Entrepreneurs who know and covet the value of “emotional resilience” understand how essential this quality and attitude is to long term success.
“When you get kicked in the teeth and hated on, when you’re financially upside down with your back against the wall, do what no one expects. Get back up, fight like crazy to reach your goals, prove all the haters wrong, and be resilient as a weed.” Bedros Keuilian
Starting a business and becoming an entrepreneur are two of the most challenging and rewarding experiences we can undertake. Not everyone is cut out for this.
Emotional resilience comes from believing in and applying our genetic skills and those we acquire over time. We can strengthen our emotional resilience through a holistic approach. Refine your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being. This enhances our balance with perspective, passion and purpose in everything we do.
Learn to Live with Adversity
Adversity is a fact of life. There simply would be no success without adversity. One distinguishes the other.
Emotional Resilience is an ineffable quality. It allows some people to be knocked down by life and come back at least as strong as before. They don’t let difficulties or failure overcome them and drain their resolve. Instead, they find a way to rise and keep going. It is a capacity to recover quickly from difficulties and challenges that life inevitably brings their way.
If you are wondering how you can assess and develop your emotional resilience as a small business professional, then consider taking this SBA emotional readiness assessment, or personality test. These will help you evaluate your conditions, characteristics and skills and how they are working for you.
There are inspiring examples of people who have survived and thrived.
Meet a Survivor
Meet “super survivor” Asha Mevlana, 38 who survived breast cancer then picked up her violin in the aftermath of her cancer diagnosis, which she hadn’t done in many years.
She began taking violin lessons, training diligently for many months, and began playing electric violin in a few local rock bands. One day Mevlana picked up her violin from a repair shop where the shopkeeper mentioned he knew the lead singer of Twisted Sister, who was looking for an electric violinist to join their tour. She auditioned and two months later, she celebrated her 30th birthday on the band’s tour bus.
Casey Pieretti, 48, lost his leg at age 19, while pushing a car with a loose battery down the mountain roads of the Sierra Nevadas. Almost a year to the day after his accident, he strapped on a prosthetic and ran a mile in seven minutes. He was soon racing competitively.
We can all build more emotional resilience in our lives with commitment, focus and taking actions we may not yet believe in, but that have worked for others.
How to Build Emotional Resilience
Here are 15 ways to build emotional resilience in your life and business.
Practice Self Care and Mindfulness
As obvious as this sounds, is as overlooked as it can often be. Taking good care of ourselves enables us to operate at the top of our game. Emotional balance, eating healthy, rest, exercise and hydration can greatly impact our attitude and energy. Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present and aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not be overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us.
Seek out Reciprocal Relationships
We need to give and receive in our relationships. They take a lot of emotional energy and reciprocity ensures we are both participating contributing and benefitting.
Handle Adversity Thoughtfully
Adversity is an important part of life. We want things to go well all the time but they just don’t due to many circumstances beyond our control. Be ready to help and participate in adverse situations by thoughtfully doing what you can do to be a part of the solution.
Be Flexible However You Can
We all get set in our ways, but flexibility in most settings is the best way to make it work not just for ourselves. Flexibility is a team sport especially as a solopreneur. Cooperation, fairness and being helpful fosters flexibility in relationships.
Set SMART Goals
Specific-measurable-achievable-timely is a proven formula we can wrap ourselves around and accomplish. It’s much better to start with smaller goals we know we can tackle then set some others propelled by our success.
Take Purposeful Actions
Whatever actions we need to take and want to take should be well thought out with regard to the end goal in mind. Know what the end goal is and what actions are necessary to get you there. Follow the plan, steps, be flexible and reap the rewards.
Develop Self Confidence and Self Esteem
Be proud of your accomplishments, achievements and professional reputation. We earn it by delivering results and showing people who we are and what we can do. Success is a team sport and
humility is a great ally and asset in building self confidence, professionalism and an upbeat demeanor. The goal is to make yourself someone people can count on and want to work for or with.
Have a Clear Sense of Purpose
Knowing why we do what we do and why we make the decisions about our lives we make should come from acknowledging a sense of our purpose. We may not know exactly but our “gutometer” usually reveals our instinctual feelings. “Trust your guts”, if it feels right, it probably is. If it doesn’t feel right, it usually isn’t.
Share Your Sense of Humor
The ability to see the humor in all aspects of life is an important survival skill and leadership quality. Appropriate humor can make people smile, ease tension, foster camaraderie and create a happier workplace and team.
Practice Altruism
Be generous, magnanimous, compassionate and kind in words, attitude and deeds because you want to. Be a part of your and get involved in your professional and personal communities by volunteering, donating and supporting your them. The benefits of altruism impacts us almost immediately. A new study has found that doing a good deed not only helps the recipient, but brings the giver physical pleasure and pain relief.
Network in Person
We have amazing smart devices and social media marketing apps, sites and tools to connect with each from wherever we are. But ultimately, we want to personalize them by meeting in person or speaking by phone. In person is where the magic happens and where to get to get to know people in a broader more personal way. Eye contact, a warm smile, laughter, banter, shaking hands and our vibe and energy all impact our memorability when networking in person. Be authentic, foster conversations, compliment others, introduce them to others. Be a human catalyst.
Small Acts of Kindness Daily
There are no shortage of people, places and things that couldn’t use acts of kindness to help brighten or change their lives. The power of kindness can change things immediately and in very significant ways. Check out this link for some ideas for 30 small acts of kindness we can do everyday. Acts of kindness are karmic, they reward us in unforeseen ways.
Be a Self Starter
Believe in yourself and never be afraid to start or develop a project, initiative, goal or idea. Think it through, be clear, have a plan, be committed, create a support team and go. This will advance your emotional resilience more than just about anything you could take on. Believe in yourself to succeed.
Optimism is an Entrepreneurs Best Friend
Optimism is a mental attitude choice characterized by positivity, hopefulness, favorability and confidence that things will turn out. The biggest part we play is to do whatever we can to contribute to that outcome.
Practice Consistency
Success depends on finding the best habits, values and attitudes that we can use consistently to keep growing and getting positive results. Consistency is a character trait and skill that helps us build routines and momentum and establishes our reputation and what others can expect from us.
Here are 12 resources and tools that can help you build your emotional resilience and become the best version of yourself.
Use your mind and your heart in all of your endeavors to build your staying power and emotional resilience. Dig deep, you are stronger than you think.
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