her. Her vision was intact. Perspective gave her the strength and power to continue.

Hold to Purpose: When you are ready, revisit your vision - your 'Big Picture'- your 'purpose' in life - and know that although the circumstances for your knockdown might feel out of your control, making the choice to build on that experience to move forward in a new way is in your control.  Move forward in the way you want, and in the time frame you want.  You are the only thinker in your own mind. Turn your focus to where you want to go. What future state (emotional, mental or physical) do you want to create? If you are open to stepping into an expanded identity and adapting to a different plan, you can use the energy of the knockdown and lessons learned to spring you upward again. The choice is yours and the timing is yours.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

Book -  Resilience: Bounce Back from Whatever Life Throws at You , by Jane Clarke and Dr. John Nicholson (Crimson Publishing January 2010)

Book -  How Absorbent are your Shocks? by Marilyn Orr - A practical workbook by a coach colleague of mine that will help guide and inspire you through the process of developing resiliency. Available through Amazon.com