When you encounter challenge in life and on your journey to career clarity, it offers an opportunity to strengthen your inner resilience. As we experience the pandemic we are all faced with challenging circumstances. This crisis provides a unique opportunity to grow awareness of your innate resilience. It is a good time to learn how to strengthen your inner resources even further. As your resilience grows, you will face challenges in your career and life with more confidence and ease.
What Sustains You in Times of Adversity?
As we have all been thrown out of our habitual ways of being, it’s been so inspiring to witness people draw on their innate resilience in unique ways during this crisis. Here’s how my clients Ruth, Rob and Glen (not their real names) accessed their resilience during this extraordinary time.
For Beth, her morning runs became her bedrock during the pandemic. She shared: “When I am running, I am completely focused and in the present moment. It gives me a break from worrying or fretting about what might happen. While my body is active, I get a break from my mind chatter.”
Rob was in the process of exploring his next career challenge with me through coaching, when the pandemic started. With both of his teenage sons doing home-schooling, he knew he needed to create a project to keep himself and his sons engaged and motivated. He stepped into leadership and transformed their garage into a gym with the help of his sons. Together they developed a work-out routine that gave all three of them a sense of competition, physical challenge and accomplishment.
Glen was surprised to notice how much joy he experienced while cooking nice meals for himself. He had so much fun trying out new recipes. He splurged and used high quality ingredients and nice dishes that he usually reserves only for special occasions. “This pandemic has helped me realize how much joy I get from cooking, when I give myself enough time to create a delicious meal. It’s given me a sense of aliveness in my daily life. The pandemic made me realize that I need to live life now. I am no longer waiting for a special day to come.”
What do you turn to in times of adversity? How do you sustain yourself during challenging times? Take a moment to jot down the activities that connect you with your inner resilience. Just like my clients, you may realize how strong and resilient you are as you ponder these questions.
Notice Your Innate Resilience Qualities
During coaching we reflected on my clients’ innate resilience qualities. These are inner qualities that you can draw on, when the going gets tough. For Beth, focus was the quality that most sustained her, during the pandemic. Beth realized: “Running is my way of meditating. It helps me focus and clear my mind.”
As we shone a light on Rob’s innate resilience qualities, he recognized: “I am strategic, organized, collaborative and competitive. The garage gym project helped me realize how naturally I access these strengths.”
Glen who is usually very socially active, learned to slow down during the pandemic. When his social activities fell away, he found his bedrock in taking time to cook for himself.
He discovered that one of his innate strengths is to make an experience, such as a meal, extra special. To his surprise he didn’t miss the flurry of activity he used to engage with. He realized that quality and attention to detail is much more important to him.
What are your innate resilience qualities? How do you call on your strengths, when faced with adversity? What innate qualities do you discover in yourself? Take a moment to jot down your insights.
Nurture Your Resilience Qualities
The more you cultivate your resilience, the easier it becomes to sustain yourself when facing challenges in your career and life. When my career coaching clients recognized their innate resilience qualities, they felt empowered and resourceful. They naturally want to cultivate these qualities beyond the time of crisis.
Glen especially wants to continue to nurture his newfound resilience quality. During a coaching session he realized: “While I enjoy being social, I want to be more selective with social engagements in the future.” Glen now knows that fewer quality interactions will nourish him more deeply.
For Beth it became clear that she thrives when she engages in activities that require her complete focus. As a result, Beth wants to bring more elements of challenge and learning into her work. This will further grow her strength of focus and will make Beth even more resilient.
Rob now knows that his next career challenge is going to involve his strengths of strategy, organization and competition. Leading a small, engaged team to produce high quality results has crystallized into the vision for Rob’s next career move.
How will you continue to cultivate your resilience qualities beyond times of immediate crisis?
Now that you are more aware of your inner resilience, take another powerful step towards positive transformation and request your free career clarity consultation.
Also, please take a moment to share your inner resilience qualities in the comment section below. Thank you for sharing your inspiring resilience qualities with other readers!
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