Week 3- Simple, quick resilience techniques

Monday was a long day, working late into the night. As it got later and later, I could feel myself getting more unhappy. The problem is, feeling negative makes things so much worse:

• I have less energy, so my brain sends me messages about quitting
• I am quicker to anger when I spot a mistake, which makes me more negative
• My brain is less able to process high volumes of information, which means I work slower, which makes me feel bad. At about 8.30 pm, I stood up from the desk, intending to reset my feelings deliberately.

Standing up is important because it is a “micro-break” temporarily stopping the flow of negative chemicals, as my brain is asking, “what’s next.”

I then did a quick exercise to find 5 things I was proud of in the work I had done so far:

• Fixed the typos on a Web page
• Got an important stakeholder to agree to a meeting
• Finished the description of a new product
• Typed up the next steps from a 20-minute meeting
• Found the name of an expert to invite to a session next week

Nothing big, but for each one, I punched the air. This is important because it provides physical reinforcement of my thoughts.

The next hour flew by, and I finished just before 10 pm! A real win, as I thought I’d still be working at midnight.

This reset is part of a wider set of resilience techniques. If you want to know more, join my webinar.