From my Jim Rohn email newsletter, some great thoughts on one of the keys to being a good coach, a good player, a successful person -- being resilient!Resilience is the ability to bounce back from adversity, no matter how large or how small. You lose a client, one of your biggest ones. This client accounts for more than 25 percent of your gross revenue. Losing this client is going to hurt, financially and emotionally. Losing this client is going to negatively affect things for a while. The first thing you do is figure out why you lost this business. What role did you play? In what way are you responsible? You can’t just rant and rave, yelling and screaming at everyone in the office. Even if it was the wrongdoing of someone else, you can’t act like this, because it’s not professional. You’ll lose respect. And respect is hard to regain once you’ve lost it, whether it’s the respect of those you work with, your trusted colleagues or your valuable support people. You have to approach the situation rationally and figure out how to bounce back from your loss.
In their book "The Resilient Self," Steven and Sybil Wolin studied resilience and found seven key characteristics that compose it.
No. 1: Resilience requires insight. You need to develop the ability to ask tough questions of yourself and be honest with your answers. If you had something to do with your loss, be honest and responsible for it.
No. 2: Resilience is independent. As a resilient person, you can count on yourself to bounce back into life.
No. 3: Although resilience is independent, it’s also tied to others. The more people you are responsible to, the greater your motivation to begin again. The stronger the reason, the stronger the action.
No. 4: Resilience calls for initiative. You need to develop the ability to take charge of the situation, to take charge of the problem. You need to stand up and do whatever is necessary to get back on course.
No. 5: Resilience has an element of creativity. With resilience, you are able to look at a situation and creatively determine the best way out. You are enterprising in your approach toward starting over.
No. 6: A resilient person has humor. You may cry until you start laughing, but a sense of humor is so important when turning your life around. You’ve got to take your goals seriously, and you’ve got to take yourself seriously. But you’ve also got to be able to laugh at yourself and your situation at times. If somebody says, “You’ll look back on this and laugh someday.” Well, maybe today is the day to start.
No. 7: A resilient person has a strong sense of morality. Whatever you do to get back on your feet, whatever you do to bounce back into life, make sure it’s moral. Make sure that your upcoming success is at the service of others, not at the expense of others. Success, if it is yours to keep, must be at the service of others.
The more obstacles you face and overcome, the more times you falter and get back on track, and the more difficulties you struggle with and conquer, the more resiliency you will naturally develop. There is nothing that can hold you back if you are resilient.
