If 2023 is the year that you’re hoping to dream BIGGER, then have you considered the role your resilience will play in reaching those big goals you’ve set for yourself?
Growth is not a linear process, it is FULL of ups and downs along the way; staying positive and focused on our goals and dreams when we’re in an ‘up’ moment along the journey is the easy part, but what do we do when we face a hurdle or have a challenging day that turns into a challenging week? How can we stay focused on the bigger picture when we are feeling down and defeated?
I sat down with life & career coach, Laura Ogilive-Jones, to find out how we can raise our resilience levels this year and process mistakes in a healthier way.
1. Don’t say the f-word!
I’m talking about ‘failure’ - things are going to go wrong along the way to your big dreams, but according to Laura, failure is not a helpful word to use in these moments!
“I think the word failure is not very helpful. So we can think of it as being a form of communication: something didn't go right and it didn't go according to the plan I originally had, that's okay. It's giving us a whole heap of information we can use for what we do next. So it's important that we kind of actually spend some time unpicking it a bit.”
2. Look for the gift in the mistake
“When something goes wrong, there will always be something that comes out of it that is a gift, that is a positive thing. You might just have to look a bit harder to find it, but it will be there. And I think it's always important to do that.”
So the next time something doesn’t work out as planned, or you have a challenging day, try looking at it through the lens of ‘what can I learn from this’ or ask yourself what you might do differently next time.
3. What would you say to a friend?
Sometimes when we’re in the middle of facing a challenge, dealing with a mistake or moving through a series of hard days, it can be difficult to switch our minds into solution focused thinking because all we can see is the problem or the challenge in front of us. In moments like these, Laura recommends looking at your challenge and asking yourself what advice you would give to a friend if they came to you with this same problem.
“If a really good friend came to me and said, you know what? I've totally messed up. This has gone completely wrong. I've failed at blah, blah, blah… What would I say to them? And it's like, well, I'll probably say, don't worry, you haven't really failed. What about doing this, this and this? And of course, that knowledge is coming from yourself. It's just that you're just viewing it in a slightly different way because you're able to get outside of yourself and outside of your own head.”
4. You’ve been here before!
Another simple way of getting out of your own head that Laura recommends is actually thinking back to previous times you faced challenges or moved through periods of not feeling super confident in yourself. It might seem counter productive at first but it can actually give us some useful evidence!
“Remembering some of those times in the past when you felt really wretched and things hadn't worked out - you didn't stay feeling that awful forever. These emotions and feelings, they come, they go. And then what happened after that? And what successes did you have after that? So I think sometimes using your own life as a bit of evidence to give you a bit of a boost at that moment can be really helpful as well”.
5. Reconnect with feeling
All our feelings give us information, even the uncomfortable ones are telling us something important, and usually it's that this is not working! Laura recommends leaning into those feelings and reconnecting with your end goals to help you decide on next steps:
“then I think it's about reconnecting with, okay, so how do I want to feel when I do succeed at that thing? And maybe what different way could I then approach this? But also at that point, is there a better way of tackling it? Do I need to maybe change tack with this altogether? Because actually, I've tried this and you know what? It didn't work.”
Listen to the full interview on Fill Up Your Cup!
Laura specializes in helping people get unstuck and building a life that makes them feel fulfilled. If you want to hear more of her tips on how to develop your resilience & set clear, purpose driven goals, then listen to my full interview with her in this episode of the podcast!
