Building resilience is like building muscle. It takes daily routine, effort, and commitment. You may not notice immediate results, but you will become a resilience champion over time. The work you put in today will reward you for the rest of your life.
The first step is planning a “resilience workout.” You wouldn’t walk into the gym without first learning how to use the equipment, and resilience exercise is the same. With the help of an expert, you can create a plan that works best for you. A resilience speaker is a personal trainer that will teach you how to build resilience everyday.
Resilience Is The Key to Living a Life You Love
There is no manual for life. As we navigate through, we will all experience unexpected twists and turns. Some will be everyday challenges that we easily overcome, but others will be more traumatic with lasting effects. Each challenge we face will affect us differently and may bring up unique thoughts, strong emotions, and uncertainty.
What determines how we embrace and utilize those changes is resilience. Resilience goes deeper than just facing a challenge, it is the key to living a life you love. It is how you will succeed in business, relationships, and life. Resilience not only helps you get back up after falling down, it propels you forward in an even better way.
Resilience is also our ability to become Change Proof. It is how we thrive mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually, despite our environment. Living a resilient life is critical to effectively handling negative experiences.
Now that we know why it’s important, let’s talk about how to build resilience.
How You Can Build Personal Resilience Everyday
You may not have enough fingers and toes to count how many times you’ve planned on going to the gym “right after” work, but when the time comes, you’re mentally and emotionally exhausted, so you decide to “start tomorrow” instead. Then tomorrow turns into today, and somehow you still haven’t found the time or energy.
Cultivating time for your personal resilience requires making it a priority, so it’s important to keep it simple and convenient. Dedicating space to fit in mental, emotional, spiritual and physical resilience-building activities is the first step to creating long-term resilience.
Before we dive in with examples, you may want to check out my Resilience Workbook, which includes easy-to-follow resilience worksheets you can use to build resilience exercises into your routine.
Build Your Resilience With a Morning Routine
How we choose to wake up designates how we experience ourselves and the world around us each day. Through trial and (lots of) error, I’ve created a morning routine that sets me up for a positive, productive and resilient day.
Feel free to borrow these components of my routine to kickstart your morning:
- Hydrate with a full glass of water (I like to add lime and a sprinkle of Himalayan sea salt)
- Practicing gratitude with journaling
- Meditate, set your intention for the day and repeat at least one powerful resilience affirmation
- Make a green drink or salad to increase your intake of daily vitamins and minerals
When you wake up, ask yourself, “what might get in the way of achieving my plan today? How will I address that and hold myself accountable for making progress towards it?”
Afternoon Resilience Activities in the Workplace
It’s just as important to focus on resilience in the workplace as it is at home. The middle of the day offers an opportunity to recharge and re-energize with healthy practices and go-to rituals.
Give your mind a break, while creating a state of change, with some of these quick pick-me-ups:
- Breathe and hydrate
- Listen to energetic music
- Chat or exchange jokes with a coworker
- Stroll around the office or stretch at your desk
- Enjoy a nutritious lunch
- Replace that afternoon cup of coffee with a turmeric ginger latte
It may feel like you don’t have time to incorporate resilience activities in the workplace, but taking a break to recharge increases productivity.
Evening Resilience Exercises
You’ve made it through work, but like many of us, our day doesn’t end there. After the evening rush of chores, dinner and family activities, it’s important to give yourself space to wind down. Your evening ritual is all about quieting your mind and body, calming your nervous system, harnessing your energy and preparing for deep sleep.
By giving yourself the gift of slowing down at night, you aid in your recovery, reinvigorate your ability to reframe, and allow your mind and body the break they desperately need. Some examples of calming rituals:
- Be grateful
- Set tomorrow’s intention with new hope
- Take a bath, or read something relaxing, preferably in book format, not on a device
- Make sure you get seven to eight hours of quality sleep
By leaving the day behind, you will get a good night’s sleep and wake recharged and revitalized.
Positive Mindset Resilience Exercises
So you’ve created your resilience workout plan, eaten your protein, dressed in your activewear, laced up your shoes and are ready to go. It’s time to kick your resilience building activities into action.
Find Purpose and See the Bigger Picture
Striving to see the big picture in life helps you understand the connection between basic tasks and long-term goals. As you encounter challenges, it’s helpful to acknowledge your emotions, but it’s also important to foster a sense of self-discovery by asking yourself, “What can I do to solve this problem?”
This will help you take action, and let go of what you can’t change.
Visualize Positive Outcomes
Seeing is believing and this has never been more true than when it comes to using visualization to manifest success. Your thoughts are extremely powerful and play a significant role in how resilient you will be when faced with obstacles.
Ask yourself, “What is a greater expression of the person that I would like to become?” Once you answer this, visualize it happening. This is especially helpful when navigating a highly stressful event. While you cannot change what is happening, you can change how you interpret and respond to it.
Be Present and Mindful
During a workout, you are mentally and physically focused on the exercise, therefore, you are less likely to be stressing about other things.
When you are concentrating on the past or future, you may feel frustrated, anxious, regretful or worried. By practicing mindfulness or being in the moment, you are able to process and deal with negative emotions as they arise. This helps you respond to thoughts with neutral intention and feelings in real-time.
Being present and mindful is essential for building long-term resilience.
Foster Wellness
The phrase “self-care” often gets thrown around like glitter, but don’t discount it as just sparkle, it is important for your mental health and a legitimate component of how you build resilience everyday.
Stress is just as much physical as it is emotional, so it’s important to take care of your mind and body. One way to build physical resilience is through daily light exercise (20-30 minutes) with mindful intention. You can try simple stretching, yoga or walking.
You can also help foster positive thinking by incorporating mindful journaling and other spiritual practices like prayer or meditation into your daily routine.
Accept That Change is Part of Living
I’ve always heard people say, “best laid plans,” but I never know how the rest of it goes. Just like life. No matter how well thought out they are, things don’t always go according to plan.
The Tao says it perfectly, “Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
Or as my favorite Adam Sandler movie explains, “just go with it.”
If you expect things to change and adversity to occur, you will be able to cope when loss or pain comes your way. Check out my new book, Change-Proof: Leveraging the Power of Uncertainty to Build Long-Term Resilience, for more tips.
Build Your Connections and Relationships
Surrounding yourself with like-minded people is one of the best resilience building activities you can add to your life. Connecting with empathetic and understanding people will remind you that you are not alone when facing challenges.
Focusing on finding trustworthy and compassionate individuals who validate your feelings will support long-term resilience. Simply talking about a situation with a loved one won’t make your troubles disappear, but it will help you deal with them. Talking it out allows you to share your feelings, receive support and positive feedback and brainstorm possible solutions.
Reach Out for Help
I know, it’s hard. Nobody is good at asking for help, but when you do, it enables you to keep anxiety at bay, and reinforces the understanding that you are not alone.
If you are asking for help in the workplace, it’s important to speak with your supervisor or Human Resources. They may have ways to support you such as members’ access to digital learning courses on different topics that will help you grow, learn and try new things.
Your employer may also engage a resilience keynote speaker to help you and your co-workers with ideas for implementing resilience activities for the workplace.
How Can A Resilience Keynote Speaker Help?
A resilience speaker can help you embrace change, both personally and professionally. They can help you execute disruption and cultivate work cultures of greater unity and resilience.
You can also download my Resilience Kickstart Kit Workbook, which includes resilience worksheets, as a guide to your daily resilience journey. If you’d like to learn more, contact us by calling 877.697.4868 or sending an email to team@adammarkel.com. You can expect a response within 24 hours.
It’s time to put your daily resilience workout plan into action and begin your journey to becoming a resilience champion!
