How to become more resilient and adaptable as we approach a new normal

By Sarah Lewis, C.Psychol., Appreciating Change

Image of african young woman working new business assignment. Female executive sitting at her desk using laptop and writing notes at office, resilientWe are seeing lockdown restrictions easing, but we are still a long way from returning to normal. Think of the process as moving forward into a new normal.

This involves living with the reality of covid-19, both at home and in our business. It is going to need resilience and adaptability to navigate this.

What helps increase our resilience and adaptability?

Resilience is about having the resources to cope with unexpected, difficult or adverse situations. To be able to use these resources we, of course, need to know we have them before we can deliberately use them to help us. These three things, having resources, being aware of them, and being able to deploy them, are what feed our resilience, and our ability to bounce-back from adversity.

Being adaptable means being able to quickly and appropriately change our behaviour when circumstances change. For example, we are having to find different ways to manage work, often alongside home schooling children.

For both resilience and adaptability, being resourceful is key.

How can we discover our resourcefulness and boost our resilience and adaptability?

Broadly speaking we have personal resources and social resources that we can call on.

Personal resources

Our Strengths

One of our biggest sources of personal resources is our own unique strengths. They are the things that are natural for us to do and that seem easy to us. For instance some people are inherently strategically minded, others are inherently empathetic. Some of us are good at logical analysis, others of us are excellent at developing others.

It’s important to know our own strengths as using them boosts our confidence and gives us energy, allowing us to recover more quickly from setbacks. We are likely to solve a problem better if the solution uses our strengths. To learn more about your unique strengths you can take the VIA free strengths test or buy a pack of strengths cards so you can self-identify your strengths. With the knowledge you gained you can then get some feedback from others on what they think your strengths are, and when they’ve seen you use them in a difficult situation.

Our previous experiences

When we are stressed or anxious it can be really helpful to remember other times when we coped, when we got through a tricky situation or when we turned a situation around. Being in the grip of the present can prevent us from accessing resources from the past: our knowledge, our skills, our experience.

We can discover these hidden resources by remembering our best experiences, when we weren’t just coping but really flourishing and excelling.  Appreciative Inquiry is a change process that is built on the understanding that resources from the past can help us in the present and in the future. There are there are some books about how to apply it to your personal life, or your professional life to tell you more.

Boosting our resilience by building our HERO abilities

Our HERO ability made up of our states of hopefulness, optimism, resilience and confidence (efficacy). Add these four things together and the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. In other words, although resilience is part of our HERO abilities, it is also boosted if we can boost our sense of hope, optimism and confidence.

You can discover more in the Psychological Capital and Beyond, a book by the people who discovered this.

Social resources

Our social networks extend our resourcefulness. Think of it as ‘I know a (wo)man who can’. Our network contains people who find easy what we find hard. They can be a source of inspiration, uplift, practical advice, useful contacts and many other resources that help us cope. Exchange your strengths across your network.

Organisational resilience

Organisational resilience is about all of the above, and, about social capital. The social capital of an organization reflects its connectedness. It’s about how easily information flows around the organization and how much trust there is. As we tentatively ease lockdown, the enthusiasm of people to return to previous places of work will depend, to some extent, on the extent to which they trust the organization to look after them. Do they believe the organization is telling them what they need to know? Do they trust the plans to keep them safe? These positive organization development cards have lots of information about the features of the best organisations

A few quick tips for boosting your resilience and adaptability in the new normal

  • Follow safety instructions, but more importantly, understand the principles and apply them in different situations so you can be active in keeping yourself safe
  • Manage your energy and look after yourself. Having to suddenly adapt our behaviour means we can’t run on habitual lines, so it takes more energy even if you seem to be achieving less. Go easy on yourself, adjust your expectations and standards
  • Re-prioritise, and then do it again when things change again. It’s very easy to assume the priorities stay the same even as the situation changes. They don’t. Take time to think about what the highest priorities are in this situation, within these constraints, with these resources.
  • Redefine your goals so you can succeed in the new situation. This is very important.
  • Create and recreate structure for yourself. Structure helps because it reduces decision-making, which is taxing. Keep evolving new structures to your day or your life as things change.

If you are interested in learning more about resilience and adaptability, we are running 4 two-hour live virtual development workshops. You can also access a video interview of two psychologists talking about resilience both generally and at work.

About the author

Sarah LewisSarah Lewis C.Psychol., is the principal psychologist at Appreciating Change, a strengths-based psychological consultancy that is committed to applying well-researched positive psychology ideas and interventions to workplace challenges and opportunities at an individual, team or whole organization level.

Sarah is an associated fellow of the British Psychological Society, a principal member of the Association of Business Psychologists, and a member of the International Positive Psychology Association.

Sarah is an acknowledged Appreciative Inquiry and Positive Psychology expert, a regular conference presenter and author of ‘Positive Psychology at Work’ (Wiley), Positive Psychology and Change (Wiley), ‘Appreciative Inquiry for Change Management’ (KoganPage) and Positive Psychology in Business (Pavilion).

She also collects great positive psychology resources to support consultants, trainers and coaches in their work which are sold through the Positive Psychology online shop. https://www.thepositivepsychologyshop.com/

Web: https://acukltd.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/sarahlewis1

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahlewis1


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