How does one remain resilient in the face of knockbacks, rejection and frustration when attempting to set examples for others, and at the same time cope resourcefully with one’s own feelings?
What is the best way to deal effectively with both predictable and unexpected challenges on a daily basis? What is the trick to managing your time, resources, budgets, unreliability, uncertainty, doubt or confusion, especially when much of it may be out of your personal control?
These are all common occurrences that manifest in the workplace, either frequently or infrequently, depending on your role and circumstances. They are also ones which, if not tackled resourcefully and with great self-awareness, can seriously grind you down, resulting in lack of motivation, disillusionment and, let’s be honest, cause a big dent in your leadership skills.
Our brains, complex and evolved as they are, retain the natural and basic instincts of survival. In short, when we feel threatened or fearful for any reason whether that be by marauding woolly mammoths in prehistoric times or a stressful impending conflict in the boardroom today, a very similar set of events occurs.
Different people, events and combinations of situations, will of course vary enormously, however, this is a basic outline of what happens when things start to go wrong, and illustrates simply, what you need to recognise in order to combat unhelpful thinking and so maintain resilience. When you’re faced with stressful situations continuously, and you are without self-awareness or the ability to deal with it in a resourceful manner, it leads to increased stress, dogmatic thinking, resilience being worn down and that feeling of exhaustion, lack of focus and motivation which lessens your ability to make clear decisions for yourself and others.
Initially, upon perceiving a mental or physical threat, the reptilian brain kicks in. This is sometimes called the dinosaur brain and deals with the fight or flight reaction. It appears as soon as we first feel threatened and causes a default instinctual reaction.
Noticing and acknowledging your thoughts when this occurs will put you in a position to deal proactively with the situation, rather than displaying an automatic passive retreat which disallows your own needs or alternatively, becoming defensive or aggressive, either in your head or outwardly.
If you don’t catch this reptilian brain doing its work, the next stage will be to feel an emotional response to the situation because the limbic brain has been engaged. This can make you feel like a victim, or paranoid, angry or frustrated, or indeed any other number of emotional responses which will not necessarily be helpful in managing the situation.
Again, the good news is that if you become adept at noticing what’s going on at this point, it will give you the ability to clearly identify what you feel as your emotional response, and you can then employ some critical thinking. For example, you can reframe your response by making the best use of another, more rational part of your brain, your pre-frontal and neocortex.
Exercising good personal leadership can be a real gift here, enabling your rational or thinking brain to do its best work. Becoming adept at this means you can view the situation from a less emotional and more practical, more resourceful perspective, demonstrating the thoughts and actions which will be most helpful to you to remain optimistic, feel stronger and move forwards. Engaging this way of thinking will allow you to lead others with greater confidence and conviction.
Being fully aware of the order that different parts of your brain jump into action and using them all in the best way you can, gives you the best chance of building and maintaining your resilience. It will also ensure that the way you are viewing situations is working for you rather than against you.
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