Resilience in a prolonged crisis

Before India went into a total lock-down, I wrote about how we can build resilience in our team. I understood resilience to be a speedy recovery from difficult experiences. I thought of these events as discrete shocks to the system that we would have to absorb and quickly bounce back. But after several weeks of lock-down, I saw I needed a different view of resilience, an understanding that includes the ability to withstand sustained hardship and make effective decisions. It should perhaps come as no surprise that the word ‘crisis’ comes from the Greek krisis which means ‘decision’.
What steps can we take then to better cope with such a prolonged crisis? The good news is that we can learn, adapt and increase our resilience. We can develop new mindsets and habits that will help us deal with an altered world. Here are a few ways that I found helpful:

• Helping and connecting with people we value. Helping those who reached out to me has meant a lot to me. My friends and colleagues may occasionally ask for an introduction or for me to review and improve their CV, but frequently, they only want me to be a sounding board to their decision-making. Two things happen almost immediately when I help someone: I am able to get outside my own head and I feel good about being useful. I stop worrying and I begin to feel appreciated. I know I am forming deeper and more fulfilling connections to several people. I also reach out to people I trust to share what I am going through and hear their thoughts. AirBnB’s Brian Chesky tells us that in a crisis, people will reveal their true colours and you will find out who your real friends are. He encourages us to spend our time with and seek counsel from those we value.
  I created an online group (and a blog) recently to share my passion for solving cryptic crosswords. This group has helped me connect with several like-minded people. Engaging with others in times like this makes me feel connected to a larger world, that I am not alone, that this world indeed has many good people. These feelings have given me courage.
• Building a routine that includes exercise and rest. Enforced lock-downs can cause us to become sedentary and thus gain weight and lose our good spirits. Even 30 minutes of solid cardio-vascular exercise every day will cause the release of endorphins in your body which create positive feelings in our body and prevent anxiety and depression. Schedule a regular slot in your day to connect with yourself with the help of music or meditation or just silence. These sessions will cause your heart rate to slow down and thus reduce stress considerably. Adequate sleep at regular times works wonders in building up our strength and resilience.
• Staying flexible. There are usually multiple ways to cope with a hardship. Explore your options with a friend or mentor and see what works for you. If you have a bias for action and problem-solving, don’t underestimate the value of patience. I’ve found that letting a thorny problem “percolate” inside me for a day or two can yield clarity on what’s important.
• Being completely in the moment. Whether I am creating a deck of presentation slides, attending a Zoom meeting, listening to music or doing the dishes, focusing on the task in front of me and getting into a state of “flow” has given me great peace and satisfaction and caused my stress levels to plummet. I believe this peace makes us stronger and more resilient.
• Developing some stoicism. Knowing that this too will pass and what our practical options are can free us from needless agonizing. As a friend put it, “If worrying helped, I would be the first to sign up.” A realistic understanding of what is within my power, what isn’t and knowing what am I going to do about it has helped me focus my efforts in a very big way. I have also benefited from keeping some emotional distance from others and not taking on to myself their negative emotions and anxieties.
• Being grateful, consciously. Dr. Laurie Santos, a cognitive scientist at Yale, tells us that heart-felt gratitude frees us to be more helpful, make more generous choices and be less anxious about ourselves. In a recent podcast, she tells us that gratitude also prevents us from getting into a negative mindset of griping. I try to consciously and regularly acknowledge to myself all that is good in my life.

It is clear that our thoughts and emotions affect our resilience absolutely. We know that this pandemic is really two crises, health and economic, rolled up in one. We don’t know when it will end and what its long-term impact will be. We don’t know how many more challenges we will face. We know that many are being forced to choose between life and livelihood. We know that many suffer now and that many more will. We know that we are personally powerless to hasten the arrival of a vaccine. Showing resilience in this climate will doubtless be hard but it will define you as a leader. Would the above six ways help you? What else has helped you stay strong? Please share your thoughts.