Investing in your resilience

Timestamps 

00:00:00: Introduction

00:01:58: Resilience explained and common misconceptions

00:03:21: The skills required to be resilient

00:08:03: Surround yourself with the right people and have the right conversations

00:13:20: The guilt barrier

00:14:51: Final thoughts   

Interview Transcription 

Sarah Ellis: Hello and welcome to the Squiggly Careers podcast.  I'm Sarah, one of your hosts, and this episode is part of a special series that we've created to bring to life some of the ideas and insights in our new book, You Coach You.  In this series of six episodes, we'll be talking to experts to get their thoughts on how we can help ourselves through some of the knottier moments in our Squiggly Careers.  It might be coping with challenging relationships at work, feeling overwhelmed, or perhaps your progress has stalled, or maybe figuring out how to find more meaning from the work that you do. 

Every episode relates to a chapter in You Coach You, and today we're focusing on our resilience chapter.  We've got someone who is absolutely brilliant talking about resilience.  He was recommended to me, I think in one week, by three different people, which is always a good sign, and he absolutely didn't disappoint.  Today, you're going to hear me talk to Dr Bill Mitchell, who is a clinical psychologist, and his most recent book is called Time to Breathe.  I really enjoyed our conversation together, because I think what Bill is able to do so brilliantly is combine all of his academic rigour and research and knowhow with his practical experience of working with people all across the world, and he really understands and relates to what we've all been experiencing.  So, whether that is our blurred boundaries or feeling overwhelmed, or sometimes just feeling like we don't have time for ourselves, he gives us lots of tools and tactics to just improve our resilience in small, specific, and I think really realistic ways.  I had to really focus on the conversation to avoid just starting to make a bit of a to-do list for myself, because he was such a brilliant person to listen to.   So, I hope you enjoy today's conversation.  I'll be back at the end to let you know who else you can listen to as part of the series. 

Dr Bill Mitchell: Okay, so what is resilience?  Essentially, it's a balancing system.  If you think about all the pressures that you're under, from your job, from your home life, the pandemic pressures, the disruption, dislocation, uncertainty and so on; and if we also think about how we pressurise ourselves, conscientiousness and commitment and perfectionistic tendencies and all of those things, it's a huge mixture of pressures.  Essentially, we need a balancing system that's as strong or stronger than those pressures, and that essentially is what I see resilience as being.  There are some misconceptions about it.  I think one big misconception is that many, many people treat it as a quality they've got.  I'd asked somebody, "Look, how did you cope last year?" and they'll say something vague like, "Well, you know, I'm just a resilient person".  That doesn't explain anything, but I don't see it as a quality.  I see it as a collection of things we've learned to do.  Through all the challenges and disruptions of our lives, we've learned ways of dealing with those challenges and we internalise them.  That collection of skills becomes our resilience system. 

Sarah Ellis: So, let's talk about those skills, because in some ways, listening to what you've just said is, I think, reassuring for all of us, because I think you've debunked the myth that either it's something we have or we haven't got.  Any time I hear that something is a skill, I feel okay, well it might be hard to do, but at least I can learn and I can practise and I can hopefully improve my resilience, based on the way that you've just describe it.  And, I assume that it's something that we also need to continue to invest in, rather than feel like we've ticked that box now.    So, perhaps let's talk about the skills first, and then this idea of, do you need to continually commit to it, perhaps even when times are not hard? 

Dr Bill Mitchell: So, just looking at what the skills are and the need to continue to invest in it is absolutely right, because if we treated it as a collection of skills, rather than as a quality, we would just be curious about it, and we would be keen to add more skills, and we wouldn't just let them drift away when life becomes more demanding.  So, the way I see the skills are that they organise themselves into a system, and I think that you can almost visualise it as a set of building blocks, with practical things inside each building block.  And I really urge people, if they are about to go into something in life that is just new in some way, like moving house, changing job, moving country, taking on a new role within an organisation, anything that's going to be more pressurising, just think about this system of resilience building blocks and try and have that in place, so you're dealing with those changes proactively.  But to look at some of the skills, I also think that everything interconnects.  So, for instance, how we look after ourselves physiologically influences how we feel mentally.  Ordinarily, when people think about mental wellbeing, they think about some abstract concept which is not physical.  But actually, the whole thing interconnects.  So, there is a physiology that underpins mental energy, mental wellbeing, happiness, how we adapt to demanding jobs, how we deal with a crisis, and so on.  And understanding a little bit about that physiology, and then doing a few things that protects that physiology, just keeps us in a better state of mental wellbeing.  That's where there are no surprises on that list, things like some physical activity, ways of decompressing, winding down, which for some people is yoga, pilates, meditation.  But for other people, there are things like cooking, listening to music, playing with your kids, reading a novel before bed, just the natural ways of winding down; trying to get good quality sleep, seven to eight hours is ideal; even your diet has an impact on mental wellbeing, there's such a thing as an anti-depressive diet. 

So, really focusing on a good, well thought-through diet, keeping alcohol low/moderate, all of these things link to the physiology that underpins good mental wellbeing and resilience.  But also, our interconnections with people, and we've been dislocated for months from friends, from family.  Some people have been dislocated inside relationships and they've suffered as a consequence.  But people give us support, acceptance, they jog us out of a bad mood, they make us laugh.  And there's really interesting evidence that laughter is as effective as exercise when it comes to underpinning the physiology of mental health.  So, maintaining good quality relationships, and any co-relationship we're in; because again, that correlates with stronger resilience, lower incidents of depression, a better immune system, and even performing better in really demanding jobs.  Everything interconnects.  Basically, one tip would be, regardless of how busy you are, try to do something for you every day out of that list.  And one thing I try and urge people to think about is, is there anything that you just anchor, something that you know if you drift away from it, you'll suffer in some way, your mood might drop, you might get more irritable, confidence might drop?  Anchor them, treat them as not negotiable, and that could be exercise, it could be sleep, it could be a diet; but if there's one thing that's non-negotiable in the system, then some things might drift, but the key ones won't. 

Sarah Ellis: I wonder if you could just talk to us a bit about the people that you surround yourself with and the impact that has on your resilience? 

Dr Bill Mitchell: That feeling of being overwhelmed and how we cope when we get overwhelmed, I think it's useful to distinguish between being overloaded and overwhelmed.  When we're overloaded, essentially we've got too much to do, but we still feel in control.  When we're overwhelmed, we've lost control, and it's the feeling of lost control that gives rise to the emotional reaction.  That's when we start to panic, that's when we look at the list and we've no idea where to start; we just feel mentally paralysed and it gets all too much.  So, the essence in being overwhelmed is to recognise the loss of control, and focus more on the control piece, rather than just focusing on how much you've got on.  Now, part of that could be, have a really good conversation with somebody who's helpful and who understands the kind of work you do.  You need to be selective here.  A conversation with your boss could be really helpful, because you could negotiate demands, you could really clarify what priorities matter and what don't, you could look at ways of doing things maybe more pragmatically, rather than trying to do everything perfectly; you could look at who could do something else for you. 

The whole delegation potential opens itself up here.    So, a good conversation with somebody who really understands your work can be very helpful in giving you a sense of greater controllability.  You can have a conversation with somebody who doesn't understand it, and then the conversation could be really frustrating, because then it could go to, "Well, you've just got to tell your boss that you've got too much on.  You're being taken advantage of here.  You should just leave at 5.00pm and let them get on with it".  That conversation is no help, but could actually make you feel worse.  So, really pick your people carefully, and you want the ones who will give you a greater sense of controllability, rather than the ones who will just make you feel more helpless.  The role of the team leader, the role of the manager, for the resilience of the team, is something I'm really interested in.  I think it can make a huge, huge impact on people's mental wellbeing, but also on the effectiveness and the productivity of the teams, because every manager creates their microculture.  Anyone working in an organisation lives in the big culture of the organisation, but that's a total abstraction. 

But what is very real is the microculture that's created by the person that leads your team.  Now, some microcultures are incredible healthy, some are totally toxic, and it can be under the same umbrella.  If a manager was to think, "What kind of microculture am I creating for my team; for their health, for their wellbeing, for their psychological wellbeing, but also for their effectiveness in this job?"  Then you could start thinking about, what do you encourage; how supportive are you, when people are visibly struggling with the demands?  Look out for early red flags that somebody in your team is just drifting away from the good place in the continuum, and looking more tired out, struggling with demands, maybe close to being emotional, maybe more irritable than usual, maybe more withdrawn than normal.  Those are all indications that this person might be struggling with the demands.  Check in on that, check in on how people are feeling, make it safe for people to have honest conversations if they're struggling with work demands, difficult people, struggling with reaching their targets, or whatever, and be proactive about it.  Say things like, "Look, you've got a lot on right now, you're dealing with some really difficult projects, how are you; how are you coping with all this?" to get good conversations going about this.  You can also coach people, you know, as a good manager.  You might see people who are just not that good at prioritising, or others who are making themselves just constantly available to emails that they don't need to be responding to right at this moment.  You can give them guidance, you can give them permission on how they can balance their lives better, and clarify the ambiguities.  If you, as a manager, for instance, just decide to send out a pile of emails on a Sunday, that doesn't mean you need an answer on a Sunday, but you may well need to clarify that, because insecure people will respond on a Sunday.  If you, as a manager, work on your holidays, you're setting a major signal that, if you want to get on in this organisation, you've got to work on your holiday.  But actually, if you can have conversations that clarify all this, people can have a better life, and that's very supportive. 

Sarah Ellis: From all of the research you've done and the work that you do, is there a consistent kind of biggest barrier that is getting in our way from being more resilient? 

Dr Bill Mitchell: One of the biggest things we're up against is guilt.  It's very easy to feel guilty if you're not doing more to tick things off the list, and that could be at work or at home.  So, making yourself a priority can generate guilt.  You can feel guilty if you go for a walk at lunchtime; we can feel guilty if we go to bed early, because we could be working later; we could feel guilty if we are going on holiday and we're not checking our emails throughout the day.  Guilt is a huge head weight.    I think the way to deal with guilt is to recognise that in the examples I'm giving, guilt is a mental habit, it's not justified guilt.  And I think the way to deal with this is that it's back to the point about everything being connected.  If you are to be at your best in a really demanding job, if you are going to be effective and energised for your job, for your people, for your home life, you just have to invest some time to give to you.  If you neglect you, everything else will drop away. 

Sarah Ellis: So, thank you so much for listening to today's episode.  I hope you'll agree that it's a very strong start to our new series, and I can't wait to share the rest of them with you.  Next, you're going to hear Helen talk to Nir Eyal, who is an expert in distraction and our distraction downfalls, and how we can stop them getting in our way, so I think that will be a really fascinating discussion. 

You Coach You is of course out now, so please do grab a copy if you've not already, and you think it might be helpful for you in your career this year.  There are more than 50 ideas for action, 100 coach-yourself questions and loads of tools to try out.  If you want to develop in a new direction, if you want to think about your progression, build your belief, invest in your resilience reserves, improve the quality of your relationships, our book, we hope, is here to help.  We would love you to support and share our work.  We really do appreciate it, and it's how more people discover us. 

So, if you are reading a copy, we'd love you to send us pictures, and it's also really nice for us to see our work making it out into the world.  So, you can find us @amazingif on Instagram, or please do connect with us on LinkedIn.  Thanks again for listening, and we hope you will enjoy the rest of the series.