Recently, Petra Coach presented a webinar, How to Build Resilience with Oksana Esberard.

You can find the full recording below.

Top Takeaways

3 Key Concepts

  1. Mindful Leadership to Keep Getting Better
  2. Training Resilience Within Change
  3. Overcoming Negative Emotions

Metacognition

Definition: Awareness or analysis of one’s own learning or thinking process; “ability to think about your own thinking”

Cognitive Process

  • Most of us have less difficulty with this part
  • Goal setting, reflecting on performance, assessing our own skill level, etc.

Cognitive Belief

  • Blind to blindness, you don’t know what you don’t know
  • Dunning–Kruger Effect: studies over-confidence in our ability to deliver
  • Based on past experiences

Trauma, Stress, Resilience

  • All trauma is stressful, but not all stress relates to trauma
  • Long-term moderate to severe stress impacts brain in similar ways as traumatic events
  • Covid is classified as a disaster
  • Resilience is developed intentionally or as a result of an adverse experience(s)

Metacognition/Self-Leadership is all about understanding where you are.

Are you ignoring symptoms of pushing yourself too far?

  • Brain fog and difficulty focusing
  • Forgetfulness
  • Snapping at others emotionally

If so, maybe it’s time to switch gears and focus on creating that resilience.

*Using the Covid pandemic as an example

Purpose: When going through a disaster, it’s important to focus on short-term goals. When you’re only focusing on long term, it’s overwhelming for the nervous system because there’s too much uncertainty and you don’t get to feel the highs of successes.

Connection: With Covid, everyone has different opinions about vaccines and socialization, etc. You need to find new tribes and try to understand other people’s thoughts and experiences. Isolation and aloneness kills resiliency – you have to find new ways to connect.

Adaptability: Being able to accept new changes and move forward – this is the hardest step. Changing past beliefs, shifting thinking – humans are not really wired for this. Try to change your viewpoint from “this is a threat” to “this is a challenge and an adventure.” Make the new normal exciting.

Hope: Result of adaptability. (Not the same as positive thinking.) It comes as a natural bi-product of genuinely accepting the new way of life. Hope can be gained or lost depending on the stage of the disaster.

Strategies to Build Resilience

  • Keep things as small and simple as possible
  • Leverage internal strength (what you have) and external resources (as they come)
  • Set and maintain healthy boundaries
  • Celebrate small successes for positive reinforcement
  • Ask for help when needed
  • Model the actions you want to encourage
  • Practice effective communication

Saying “NO” Gracefully

  • Make the decision separate from the relationship
  • What’s the trade off?
  • Trade popularity for respect
  • Clean NO is better than vague or regretted Yes

You could say…

  • “Let me check my calendar and get back to you”
  • Use “No, but” or “I can do X instead” / “Y might help”
  • “Yes. What should I de-prioritize?”
  • Say “No” with humor and pause for reply

What Are You Within Yourself?

Stranger

Guided by:

  • Anxiety, anger stress
  • Loud inner critic
  • Perfectionist, unworthiness
  • Other people’s expectations
  • Self-doubt, imposter syndrome

Friend

Guided by:

  • Expansion in all areas of life
  • Connection with self and others
  • Clear purpose, legacy, impact
  • Feeling whole and fulfilled
  • Compassion, joy, love

CDC’s Covid mental health impact (USA) reports 4x self-reported anxiety and depression and continuing to increase.

Do You Have…?

Healthy Boundaries

3 Distinct Buckets

  • On Duty (regular job hours)
  • On Call (not typical work time, but “online”)
  • OFF (100% protected!)

Compassion Rewards

We tend to brush these off, when we should internalize them as much as we do criticism or anything else.

  • What we get out of our jobs
  • What feels good
  • What we enjoy
  • Thank you, appreciation, recognition

Contact Info

oksana@sattva.me

+1 (786) 218-1449

www.sattva.me

@SattvaMe

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