Resilience in difficult times
13/01/2021
Every Monday morning - for years now - I receive the weekly Newsletter from William Montgomery, summarising the previous week in short clippings from other publications and adding his thoughts on mainly leadership related topics.
I am not somebody who is usually very keen on newsletters, but this one I stuck to for a long time now as it often adds this little pearl of wisdom or knowledge to my new week. So again recently, when William wrote a few lines about resilience, a very relevant topic for me personally right now as well as surely for most others in the second lockdown in the UK or under tighter restrictions all around the world.
William writes:
"During
challenging times - whether it's a public health crisis, job loss or a
personal disappointment - we are called to summon our resilience, our
willingness to move forward and recover. Many believe this trait is
ingrained; we either have it or we don't. That's not true as we can all
cultivate resilience. The key? We must be told the truth and then be
willing to face reality.It's the unknown that scares us. Show us the truth about our threats, and we will reveal the true reserves of our power."
It rings very true to me - the thing that gets to most of us right now is the 'not knowing' - when will lockdown end, when will the children go back to school and will they have learnt enough, when will I find a new job, when will I get the vaccination... The more we 'not-know', the more anxious and vulnerable we feel.Resilience then is the ability to turn the 'not knowing' into something more managable, slice it into little chuncks of clarity or certainty. Even if I do not know when lockdown will be lifted, these are the little steps I take for today, this week, this fortnight. Creating our small bubbles of certainties will build up our resilience. Thank you for this, William!