A classic Rogers and Hammerstein lyric, a Julie Andrews affirmation, a truth, and where I aim to start from in this blog. I am new to this, but my goal is to educate myself and become a resource to others on how to be more emotionally resilient, especially at work. Join me as I aim to get better at handling tough situations and hard days, and lets walk toward becoming our best selves!

So. Emotional resilience. I don't want to bore you with a bunch of facts, but it is important to have a base understanding of what it is we are talking about in the first place. When I say that I want to become more emotionally resilient at work, what I mean is that I want to be able to bounce back from frantic or stressful phone calls quickly. Your capacity to do this depends on a huge number of factors and is therefore different from person to person. It might even be different for you from day to day! This of your personal resilience capabilities like a muscle: it needs to be exercised, it can grow, and it can feel weak occasionally or chronically.
(If you WANT a lot of scientific facts, check out this post on Positive Psychology.com- it is chock a block full of any and everything you might want to know!)
As we head down this road, think for a moment about your own emotional resilience as a bucket full of beans. The things that happen to you over the course of a day will either add or take away beans from your bucket. Low stakes might be getting stuck in traffic or watching a funny Youtube video; higher stakes might be getting recognized for something you worked very hard on, or having a serious disagreement with a loved one. Each of those experiences either fill your bucket or deplete it! Sometimes we are fortunate enough to approach work with a full bucket, but the truth is that we only have the one bucket for our whole life. If you have something else that is worrying you or bothering you outside of work (spoiler, you probably do...) then you have less capacity than usual to handle stressful situations.
So here's my initial takeaway: if I can approach work with a fuller bucket on the daily, I can be more prepared for hard calls and stressful situations. Over this quarter, we'll take time to explore different and specific facets of emotional resilience, but I'm starting by taking a daily inventory of how I feel when I start work. Each day, scale of 1-10, gets a score. I consider things like how tired I am, if I am grumpy or anxious for any reason, and by considering what my day holds and if it fills me with dread or excitement. I have also started to take an inventory of little things I can do for myself to bring joy. Wear my favorite cozy socks to work? Yes, do it! Have a playlist locked and loaded with some songs that make me happy? Totes! Premeditated stop for Starbucks on my way home from work? YAHHHHH! Giving yourself things to look forward to can really make a big impact on a bad day.
Finally, for today, here's a link to one of my current inspirational songs. "Same Dark Places" by Jr Jr reminds me that we are all so much more alike than we usually consider. It has become a real motto for me while I have started researching and learning about this topic. My favorite line is in the chorus... "Sometimes in the dead of night when you think you can't make it, you might find I left a light beside the bed for you because I've been there too."
So come along friends, I'll leave a light on for you.
(If you WANT a lot of scientific facts, check out this post on Positive Psychology.com- it is chock a block full of any and everything you might want to know!)
As we head down this road, think for a moment about your own emotional resilience as a bucket full of beans. The things that happen to you over the course of a day will either add or take away beans from your bucket. Low stakes might be getting stuck in traffic or watching a funny Youtube video; higher stakes might be getting recognized for something you worked very hard on, or having a serious disagreement with a loved one. Each of those experiences either fill your bucket or deplete it! Sometimes we are fortunate enough to approach work with a full bucket, but the truth is that we only have the one bucket for our whole life. If you have something else that is worrying you or bothering you outside of work (spoiler, you probably do...) then you have less capacity than usual to handle stressful situations.
So here's my initial takeaway: if I can approach work with a fuller bucket on the daily, I can be more prepared for hard calls and stressful situations. Over this quarter, we'll take time to explore different and specific facets of emotional resilience, but I'm starting by taking a daily inventory of how I feel when I start work. Each day, scale of 1-10, gets a score. I consider things like how tired I am, if I am grumpy or anxious for any reason, and by considering what my day holds and if it fills me with dread or excitement. I have also started to take an inventory of little things I can do for myself to bring joy. Wear my favorite cozy socks to work? Yes, do it! Have a playlist locked and loaded with some songs that make me happy? Totes! Premeditated stop for Starbucks on my way home from work? YAHHHHH! Giving yourself things to look forward to can really make a big impact on a bad day.
Finally, for today, here's a link to one of my current inspirational songs. "Same Dark Places" by Jr Jr reminds me that we are all so much more alike than we usually consider. It has become a real motto for me while I have started researching and learning about this topic. My favorite line is in the chorus... "Sometimes in the dead of night when you think you can't make it, you might find I left a light beside the bed for you because I've been there too."
So come along friends, I'll leave a light on for you.
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