Resilience – Putting it all into perspective

We all take a kick from time to time, sadly that’s life. Everyone reacts differently to those kicks.  Some people dust themselves down and bounce back.  I’m an Evertonian – trust me, I know all about taking kicks and bouncing back! Some people however are unable to recover so easily and as a result they allow each setback to affect them, be it at home, at work or quite often both.

We’ve been running our business for around 11 years now. We’ve had some real successes which of course feels great, but we’ve also had lots of setbacks ranging from a rather costly ‘fight’ with HMRC through to not getting pieces of work that we were convinced we were going to get.  Of course it hurts and feels like there’s no way out at the time, but we’ve tirelessly fought back and continued to move forward, becoming more resilient with each punch.

 There’s tons of examples of famous people taking knocks but then bouncing back. Here’s a few to inspire you…

•  J.K. Rowling was rejected by 12 publishers before Harry Potter and The Philosophers Stone was accepted.

• Walt Disney was allegedly turned down a massive 302 times before he got finance for creating Disneyland.

• Good old Vincent Van Gough sold only one painting in his lifetime…to a friend. Despite that he kept paining and finished over 800 pieces. His most expensive paining today is valued at $142.7m  

I’m sure they all felt like giving in at some point (-and probably more than once) but all of them recovered and pulled through. They bounced back because they were all passionate and believed in what they were doing.  Whilst it would be wishful thinking to hope for a life without setbacks, I’ve come to understand that this sadly isn’t the case – instead I channel my efforts into the courage I need to deal with the challenges that life throws my way and it certainly makes for a more exciting ride!

The PU View

The next time you are faced with a challenging situation ask yourself some of the following questions:

• Who is to blame? You, them, both parties?
• How long will this situation last?
• On a scale of 1-10 how much does this situation affect my life?
• What’s the worst thing that can happen?
• What’s the one thing I can do to help stop the worst from happening?
• If the worst has already happened, what can I learn from it?
• What’s the best thing that can happen?
• What is the one thing I can do to make the best thing happen?
• What can I do to handle the most likely thing, if it happens?

 Book Recommendation 

The best book we’ve read on this topic is; S.U.M.O (Shut Up, Move On): The Straight-Talking Guide to Succeeding in Life by Paul McGee. A brilliant book that will get you thinking about how you perceive things and how you can take back responsibility for your own actions.