Understanding Resilience 

Resilience refers to your ability to navigate through and recover from stressors you are faced with on a daily basis. Whether you can bounce back depends on the stresses you face and the resources you have to help you cope. When your resilience is low, there is a higher risk of developing signs of burnout. This doesn’t mean that resilience makes you immune to stress, it just means you’re better equipped to manage the stress you’re faced with.

There are a number of things we can all do to help bolster personal resilience. Straightforward things like getting some exercise, a better nights sleep, and a bit of relaxation, are a great foundation. You can follow these links for our advice on getting exercise, some guidance on getting better sleep, and listen to a 10-minute guided relaxation session.

There’s also a lot you can do to help your colleagues feel more resilient. Feeling connected to others, both at work and at home, can be hugely beneficial in boosting resilience. It’s important that your colleagues know you value them, but also that you are approachable and available to listen should they have any concerns they want to talk through.

Teams with a shared sense of purpose, where everyone is clear on what their role is, feel they have the resources they need to carry out their job, and have confidence in their colleagues, tend to be the more resilient teams. As do those where there is open communication, and shared respect and trust amongst team members. So try to foster these qualities in the teams you manage.

Check out some of the links below for resources to better support both your own and your colleague’s personal resilience.

You can watch a film explaining how resilience works here.

Our friends at the Resilience Engine have shared their resilience check in tool. You can try the tool here to see how you’re doing.

Follow this link for an Understanding Resilience factsheet, and this link to learn more about Individual and Team Resilience.

The following link will take you to information on stress and resilience, and how to cope if you notice your resilience reducing: Stress, Coping and Resilience.

You might also want to check out the Resilience Alphabet, which is a downloadable resource to help you improve your resilience and inner strength.  It offers daily resources over a 26 day period. There’s also a Resilience Alphabet toolkit for young people aged 13-16, to help them work through and express their feelings and thoughts during this time of change. You can find this toolkit by clicking here.