What is Resilience got to do with Relationship Building?

This may seem a very strange question to ask, and from my understanding of relationship building, being resilient is having the quality of being able to be bent and stretched in all directions whilst being able to bounce back to your original form, when the pressure is off. We need to be able to do this to achieve what we want to achieve. Being flexible is so important when we are in business today. Being able to see another’s point of view and recognising that the way they think is just as important to them, as your point of view is to you.

So, how resilient are you? Being resilient comes in many forms and learning how to bounce back is very important. Dealing with hardship and being able to hold your head high and staying honest to yourself is number one. As business owners we need to learn to be tough on the inside, to have ‘stickability’ and not fold when things get hard.

Learning to cope when life throws us a curveball is not always easy. Sometimes it takes experience and courage to be able to stand tall and shrug off what sometimes can hurt us deeply. Learning to stand up for oneself, especially when we are young, can be difficult. Dealing with resilience shows people around us how we deal with adversity and will give a very big picture of us as an individual to those who are wondering how we cope with difficult times. In business partnerships this is a very important factor when choosing someone to work with closely.

I am sure you are aware, like most of us these days in business, that there will be many ups and downs as a normal part of living. As business owners we suffer from more stresses/traumas in life than ever before.

Our world is moving so fast today and we have to be able to keep up and learn how to manage our crisis’s better as they come in many forms. We see this in the extraordinary number of people struggling with depression, people who work too long hours and those who have not learned how to be resilient. For me, I was fortunate to learn this skill very early in life and will be forever grateful to my parents as it has stood me in good stead over many years.

We need to understand that we are all different and our challenges in life are unique to us as individuals. As our experiences are very different and our learnings from childhood were different. We find that everyone has different resources in coping and how long it takes them to bounce back from things that are stressful to them.

Do not judge others on how you as an individual react to things. Be aware and acknowledge that others will react differently through their tough times and do your best to support them when and if you can. Learning how you yourself cope with the stresses and strains of life can support you to be even more resilient in the future.

Research has shown that many factors and circumstances in life promote how resilient we are. It may be a supportive and stable family, being positive and having an optimistic view about life, or our sense of worth, the groups either social or as a community that we belong to, our good relationships and sense of belonging, and/or our positive relationships with people we care about.

Some of the behaviours that are common to resilient people are that they see opportunities in all things, accept change as a part of living, keep things in perspective by being realistic, maintaining positive relationships, finding strategies to support themselves when things are tough, and/or by taking action to achieve what they want. They are happy to talk and get help when they are struggling with life, and importantly, they develop an attitude of tolerance, acceptance and flexibility.

There are of course many more behaviours and factors that are common in how we cope with life. Do you understand and see where your resilience comes from?

If you are struggling and wondering how you can develop a more resilient life I would suggest that you develop a better self-awareness by understanding how you cope emotionally with ‘you’ when you have a crises by being aware of how you react to them. More than likely it is a learned behaviour from your young years that do not serve you now that you are an adult.

It is important that you understand your needs, joys and frustrations, your goals, values and beliefs whilst understanding your individual limits. If you can view your life from a bigger picture, away from your challenges at any time this will help. By understanding how you ‘self-control’ and when you do not is a major factor in watching your behaviour.

If you know your strengths and responses to situations that affect you, you will learn to understand how you can change any current behaviour that is not serving you. Your style of coping relates usually to your early learning history. What was your ‘habit’ as a child, as discussed in the Enneagram, that supports you to gain what you want from life as an adult and is not self-serving? In fact, it can be very destructive to you and your relationships.

May your future bring you an ability to be able to move through your challenges in life easier by understanding what makes you who you are and what serves you better.