Bouncing back - how to be more resilient

0:02 A listener production. Welcome to Crappy to Happy with Tip and Cass. Last episode we were talking about life after a baby. Today we're going to talk about making a comeback, how to be more resilient. So Cas, let's start with a definition of resilience. Okay, Resilience is often considered to be a personality trait that you either have it or you don't, whereas resilience is actually more appropriately described as a process. So we cultivate resilience in the ways that we learn to cope with stress and adversity and difficulty. So a lot of the early research around resilience came out of looking at children from poor socio economic backgrounds, disadvantaged families, and looking at which ones were able to cope and thrive and do well in life and which ones actually didn't, which ones ended up in you know, crime or you know, drugs and things like that. So that's where this kind of topic or this research topic of resilience.

1:11 Sprang from. And now, of course we use the word. Resilience, I guess to describe, you know, the kinds of skills and processes and the capacity to cope with life, to bounce back from setbacks, and difficulties, or to. Cope with change and crisis. Yes, and in the modern world we live in, people are more stressed, they're more overwhelmed, they're even you know, the diets are worse. We're eating more sugar where it's impacting our brains. We're feeling as stressors can be, and we're always on twenty four to seven.

1:51 We are. In fact, the digital the whole digital age has really impacted us in so many ways. But it also has affected how we work and how we live, and it affects our levels of stress. Generally can be out of balance, so you're working more and you're not you know, it's. And there are you know that the world is changing rapidly, and I suppose there's this increased focus on how we cultivate this ability to be able to cope with challenge and change and get on with it and deal with setbacks. And you know, how do we equip our children, yes, to deal with a changing world and to deal with difficulties and setbacks. I think there's some you know, there's a lot of talk out there that we wrap our kids in cotton baall and we don't do them any favors these days but what we really want to be doing is equipping them with the skills to cope and to deal with tough stuff in life.

2:47 And we see that in workplaces as well. So there's a heavy focus, of strong focus at the moment on this concept of resilience and what it is and how do we have more of it? Yeah. Yeah, And for me, I first came across resilience through martial arts, and it was something that was talked about around, you know, teaching self defense and anti bullying and all of that, but it was more so about controlling your emotions and controlling your responses, which is very important in self defense situations and things like that. So my question to you, Cassi, is resilience just about like controlling your emotions.

3:30 Is it about always just being mentally tough, always keep going no matter what? Is that what resilience is? No? So, And I actually read an article just the other day, I posted it on my Facebook about this misconception, Yes, that resilient people are people who taugh. Yeah, there's this sort of hardness to it, or that they don't ever experience difficulties on negative emotions that they just pushed. Like a machine. Yeah, and that's not the case at all. It's about how we interact with our environment and how we manage our emotions and manage ourselves in the face of difficulty. I think is probably more true and more appropriate definition of what resilience is.

4:15 That makes sense. So we all know people, either in our own lives or that we know of through You know who celebrities are in the media who have seemed to have this quality of resilience, if we call it a quality by definition, is actually a process. But you know, I think of JK. Rowling and how many publishers she submitted Harry Potter too. Yeah, I think she I don't remember as at twelve rejections, twenty rejections, and she just kept on going. And she was a single parent supporting a child living in poverty that she just had utmost belief in this manuscript and she kept going and she got through. And we don't always hear about not everybody has been through.

4:57 And often you look at an overnight success and you think, oh, they're an overnight success. But early on, my mum said to me, for every overnight success, there's ten years of hard work behind that overnight success. So you people always stick at it. And it's the most important thing to. Teach kids and to learn ourselves to never give up, to stick at it. Yeah, to stick at it. And so we I guess we all when we see it like that, we really admire it, you know, but we don't hear necessarily of all the people who have packed it in and given it away and who haven't coped with the rejection or haven't been able to deal with the failure, and so who have given up and gone on to do something else. And not just in celebrity world, but in life. You know, we see people who can rise to a challenge and push through and do really well and achieve success, and we see other people who tend to just not cope so well. And I guess all of us, at different times and in different situations, cope better or not. But I guess what we're talking about is this capacity to be able to to you know, get some negative feedback or experience a disappointment or a failure, and then what do you do with that? You know, do you continue, do you push through, do you take it on the chin and learn from it, or do you let that defeat you? And so more often than not, what we're trying to do is to not let it defeat us and to use that to move forward and to make progress in life.

6:22 I think that's a really important skill. And is it as simple cass as saying, you know, I fail over and over and that's why why I succeed. I fail, I learn, I move on. I never lose, I just learn. You see all these inspirational quotes about. I think that's great in hindsight, failing, failing, failing forward, you know, but when you're in it, it's really hard. Yeah, when you're in it, it is really hard. And also, you know, I hear that failing forward thing, and I think that was really a big thing in organizations for a while as well. But the organization has to support that as well. I think that's a whole actually separate conversation. Yeah, because if you're in an organizational environment that doesn't support failure, then that's very risky. That's a very emotionally risky So and I think this is why actually more organizations are saying we want we want a resilient workforce. We want to be able to cultivate that capacity to share ideas, to put yourself out there, to be able to take on hard feedback, but the whole organization has to be on board with supporting that.

7:24 Yeah, okay, cas, So are you born with resilience or can you up it? You can definitely increase it, you know, whether you're born with it or all born with a particular you know, kind of temperament and personality traits. And I think we're very adaptable as little human beings on the planet. But certainly there are environmental factors that and you know, personal things that we can do that will increase our resilience. So let's talk about those things. Can you share with us? Where do you begin in cultivating this resilience? Because I'm particularly interested in it as a mom wanting to build a resilient child. I really think that to start with resilience has a lot to do with how you interpret, how you interpret and the meaning that you make of failure and of disappointment and setback and feeling inadequate, you know. So a lot of it comes down to how because as we've talked about before, everything that happens in life we make meaning of it, yes, and that dictates how we respond.

8:29 It dictates how we respond emotionally to that. And the next thing that we do the next behavior that we do so with failure, for example, there are some research around whether we have an optimistic or a pessimistic explanatory style, so about how we explain difficulty, how we explain setback, and there's some research that if you have a more optimistic explanatory style, then you tend to be more resilient and we can learn that learned optimism was, you know, a theory put forward by Martin Seligman, father of positive psychology, and he so I teach people this all the time. The critical thing of the. Three p's, So when something goes wrong in your life, you fail an exam, you don't make the sports team, you lose.

9:16 Your job, whatever it might be. The three piece are how much do you personalize that? So personalization is it's all my fault, it's all on me, versus there are other factors that have come into play here. The other one is permanence. It's all over. This, I'll never bounce back from this, versus this is just a temporary step back. I'm just going to take stock, regroup, and then move forward. And the third one is pervasiveness, which is something goes wrong and my whole life is a disaster versus it's just this one exam. You know, other things in my life are all going well so and it's this, this disappointment is contained to this one area of my life.

10:03 So I always say to people, check your three p's because if you have a difficulty or a setback and you start saying, and you can listen to people's language, and you can listen to your own language, what a disaster. I always screw things up. I'm such a loser, I'll never get it right. It's all over. Then that's a really self defeating way of thinking about a difficulty or a setback. But if you can change some of that language, if you can rethink, and you know, cognitive restructuring is you know, just basically changing how you think about things to be able to sit back and say, okay, well maybe it wasn't. All on me. Maybe you know, part of it was me, but part of it was this and this and these other factors, and maybe it's you know, it's not forever and it's and it's not all over, and I can you know, keep this in perspective, then I can have another go And what can I learn from it?

10:53 And how do I move on from that. So that's a really important way that optimism and optimism again is that it's considered to be a trait like a part of your personality, but it's also it can be a state or an explanatory style. So you can learn to reframe things in a more optimistic way. And there's a lot of benefits to doing that. You know, for resilience, but also just for optimistic people tend to do better generally in life. Performance with the personalization. What are some techniques to avoid that negative language? Well, in psychology, you have a really basic process that we use and we teach it to people and anybody can use it. Anybody can do it, and we call it the ABC the ABCD actually, so we talk about A is the activating event. So what's happened, and you can write this down and you can chart it on a piece of paper. A is something happened, and then B is the belief. What do I tell myself about that?

11:54 What's the story that I'm telling myself. We've all got a story that we're telling ourselves about whatever has happened, yes, and so getting that down is really important because the A happens, the B is the belief. I tell myself something, and then the C is the consequence. As a result, I feel a particular way and as a result, I behave in a particular way. So the D in this whole process is to go back and dispute those beliefs and those ideas. So if I can go, if you've got. Really clear if you can really clearly write down and and B sorry not censor yourself. Yes, I write down everything that you're thinking, even if you think it's ridiculous or you're embarrassed. Nobody else needs to see it about you.

12:38 But what am I telling myself about this? And oftentimes as soon as you actually write it down on paper, people will say, I can see that that's really not realistic. I can see that I'm being really unbalanced in my thinking or irrational in my thinking. And so just getting it out of your head and onto paper can be helpful for people. Yeah, definitely. But then if there are things there that you might be believing to be true, then the D can help you to say, well, hold on a minute, is there potentially another way that I could look at this? Is there another alternative, another a possible alternative explanation for this? So it can just help to shift some of that more pessimistic, unbalanced kind of thinking. If there's a lot of self criticism, self judgment, you can shift.

13:25 Some of that around. That's a real goodie and then ease to come up with something more effective. So that's that's a really neat little process that anybody can do. And I have that just on a word document and I email it out to people and they can just but once you know it in your head, you can do it yourself. So but the other thing is again just the mindfulness. You know, we talk about mindfulness, and it's just noticing those thoughts and just recognizing that this is the story I'm telling myself, and it's just a story. It's not necessarily inherently, there's no inherent truth to it. So that diffuse being able to unhook and detach from that story and not fully believing everything that you're telling yourself about this difficult situation.

14:08 That can be helpful as well. And I need to go straight from that into mindfulness and self compassion because mindfulness is a big part of self compassion. So it's noticing, of course, what's happening, how am I feeling, what am I telling myself, and how can I be kind to myself because, let's face it, disappointment and failure and set back. You can reframe it however you like, but it hurts. It hurts so bad. And that's what we and we don't want to shy away from that. We don't want to avoid that discomfort. It's not about not feeling bad, it's about giving yourself some kindness in that moment and recognizing this does this sucks, Actually, this is really painful, and this is not what I wanted.

14:50 This is not what I would have hoped for or anticipated, but it's happening and that's the reality. So mindfulness is being present to what's happening, but also being able to be kind to yourself, giving yourself the same kindness that you would a friend in a similar difficult situation or experiencing a similar adversity. And we're not very good at that because that whole pessimistic explanatory style is about this is all my fault. I'm such a loser. Was wrong with me? I never get anything right. So if we can shift that and to say, well, maybe it's not all me, and in fact, maybe okay, this you know, this hurts and I can. I just need to be a bit gentle with myself and give myself some self care before I regroup and then come back and you know, take the next step towards that whatever.

15:37 Really helpful, Yeah, because you can't just say every failure is a lesson. No, moving forward and it's great that process. Really it's a process. Yeah, there's a process there. And then you may look back and go, hey, I failed upwards and it's fantastic, and I failed fantastic. But you do need that every moment, you need to give yourself some kindness. Yeah. The other thing is about failure, even how we feel about failure. That's really interesting as well, because I don't know if you've ever heard about the. Growth mindset versus the fixed mindset. That's research that's come out of Stanford University recently. So the fixed mindset basically is the belief that I have certain skills and talents and characteristics that are fixed. I'm born with them. This is who I am. I'm good at maths, I'm not good at running. I'm good at that, but I'm not good like that's just who I am.

16:35 And so the other the growth mindset is that I actually can potentially develop any skill that I want in any area if I put in enough effort and I'm consistent enough. In my approach. And so if you have a fixed mindset, this is the interesting research that has come out. It's like your whole self worth and identity is wrapped up in this is what I'm good at, yes, and therefore if I do something and it doesn't, therefore it should come easily to me. And if I do something and it feels difficult or challenging or it's outside of this domain, then that feels frightening to me because that reflects really badly on me. And so people tend to try to prove themselves over and over within this domain, like they're very intent on staying in their box and continuing to prove themselves in those areas, and failure feels terrifying because it undoes you know who they think they are.

17:31 And I say they, I mean all of us. If you have a fixed mindset, and I think all of us to some degree, I know I can remember as a kid feeling like that's what I'm good at. That's not me. I'm not good at that, and so I would not. Venture in really into those areas that I didn't feel like I was good at because I didn't like feeling incompetent actually, and adults especially don't like feeling incompetent. But it sort of was. It just felt clear to me early on that I was good at maths, but I wasn't very good at music or whatever. And different kids will experience that in different ways. But if you have a growth mindset, you have this belief that I can do anything if I put my mind to it, and feedback if I fail at something. That the feedback is really useful because it gives me a springboard to know what to do different.

18:20 Or better next time. So you're much more likely to take risks and put yourself out there because failure doesn't is no reflection on my inherent ability or worth. It's just feedback. Whereas this fixed mindset, So this is fixed and growth mindset can be really interesting as well. How do you change from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset? Can you change? Can you work on that? You can work on that? Yeah, and you can just by recognizing it for a start, Okay, and then it's about when you recognize that you're feeling like I this is difficult or challenging, then you can you just push yourself out of your comfort zone, yes, to some degree, and you reinterpret. Failure the idea of failure.

19:02 I think, just again, it's one of those things that just the knowing of it, Yes, it's enough to make you realize when the mindfulness, I can see what's happening here, I can make a choice to do something different in order to extend myself or to grow just going out as an adult and doing things that feel new and different and uncomfortable. So everything we're talking about, like mental toughness, resilience, being outside your comfort zone, failing, they're all uncomfortable. So how do you push yourself to do it if it just feels yuck. That's why I love mindfulness so much, because inherently mindfulness is about being able to tolerate that discomfort. So you got practice not letting that define you. I think practice sitting in that discomfort, like not just doing it once and then retreating and going oh no.

19:46 I always say, just push to the edges, like, don't leap so far out of your comfort zone that it's so overwhelming and frightening that you're just going to retreat straight back in. I always say, just push the boundaries a little bit, just take yourself to the edge and push. And the more that you take small risks and start doing some things differently helpful, then can then the more that you get the feedback that, oh, well, that wasn't so bad, I survived that, I actually learned something from that that was kind of exhilarating, And then the more likely you will be to try again. Fantastic advice, Cass. So let's take a little break. We'll be back soon, and we're going to talk about more ways you can build resilience. You're listening to Crappy to Happy with Tiff and Cass and we're talking about resilience.

20:33 I have a question. Is resilience about toughening up, you know, if you're say, being bullied or something like that, just you know, sucking it up, being tough, getting through it, getting over it. I think that's a bit of a common misconception actually, and that's not what we're talking about at all, just sucking it up. And if we're talking hardening up, you know all those things that are said to kids sometimes. Oh yeah yeah, and you know, and when you're starting to talk about bullying or verbal abuse. You know, that's a whole separate thing. It's important to clarify that. And so we're not talking about just you know, sucking it up and dealing with things that are more like unacceptable behaviors. There's a separate process of those things. We're talking about really having the skills in the capacity to cope with life's stresses, stress and difficulties and adversities which we all face, failures and setbacks and disappointments and the life stuff that we all have to deal with inevitably.

21:29 But you know, bullying and it's handled differently, it's a differently topic. Yes, So if you're feeling stress, you're feeling overwhelmed, you you're experiencing disappointments, what can you do in that moment when you're feeling that stress or something happens to you. One thing we know that makes a big difference, and a lot of people don't realize this is that how you perceive stress, or how you perceive you know, anxiety or a performance pressure, for example, makes a big difference to how you respond to it. So whether you perceive something as being a threat or a challenge can make a big difference. Not just to you psychologically how you approach that situation, but how your body actually physically responds.

22:18 So yeah, there's some interesting research that's come out about that. So if you perceive something as a threat, if you're in a situation that's very stressful and you perceive yourself as being under attack, then you go into a fear response and you shut down and the fight or flight you know, mechanism that we've talked about a lot, that part of your brain that alerts you to threat will kick in and it. Starts pumping your blood. You know, it's gearing you up for that fight or flight response. But what it does is it restricts your blood vessels and your blood circulation because in the case of your being stabbed, so that you won't bleed out, you know, so back in the day cave, that's what your body does to protect you. If you perceive something as a challenge and that you know, it's like almost the difference between going into something frightening like a fight, but not that any of us are really going on to a fight, like a performance appraisal or you're feeling really threatened, versus going into a sporting match. You know, your grand final in the sporting team. The same sort of physiological response, but you see one as threatening and one as a challenge that you need to rise to and bring your best performance to, and your body responds differently.

23:33 A lot of the physiological response is the same, but your blood vessels actually open up so that you pump more blood around your body, get more oxygen to your muscles and your brain, and you have a whole different response. So that whole concept of how you think about a situation, whether you think about it as being difficult or whether you think about it as being challenging, can actually it's proven to improve your performance if you are able to tell yourself that this is this is a challenge, this is nothing to be frightened of. And the ways that you can do that, So, first of all, you can one really good tip is to as if you're going into something that feels difficult or stressful, is to remind yourself of the times in the past that you have overcome similar challenges. So it's like reminding yourself of your own inherent strength and capability, the strengths that you've had that you've been able to draw on in the past.

24:31 Like it's just that mental kind of reminder that I've done this before, I can do this again. I've got some inherent resources and capabilities thinking about how prepared you are, you know, just just an acknowledgment that, like even coming in here today, always when we record these things, I always feel a bit nervous. But if I just say to myself, I know this stuff. I talk about this all the time, I've got you know, plenty. Of years, lots of degrees. Yeah, we can pause the thing anytime, like you know, It's just it makes it takes that pressure off and actually feel more like I can come in here and do this job. Whereas if I spent the whole time thinking what am I going to talk about, people will think I'm an idiot. You know, it would be a whole different experience. So we can all do those things depending on the situation we're going into. If you just have a sense in yourself this just knowing that the stress response in your body is not a bad thing.

25:28 Because we think of stress as harmful and toxic. We talk about that all the time, and in fact some stress is good. And if we think about our body's response to threat, threat or difficulty or adversity, is it's a protective factor, like our body is actually gearing up to prepare us for something that is difficult or challenging. Then that that can just switch your mindset and it can actually just and it's physiologically it switches your body to a different state. So sometimes just knowing that, yeah, can make all the difference. And you're controlling what you can control. You're controlling the controllables there exactly by prepping for an exam and doing everything you can to prepare and going in there going well, I'm prepared, I know this stuff. I've given the effort and that's all I can do.

26:16 Yeah, And if I'm feeling a bit nervous, then that's a good thing. And that is normal, and a bit of pressure in life and a bit of nerves is okay. The goal isn't to never feel nervous or to never feel stress or to never feel pressure. Is it? No? Exactly exactly right? And if we do, if we perceive those things as bad and we avoid them, then that's the opposite of resilience. Then we start avoiding situations that we think are going to threaten us, or situations we might fail in or do badly in then that's the opposite of what we're going for. And something that has helped me having a physical job for most of my life when my being able to pay the mortgage and the bills is wrapped up in my body and being able to form, whether that was a coach on The Biggest Loser or filming fitness videos, or being a gladiator or a taekwondo instructor. For many years, if I got injured, that meant I couldn't work, So it was always I was the thing I was most terrified of in my life was always injury. So I've had full knee reconstruction and all sorts of things that I've had. Resilience has always been tested for me through injury.

27:24 How do I come back through rehab and through injury and get my body back to a point that I can work, And something that has helped me has always been about finding meaning in that. Yes. So for example, I'm running a fitness business at the moment with a broken ankle, So I have changed the focus to modifications. How can you exercise in a chair. This is great for people who are older and wanting to work out, for people who are disabled, for people carrying injuries, showing them how to work out sitting down. Basically, that's the meaning I've found in this broken ankle to try and help motivate me through it. And that's is that something that helps psychologically?

28:05 Yeah, for sure, finding meaning is like fundamental really to resilience. So and you know, we all know the people who come out of the most horrific experiences sometimes and if they cop like, the resilient ones are the ones who go on to make it about something beyond themselves, the ones who start the charities and the causes. Look at Samuel Johnson with the Connie Love Your Sister Foundation, you know, really horrible, difficult circumstances and look what he's done. But the people find ways to cope and to thrive by making it about more than themselves. Like they find that meaning in Queensland where I'm from, the Daniel morcam Foundation, you know, yes, because he went missing just near where I live actually, and the work.

28:51 That they've done out of the most horrendous life experience. So you know, that's probably getting into like you know, the post traumatic growth kind of area. But there are some people who actually come out and thrive from the most horrendous experiences, so you can. Sit back and think, how can I make the best of this situation? What do I learn from this? Yeah, how do I make meaning of this? And how do I make this not worth nothing? Not for nothing? So as you go along in work, in life, in relationships, feedback is offered, sometimes given whether you want it or you don't. And taking on that feedback and not being devastated or falling apart if it's not positive.

29:36 You know, that's difficult. That's part of resilience, it is, So is it something that you have to train in? Should we be asking people for their feedback and their opinion and like go and seek it so that we can sit with uncomfortable feedback if it's not always good, and try and learn from it. Is that helpful? Yes? Well, I think being able to cope with not always positive feedback is it important? I think it comes down to with the feedback thing. It's like whose feedback is important? For a start, because there'll be plenty of people, you know yourself, tif there'll be plenty of people who will offer you feedback about how your parent and about how you're run a business, and so you've got to really come back to you can be defeated by all of it, or you can be defensive and say you don't know what you're talking about.

30:23 But there are these people. There are certainly people who kind of crumble or are very resistant and defensive to negative feedback. And I think the key is about differentiating which feedback is relevant and important and which is not, so having the capacity to filter out what is not necessarily relevant or important. I always go back to Brene Brown because she's in the public eye. And I know we're not talking about necessarily people in the public eye, but she's in the public eye. She did a TED talk and she just got walloped by a lot of people. And so she's got a rule now that she only takes feedback from people who are in a similar situations, people who are prepared to put themselves out there, like she doesn't take feedback from armchair critics. Basically, yes, in a workplace, for example, sometimes in order to grow, you need to take people's feedback.

31:15 And I think this comes back to that fixed and growth mindset. If you fundamentally believe that my self worth is tied up in what other people think about me doing well in this particular domain, then that's very limiting, and so we want to be able to take on some of that, have the capacity to take on some constructive feedback and to be able to grow from it. And sometimes it does mean practicing. Sometimes it does mean putting yourself into situations and saying, can I have your feedback on this, as difficult and uncomfortable as it is, and learning and understanding that you're not defined by that. So I think when it comes to receiving feedback, particularly in the workplace or situations like that, then the important thing is not to personalize it too much. Go back to that pessimism, you know, that pessimistic explanatory stuf.

32:02 It's very easy to. Jump to I'm terrible, I'm a loser, you know, and your mind kicks in with all of those kinds of thoughts. So just being able to remember that it's not all about you, it's not personal to be able to you know. What happens oftentimes in a situation where getting negative feedback or you feel like you're in a difficult conversation as well, is that the fight or flight response kicks in. Yes, because we feel threatened, we feel like our identities threatened, our sense of ourself and our self image and everything is being threatened, so that can make it really difficult to actually be centered enough to take that feedback on board and to take what potentially could be really valuable from it. So if we can calm that down and slow deep breathing is the best way to calm down the fight or flight response. And we haven't even talked about that before, but slow deep breathing into your belly to calm down your own anxiety and calm down that threat response is a really great way to just stay entered to you know.

33:02 To listen, listen, to actually. Be open enough to hear the feedback, and then to be able to after that initial you know, the difficulty or the shock or however you feeling about that, to be able to then go away and process that and to then decide, well, is there something I can learn from this? You know, what do I take from this that's important to me? Or that you know, how can I grow and benefit or not? Or I might say that's I don't actually think that that's true. I don't agree. You have always got that choice, but you want to be able to be open minded enough to hear it and not be completely defeated by it in that moment. That's really helpful. Cast, thank you and we hope that helped you to listening.

33:42 In the next. Episode, we're talking healthy relationships will speak to you then. Rappy to Happy is presented by Cast done produced by Davids Lanski. Audio production by Darcy Thompson. Listener