When I’m training and coaching individuals and groups, I often get asked how to become more resilient while navigating increasing levels of change, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.
If you proactively build resilience daily or at least several times weekly, you will cultivate a resilience capacity that creates a highly effective buffer against life’s daily challenges. The first step is developing self-awareness.
We typically wake up in the morning and within minutes are thinking the same thoughts, doing the same things, and feeling the same way as the day before – operating from the “programs” of the subconscious mind! In fact, 90% of our thoughts are the same every day!
If we consistently feel impatient, anxious, stressed, overwhelmed, etc., we are reducing our resilience and negatively impacting our ability to think clearly and communicate effectively. In fact, these type of negative emotions set in motion a cascade of over 1,400 biochemical and hormonal changes that burn up our energy, negatively impact our immune system, and can last up to 12 hours!
The quickest way to build resilience is to start your day with a Mental Rehearsal practice, which is a practice most widely used by professional athletes and performers. This is one of the tools I teach in our neuroscience-based workshop called, Change Your Mind…Create New Results, created by Dr. Joe Dispenza.
The concept is simple – slow your brain waves down to enter your subconscious mind and once seated there with your awareness, visualize the results you want to experience and repeat this process consistently to rewire your subconscious into a new pattern.
Here is a high-level overview of Mental Rehearsal:
- Reduce sensory input by closing your eyes and slowing and deepening your breathing. These steps slow your brain waves down from Beta to Alpha to enable you to access your subconscious mind.
- In this very relaxed state, begin visualizing or “mentally rehearsing” the outcomes, results, and state of mind (e.g. calm, resilient, confident) you wish to generate. The more vivid and real you can make it, the quicker the physical and chemical changes take place in your brain. Use as many “senses” as you can to create the scene in your mind. Imagine what you would be seeing, hearing, saying, doing and/or most importantly, feeling if this were already your current reality. And don’t get up from your mental rehearsal until you feel the change, even if it’s only a slight shift.
With consistent practice, mental rehearsal has the effect of literally rewiring the “circuits” in your brain to look like the desired result has already happened. Why does this work? Because your brain literally doesn’t know the difference between an experience you’re having in your outer world and an experience you’re creating by thought alone, so it responds in almost exactly the same way. This enables you to both create and sustain a powerful level of resilience in the face of just about any circumstance.
For more detail on the mental rehearsal practice and to learn additional tools and methods for increasing resilience, reducing stress, and enhancing your personal and professional performance, visit Evolution Solutions. Take the complimentary Stress and Well-Being Assessment on the website. This is a scientifically validated tool for providing a snapshot of how effectively you are currently managing change, uncertainty, and challenge in your life.
After your assessment is complete, you will have the option to schedule a complimentary phone consultation to review and discuss your results, including specific resources and tools to improve those areas where your assessment scores were not in an optimal range.
