Today we're talking about how to become more emotionally resilient. There are 2
factors that you need to understand and then 2 specific steps that you can
take. It's become almost a buzzword in the industry. Resilience. What does it
mean? If something is resilient then it is able to bounce back easily. Or
effectively from something that has interfered with its typical course of
action. So, for people what that means is stuff happens. Are you going to be able to
recover from it? Have you noticed this? Stuff does happen, doesn't it? What kind
of people get into car accidents? Well, the kind who get into cars. Notice that
it's not just the people who deserve it, it's not just the people who are
negligent, it's not just the people who are drunk. If you get into a car, you are
at risk for being in a car accident. You know I just use that as an example
because there's all kinds of stuff that happens in our world. Relationships,
finances, health, all kinds of things can happen and they will. Resilience is your
ability to bounce back from the stuff that is going to happen. I'm not even
saying if it happens. I'm saying when it happens. That's what makes this so
important. There are 2 factors and 2 steps that you can take. Let's start with
the factors. 2 factors contribute to your resilience. The first one is a
process that's going on in your mind. I call it evaluation. Evaluation is where
you are constantly looking around your world and assessing or judging or
evaluating it. You can't turn this off. Any more than you can turn off gravity.
Check it out. You're constantly evaluating yourself, aren't you?
Judging yourself? Yeah, you are. How about your spouse? Oh,
yeah. There's some judgment going on. Your kids? Coworkers?
People in your neighborhood? Do you see how you're constantly doing this? Here
you've been judging me. I'm fine with that, I'm judging you too.
So, we can't get away from it, it's something that we can't turn off. Just
notice that it's happening. Evaluation implies comparison with some standard.
And we always make up a standard in our mind. If we don't have an immediate
standard for comparison, we'll make one up. And we've got a really
great imagination. So, whatever is happening to you is what it is.
And I know you've heard that before. It is what it is. Which can be kind of
annoying depending on who's saying it and what the context is. But all it means
is the things are the way that they are. Now, how are you going to judge it? You're
going to take what it is and you're going to compare it to something better?
Or to something worse? Now, if you compare what you've got to something better, how
do you feel about what you've got? Not so good. This is really bad compared to
something better. Notice how you feel when you do that. I
can compare what I've got to something worse too. And how do I feel? If I compare
what I've got to something worse, I feel pretty good about what I've got. I'll
take this because it's a whole lot better than. That just last week, I was on
a trip with my sweet wife we went to hug our grandkids in another state. While we
were gone, one of the pipes in our home burst. You've probably seen the Insurance
commercials about how mayhem happens. Well, this was us. We're in a whole other
state and there's water pouring from the ceiling of our main floor down to the
floor and then into the basement from there. Big mess, right? We come home to
this. It is what it is. Is it good that this
happened? Is it bad that this happened? I don't know, pick a position. It is what it
is. A pipe burst and leaked through 2 floors of
our home. It was not anything better than that and it was not anything worse than
that. Now, we could say, "Oh, a pipe broke. And now we have to do all of this hassle
and the cleanup and the cost and the expense and it's not this better
situation that we can imagine." And we can feel terrible about where we are. What we
chose to do. And we did this on purpose, is we noticed that this problem that we
had in our home was not a catastrophic fire that could have happened because
the water was leaking onto the circuit breaker and it was arcing and causing
all kinds of risk there. My brother was able to get into the house while we were
gone, shut off the power and the water. And probably saved the house. So, we still
have a house! That is so awesome! We're more resilient because we chose to
see that this is a pretty good circumstance to be in. And it is compared
to that worst one. Whatever your what it is is, you can do
that. You can put yourself in a positive or a negative position depending on what
you compare to. That's factor number 1. Here's factor number 2. Creation. This
is another process that our mind engages in where we go about actively creating
what is to be. And I'm not talking about what it is. That already exists. I'm
talking about what is to be and that doesn't exist yet because we haven't
created it yet. How are we going to create it? We have to imagine. We're going
to use that same tool. Our mind and our imagination to come up with what we're
going to create next. Starting from where we are, are we
going to go make something better or are we going to go make something worse out
of this? Well, duh? What do you want? You want something better. Resilience is all
about taking what you've got because that's all you have. And from that stuff,
creating something that is far better than what you had to start with.
That's resilience. Those 2 factors of valuation and creation. Now there are 2
specific steps that you can take to get there. And the first one that I'm going
to suggest to you is that you get yourself educated about these 2
processes and start practicing. Why would you have to practice this? If when I
shared with you the story about my pipe breaking, if that doesn't seem like a
good thing to you, then it might be because you've practiced thinking that
that would be a bad thing. Let's not good or bad, it just is what it
is. Our judgement of it is the process that I was referring to evaluation. And
it matters because that changes your energy and thus your resilience. Practice
it. It's kind of like learning a new instrument. Have you ever learned to play
the piano for example or a guitar or some musical instrument? Is that a choice
by the way? Yeah, it clearly is. You can choose that but it's also a skill set. So,
you have to practice it. That makes total sense, right? The skills that you need for
resilience from a psychological standpoint require practice. Especially
if you've practiced another way of thinking. Get yourself educated and start
to practice. The second step that I would highly encourage you to do is to get
some coaching. I hire coaches all the time to work with me and my mindset. 1
of my colleague said once, "You know what? It's like we're
all inside of our own box and everything that we experiences on the inside of our
box. Because perceptions all what you have." There's instructions for getting
out of your box. But they're printed on the outside of your box. We need somebody
to help read the instructions to us. I love to engage coaches in my life.
Because they see things that I don't. And they can help me with my resilience by
bringing things to the table that I didn't even know existed, in some cases.
Get some coaching. Here's a couple of resources for you. My mini book. Portable
Positivity is an explanation, step by step of those 2 processes
we've talked about evaluation and creation. You can get a free digital copy
right down there in the descriptions. Click on the link and I'll get a free
digital copy right to you. You might also consider hiring a coach. Liveon
purpose.coach is a great resource for you to see some of the coaches that
have been trained and certified in this particular process. liveonpurpose
.coach. Thanks for being here, I'll see you tomorrow.
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