Before I start off with this article on resilience and you start to feel its one of those self-help blogs, let me tell you I am not a big fan of those self-help sessions and self-help books myself, I’d rather read ‘Animal Farm’ by George Orwell than ‘You can Win’ by Shiv Khera. But when I came across a training workshop on ‘Resilience’, the term caught my eye and I googled for exact meaning… it simply means the ability to recover or bounce back to original state from any sort of set back (It could be illness or negative state of mind or anything disturbing or stressful). Something told me that this would be quite different and I enrolled myself for the session.

It was quite surprising to find few simple things that we ignore to manage in life that can actually enhance resilience in us. I found this three hours training on Resilience very interesting and eventually beneficial. Though not everything I found in the speaker’s text book quite practically possible to follow but few little things really made logical sense to me. I am not trained in things like this so I may not really provide you a ‘change in life’ reading experience… But by reading the points that I made in my notes can make you ponder over and change little things in your routine, its worth a shot…

1. Do what matters –

We make such long ‘to-do’ list for ourselves for the given day or in life that we may not really end up completing everything on the list. This for sure results into as little as disturbance or as huge as frustration – depending on our individual personalities and the degree of resilience in us. The way to avoid this would be – by doing what really matters in that list. Come on, not everything is as equal as the other. Be realistic and put the not so important things down the list. Drop it off if feasible.

2. Prioritize and re-schedule –

When there are 10 things to work on in office or in our day-to-day activities and we are running on a short deadline, a time limit, then we cant keep doing in the standard sequential order, while getting all worried and stressed out. We’ve got to prioritize, even though it takes few initial important minutes to just understand and plan up our work, it reduces hours of our time. Because we know we’ve got to do what best we can at that situation not just for the heck of doing all of it and getting done with. We’ve got to prioritize and re-schedule wherever necessary and be open for the change, multi-task reasonably and wherever convienient.

3. Accept help to balance –

There is a tendency among many of us that we are not open for accepting help. We fear that it would spoil our current situation and make it worse if someone else takes up our task and we might end up doing more and losing time. The solution to this is you dont have to get them do what they cant – but only the things that the person is capable of. Do not under-estimate or over-estimate the person who offers help. Accept that you need help at the crunch situation before you go all judgemental about him or her. Even if he could draft an email for you would save time. Distributing your work to end up getting everything done, within a time frame, is a fantastic management quality in one self.

4. Drop non-contributory activities –

Stressing yourself, skipping meals for getting that extra time to finish off work wont really help – instead they cause harm and reduce the efficiency. There is a lot of importance for emotional balance. Eat sensibly and appropriately. Stressing yourself is the worst you can do, you’ve got to take control and accept responsibility to handle a situation. Actively manage stress, whatever helps – like, a break with an energy stimulating cup of coffee, soft music on your iPod while you work (only if it works for you as its not helpful for all). With things like this the stress levels reduce and efficiency levels rise up.

5. Protect your private time –

Having a work-life balance is very crutial and important because all the above mentioned points depends on how you protect your private time. In your private time have enough sleep, exercise regularly. Be nice to be treated nice, this provides a positive feeling. I read a post on Facebook which said its always nice being around happy people. A gentle smile or a jovial person can put you to ease and bring about the best in you. Avoid people who cause you disturbance. Dont get your mind all disturbed by ones who bother you, stay away, they are not worth your attention. Do things you like the most, play an instrument, watch a movie or do something that interests you. It brings out the joy inside to get ready for another challenging tomorrow.

Having said all that made sense to me in the workshop I shall add one mantra of my own – Live life to fullest.