Archives for March 2013

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For those of you who have been subscribing to our blog, a big THANK YOU. You may have noticed it has been some time since I blogged here and that’s because I have been creating a new site for all of the visuals. I will continue to blog daily, but now it will be done at pixpired.com (visually (pix) inspired (pired). Head on over to subscribe to the RSS feed, a daily email and download a free reflective leadership journal. Hope to see you there!

 

Developing Personal Resilience

I recently noticed that this resource got lost in our web site’s latest reorganization. So here it is again …

This isn’t the only path to personal resilience, but these five practices provide a common-sense approach that is easy to understand and realistic to apply. Please note that because we deliver this presentation in a number of contexts and formats, what you see here may differ from what you experienced in the workshop you attended.

Link to presentation at prezi.com and the handout (one page word doc) that goes with the presentation.

Know Yourself

Get clear about your strengths, develop your emotional intelligence, live your values and confront your self-limiting beliefs.

Set Clear Goals

We need really clear goals. This isn’t news: “Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbour he is making for, no wind is the right wind”. Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4BC – 65AD). We need short term goals so that we can measure progress and we need long term goals so that we know which direction to head in.

What’s your long-term BHAG? What are your short-term SMART goals? And what’s on your stop doing list, to make space for the good stuff?

Lighten Up

Most of the truly successful people I have met seem to be having fun. They have a sense of humour, they don’t take themselves very seriously and they laugh a lot. It’s often difficult for us to find humour in the world around us, but we need to find it, and share it with others whenever we can.

Give yourself a break. Take time to connect with friends and family. Find ways to have fun at work. How can you maintain a positive attitude?

Persevere

Viktor Frankl makes it sound so easy – “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing, the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”

We need to stick at it. We need to work on these practices continually, until they become a habit. Changing habits takes time and there is no instant fix. This is a lifelong exploration. We need to deliberately and consistently put effort into building resilience. This means scheduling time for ourselves to do the reflective work we need to do.

Embrace Paradox and Uncertainty

Uncertainty is one of the biggest stressors for some people. The clever folks who study complexity say increases as the pace of change increases and the level of interconnectivity increases. Our work and our society are destined to become ever more complex and unpredictable.