Mindful Resilience for Health and Business

I keep reading in newspapers and hearing various commentators’ state that there are now more and more economic green shoots emerging. I do hope that is true!

However, the last few years have changed many things in regards to how we live our lives and work in Business. We are now living and working in a world with many uncertainties, however I believe a few trends are pretty certain to be maintained for the future. Some examples of these factors include;

• Rapid Change is now expected and even facilitated.
• We will continue to need to do more with less.
• There will be increasing demands of work.
• Work and life will continue to weave together creating an intense 24/7/365 culture.

Living and working in a state of continual change is not the way we adapted during evolution. Change used to occur slowly, with the seasons but as we develop faster more instantaneous feedback and communication the framework for change is becoming faster and faster. The speed of change can push us to stress, stretch and eventually burn out.

Dictionary.com defines resilience as;

“the ability to return to original form after being stressed, bent or placed under increasing pressure”.

However, sustainability is the key to the continual adaptation needed for our fast changing environment today. Psychological resilience can be defined as the individuals’ capacity to deal with stress and adversity. Building resilience is now a key feature for maintaining our wellbeing and productivity in today’s world and may require us to find new ways of coping with the change around us. 

In my opinion building resilience mindfully provides the ability to thrive in whatever situation you may find yourself in - it will take practise but finding the space to choose how you react to a situation can really help.

Here are 5 practise areas and some questions to consider. These may help you build Mindful Resilience for your health and business;

1: Pause for a moment. Take 10 breathes every morning and just notice how you are breathing. Are you breathing with your chest or diaphragm? Notice how each can feel different.

2: Notice when you are fixing your attention on something. Ask if this is the best thing for me at the moment - what is best for my health and my work? What happens when you “Pause and Take 10 breathes”?

3: Notice what you can control, what you might be able to influence and what you can’t control.

4: Look for what you have learned from the experience. Ask yourself, what did I learn from that? What will I now do differently?

5: Practice asking yourself what could be the hidden benefits to my health and my work or business - what could you do differently next time?

Practising the above may support you to adjust and find ways to build your mindful resilience skills or being in the moment, paying attention to what is around and within you. Practise being curious and noticing what is really happening and what you can or cannot impact. Direct your energy to moving towards what might be beneficial for your health and business goals, supporting you to thrive in adversity.