I recently had a conversation with a friend who mentioned that they’d heard resilience being described as the new buzzword. As someone who’s joined this buzz, it certainly had me thinking.
Yes, resilience IS the buzzword of the moment. But for a GOOD reason. Here’s why.
Resilience is an intangible hygiene factor that’s best described as “our ability to handle stress.”
As a hygiene factor, we rarely know we need it until we don’t have it. For example, when was the last time you emailed payroll to thank them for paying you? What happens when you don’t get paid? We treat resilience in the same manner. We only react once we don’t have it.
Every single one of us has gone through a sustained period of stress and uncertainty recently.
And many of us have experienced large amounts of time where our control was taken from us.
We’ve all been living through a pandemic, affected by war, further geopolitics, food shortages and other sustainability issues. Some of us have had that compounded with natural disasters (before and after the pandemic) and financial challenges.
That doesn’t even cover our own personal stressors. Many of us have further layers of stress compounding the experience.
With all of that in mind, we’re at a place of collective stress and depletion not seen for decades.
Very few of us have been actively topping up our resilience cup. Many of us are trying to drink from an empty jug. Our resilience doesn’t just get filled again, it takes daily habits and micro-moments, commitment, and dedication.
We wouldn’t go to the gym once and expect to have guns of steel, yet that’s exactly the way many of us treat building up our resilience.
So, yes, resilience IS the new buzzword. And rightfully so.
Have a winning day!
Bx