Ever watched a film, where the ‘baddie’ drowns in quicksand. Why did they drown?
Because they struggled against being dragged down, and in doing so separated the sand and water and so quickened the process. Ever watch a film where the ‘hero’ survived the quicksand. They did so, because they knew instinctively or were told, to lie still and spread their limbs. What that tells us is that sometimes struggling against a difficulty is the least effective action we can take, and that perversely, the answer to surviving a tough time may come from being willing to accept what is happening to us.

This line of argument seems to make no sense. No where in self-help books are we told to just accept that sometimes life is difficult, and moving towards a better life can come through staying with the difficulty.

We are used to being told to look for the positive. To give ourselves positive affirmations. To set stretching goals that will move us beyond the present. According to Dr Russ Harris a leading ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) writer, the means by which we in the West approach tough stuff is often self defeating. We look to avoid facing head on what is happening to us. We have myriad ways of dealing with difficulty which do not help us get the results we seek. We can work so hard that we are too tired to address the very issue we need to address. We are often adept at compartmentalising our thoughts, so that we can continue to function. Life provides numerous substances which can be used to numb pain along with multiple distractions which keep us away from addressing the very issue which we need to acknowledge. The Buddhist idea that it is part of our human experience that we will suffer, is one that does not sit well in Western societies which have an expectation of constant happiness. The Buddhist acceptance of suffering is based on a belief that it is through learning how to live with difficulty that we create a richer and fuller life. It is through that acceptance that resilience builds.

ACT builds on this philosophy and offers individuals in pain in any area of their life, a structured approach which argues that it is through accepting the reality of a difficulty that change is possible. We do not need to set goals, the actions we need to take will emerge once we are able to accept the thoughts and feelings that come with a difficulty and are willing to get in touch with the values which are important to us.
While the word therapy may suggest it is only relevant to those who have sought help because they are not coping with the vicissitudes of life, my experience as a coach tells me it is equally helpful to those turning up every day at work but are beset with concerns about their future – will I still have a job, how can I survive if I lose my job, am I too old to be taken seriously, do I still have a career?

So how can an ACT approach be brought into action for someone who is worrying about their working life ? Think of a situation you are currently facing which causes you negative thoughts. Rather than trying to change the thought into something more acceptable, focus on that thought as strongly as you can in your head for 10 seconds. After 10 seconds, sing that thought (either outloud or in your head) to the tune of a nursery rhyme. Then focus on the same thought as hard as you can for 10 seconds. Then sing the thought again but this time to a different tune (a Christmas song or Happy Birthday). Then notice what has happened to the thought. Almost invariably, our relationship with the thought changes -it loses its power, it may even seem silly. Why should this happen? Because in singing the thought you have changed from being controlled by the thought, to being able to observe that ‘it’s just a thought’. In being able to observe it, you are now better equipped the next time it appears, to be able to see “I’m having that stupid me thought” or that “I’m too old thought”, which is different from thinking “I’m stupid” or “I’m old”.

So when ACT talks of acceptance, it does not mean resignation. What it highlights is that it is through being able to be open to our difficult thoughts that we can change our relationship with them. When we stop the struggle, we can observe our thoughts for what they are, and in that observation change can happen.

You deal with changing job, changing employer, moving home and take it all in your stride. You manage the daily ups and downs of life which call on you to swiftly change plans and readjust. Then bang, something happens which floors you. The person who could roll with the punches disappears. You find yourself struggling to keep things in perspective, to retain any sense of optimism and confidence goes through the floor.

What’s happened? You have lost your resilience. You still turn up at work, but the person you bring is changed. The person who could see endless solutions, can see none. The person who loved a challenge, will only work within their comfort zone. The person who prided themselves on managing their emotion finds they have difficulty controlling them, or the only emotions available to them are negative. The loss of confidence is picked up by clients, or colleagues notice you bring less energy and engagement to the work you do. Resilience is more than an individual issue, it is a business issue.

“At the conference, Dr Anthony Grant of the Coaching Psychology Unit at Sydney University argued that resilience can be increased through a combination of training and coaching.”
Resilience is that elasticity which enables people to both be stretched and to get back into shape. It is a quality that is tested when individuals lose their jobs. It is equally tested when the job remains but the demands on it increase, or those things which made the role satisfying are removed.

There are many in UK plc whose resilience is being tested, and the people judged the most talented may also be the ones who are feeling less than resilient. That is why it was a timely topic for the recent Association for Coaching UK conference which was held at the University of East London.

So if UK resilience is being diminished by the current climate, what can organisations do? At the conference, Dr Anthony Grant of the Coaching Psychology Unit at Sydney University argued that resilience can be increased through a combination of training and coaching.

In a randomised control study in an Australian insurance company, he showed that training in resilience skills immediately followed by coaching led to significant increase in goal attainment, a reduction in depression and an increase in workplace wellbeing, whilst those offered training alone saw a worsening of all three dimensions in the weeks following training. This was reversed when coaching was later offered.

At a conference of coaches you would expect coaching to be part of the answer, but it is not the whole answer. Given that organisations will get more value from self-confident, optimistic individuals who can manage their emotions and adapt to changes, there is a role for training in helping to build resilience.

Resilience building
In a field which is fast expanding, the work of consultancy Team Focus offered a model which captures key themes of resilience building. It works from the premise that when resilience is lost, the individual has become frozen in a view of themselves – “I did not get that promotion, so my career is over.” Unfreezing it comes from enabling them to look at their view of self to examine how well it holds up to a reality check. “My career is not dependent on the outcome of one promotion decision.”

With the loosening it becomes possible to reformulate new possibilities. “If I look to develop through taking on that project I have been avoiding, my possibilities will widen.” From which a reframing of a new and realistic self-concept emerges – “I can see why that promotion was not right for me at this time, but I now know what I need to do to move forward.”

If losing resilience is about losing bounce, refinding is not about bouncing back. To bounce back suggests nothing has changed. When resilience is knocked the learning is about being able to move forward with new insights. Or as Dr Chris Johnstone, author of The Power of Hope highlighted, resilience is the pearl in the oyster. Just as the pearl is formed from the oyster responding to the irritation of the grit, losing resilience has powerful lessons to teach from which an even more resourceful self can emerge.

Career resilience argues that individuals need to be marketable, adaptable, resourceful and connected if they are to create a career in a turbulent business environment.  It is difficult to argue with what is self evident.  85 applicants for each graduate post says a headline this week – so what do the 84 do when they receive that rejection letter?   When Habitat will soon be forgotten name on the high street, when Thorntons chocolates will only exist on supermarket shelves,  when Comet gives a profit warning and HMV is bordering on collapse, we are daily confronted with the reality that  UK economy is struggling.  What we don’t see that within each of those organisations are people whose career futures are now uncertain.  Some will reassess and move forward quickly, but others will be hurt, angry and fearful of what they are going to find next.

Career practitioners are skilled in helping individuals to identify what they can offer, who they want to offer it to and how to present their ‘brand’ effectively, but when an individual has lost their resilience they can find it difficult to identify what they have to offer and dread the idea of getting back out there again.

In the last few months I have been focussing on how to build resilience in those that have lost it.  From my own work and from reading widely on what is known about helping those who have lost their equilibrium, I have developed ideas which I am going to share at the next Association for Career Professionals International webinar.  The webinar is being held twice on

15th July from 1-2pm  (GMT)

21st July from 8-30 – 9.30pm (GMT)

You are very welcome to join us.    To get further details follow this link:

http://www.acpinternational-uk.org/events/cpd-webinar-coaching-to-rebuild-resilience

In 2002 Diane Coutu wrote an article in Harvard Business Review in which she argued that the conditions that shape the resilience of individuals are the same conditions that shape the resilience of organisations.  Looking at the events of the last weeks, as we have witnessed Japan experience earthquake, tsunami and disaster at Fukishama nuclear power plant, her argument can now be extended to countries. So what can we learn about resilience by looking at the present situation?

In her article Coutu argued there are three characteristics of resilience:

Firstly, there is an acceptance of reality.  It is not cockeyed optimism that gets people through it is the ability to look in the face at what is happening,  and work with it.   Admiral Jim Stockton a prisoner of war for eight years in Vietnam, told it starkly, when he reported that those who died during incarceration, were those who relied on optimism – the belief that they would be out by Christmas, or Easter or Summer,  and then saw their optimistic hopes dashed.  Those that survived held a down to earth view of reality and accepted it.

The second characteristic was the ability to make meaning  from the present,  in order to create a picture of a better future.  The quote today from one of the 50 Fukushima workers in a letter to his family exemplifies this.  He exhorts  them to ‘live a good life’.   He does not know what the outcome of this will be for him personally, but driven by a set of beliefs which allows him to put his life on the line for the sake of millions of others, he also holds a belief that regardless of  his own future,  he wants his family to live well.  He may be doing what Viktor Frankl did in his account of life in a concentration camp, sustaining himself  through holding a picture in his mind of how he wants to use this experience to be meaningful beyond the present.

The third characteristic is ingenuity.  Philosopher Claude Levi-Strauss calls this ‘bricolage’, by which he means the ability to improvise in a situation without obvious tools.   Think of films such as Apollo 13 or The Great Escape.  What marks the protagonists is their ability to improvise in situations where others would give up hope.  Watching the daily turn of events in Fukushima, it is clear that there is no blueprint for how to deal with a range of colliding conditions that no one had ever planned for.  Each day is a lesson in improvisation.

How much we could all learn by applying those lessons to our lives.  Facing reality, rather than hoping it will go away – not in order to operate as pessimists, but in order to accept that sometimes life does throw tough stuff at us, and we deal with it better when we don’t minimise or deny.  Standing back from the daily demands of being in the middle of difficulty and considering what meaning does this hold for me?  Am I going to be defeated or defined by this situation, or will I deal with it better if I recognise what I can take from it that will be valuable in designing the future I want to live?  Finally, accepting that there is no blueprint, no self help book with all the answers, and that when we access our own inventiveness we discover that we have the answers to our own difficulties.

In my last post, I spoke of what resilience is, and what happens when we lose it.  In this post, I want to turn the focus on what coaches can do to support those struggling to refind balance.

One answer is that we can help individuals to reframe their thinking.  When resilience goes so does flexibility in thinking.  The individual becomes fixed on a narrow range of thoughts. Thoughts such as:

• I will never be able to . . .
• I am a failure
• I cannot . . .

These thoughts can be particularly harsh when they are stated by people who Tal Ben-Shahar of Harvard Business School calls ‘perfectionists’.  What he means by this is individuals who expected their route through life to be “direct, smoooth and free from obstacles.”  When they hit a bump in the road after years of uninterrrupted success, they can be ill equipped to deal with a different reality.  Terrified of failure, their thoughts show themselves in actions such as:

• Avoiding friends and colleagues
• Setting themselves even tougher goals – but goals which do not match with a changed reality
• Paralysis

The extensive work on resilience undertaken by  Penn University’s Resilience  Project has shown that coaches can :

• Help the individual build new thinking patterns by enabling them to see that between an adverse action (A)  e.g. job loss or disappointment and the consequence they have created (C) e.g. a withdrawal of effort, there is an intervening factor – their beliefs (B).  At times of difficulty we jump from A – C, unaware that it is B which is central to how we deal with the world.  By exposing the ABC pattern, the individual can start to identify different beliefs which open up new possibilities.  Job disappointment accompanied by beliefs such as:
• I have the ability to take a different direction
• I know I can weather the storm because I have done it in other areas of my life
• No one achieves anything without some failure along the way

leads to very diferent outcomes.  Energy starts to flow back, the emotional range opens up  and the range of choices available widens.

But it is not only the coached who need to recognise the limitations of the AC model, it can be equally true of coaches.  Faced with  someone who is convinced the future is hopeless, it is easy to get caught in the same web of thinking, and to start feeling the very same emotions that the client is experiencing.  Doing an ABC on ourselves is as valuable as it is applying it to clients, so that we stay resourceful in our work with them.

For more on this topic see my colleague Lindsay Wittenberg’s presentation on career coaching for resilience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkKvH8E9QNk

Career resilience has since the 1990′s been defined as the ability to be self reliant, to create a Me plc that can exist independent of the organisation, so that the individual is protected against the vicissitudes of the business climate or changes in organisational strategy.  That model is important, but it rests on a paradox.  Me plc asks that the individual is proactive, and there is plenty of research evidence that proactivity leads to career success.  But.  When you are not feeling resilient it is difficult to be proactive.

This video explains what is meant by psychological resilience and its importance in building career resilience.  Click on the link below to view the video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euOnJXx1BQA

Your car breaks down en route to an important meeting. After swearing you jump into action.

You ring the recovery service, and arrange for them to be with you at the car in a few hours time. You check out other travel options on your phone, call a taxi to get you to the station, phone someone close to you to let off steam, and then phone the client to warn them you may be a little late because of a travel delay. You arrive adjusting your presentation to the time now available, focus on what you need to do, forget about the car, and the meeting goes well. Congratulations, you have just displayed resilience.

In contrast on another day something goes wrong: you don’t get the appraisal rating you assumed you would get, or you hear a piece of negative feedback about something you did last week. Suddenly you are thrown off balance, you can think of nothing else but anger or a sense of failure. It transfers into everything you do for days – the thoughts and feelings keep going round in your head. If you are lucky after a while a sense of proportion returns, you realise there is more to be had from having the conversation with your boss about the appraisal rating, rather than avoiding them and projecting malevolence onto their intent. You begin to recognise there was some truth in the feedback, even if you did not like the style of presentation. Your resilience was knocked for a short term but then a self righting mechanism kicked in.

And, sometimes our resilience gets trammelled and the notion of bouncing back is unimaginable. Losing a job, the death of someone close, the ending of a relationship, being bullied at work, events which knock us off balance and disconnect us from our resources.

So what is resilience?

It is the ability in the face of difficulty to retain flexibility in our thoughts, behaviours and emotions. It is the loss of that plasticity which limits us when a difficulty comes our way. When it goes we draw in, we create a shell within which the thoughts and feelings are trapped. Within that shell we cannot see an escape. The notion of cracking it and looking outside for what else we could do is outside our imagination. Neither can we let others in. We don’t want others to know how we are thinking or feeling. We lose our desire or ability to connect with others who could help us adjust our thinking. We may find we don’t phone friends, we don’t want to go out, we stop doing things which ordinarily give us pleasure, or we seek comfort in things which provide a temporary escape.

What can we do?

Resilience is not an either or trait. We may look at people who seem to be able to take whatever life throws at them and bounce back as innately resilient. There is some truth in that, in that studies of people living through the most terrible of circumstances has shown that some will find ways of coming through intact, while most are scarred by the process.

Victor Frankl’s powerful account of his years in a concentration camp (Mans Search for  Meaning), and how he survived by holding a picture in his head of giving a lecture on his experiences when the war was over, is testimony to the ability some people have to retain that flexibility and sense of purpose. However, it is also true that all of us have some degree of resilience. If we did not we could not cope with any disruption to our daily routines. Opening the bread bin to discover that there was no bread for our daily toast would make the rest of the day untenable. Most of the time we make adjustments of thought automatically, but when we find ourselves in situations that are outside of our coping mechanisms there are some tested methods for helping refind our resilience:

• Staying connected to others. People who lose their jobs often retreat from social contact because of a sense of shame, yet it is through staying connected to others that resilience returns more quickly. On a practical level connections often lead to opportunities, but connecting to others also allows us to recognise that people see us much more widely than the person with a problem. Seeing ourselves reflected in others eyes helps to put the difficulty into a different place.

• Doing things that we enjoy. Research has shown that people who carried on doing some leisure activity during a time of difficulty recover more quickly, because the activity both provides enjoyment and provides a respite from their normal thoughts.

• Writing down thoughts. Keeping a journal is a valuable way of getting on paper what is filling up our head, and then being able to look at it with objectivity. The journal also allows for recognising when things are changing, and to see that resilience is not a fixed state, it ebbs and flows. When we are in the middle of a tough time, we often only recognise the ‘bad days’ but it is equally important to acknowledge the better days.

• Noticing and being in the present. When we are feeling unresilient we can spend our time either looking backwards on what could have been, or looking forward and only seeing relentless difficulty. Being in the present means noticing what is OK right now. That isn’t to deny the reality of the situation e.g. it is tough to lose one’s job, or to have one’s hoped for career future taken away, but it is also important to notice what is happening each day that tells you that life is still good. Having more time for one’s children, partner or parent; being able to help out on school trips; not having to wear a suit; noticing you have been able to read a book without falling asleep. Small wins that often pass unnoticed.

Resilience is not a fixed trait. It is a continuum along which we all move. The challenge when our resilience leaves us is to recognise that we can work our way back.

Having worked as a careers coach through 3 decades, the last few years have been remarkable for how little interest there has been from organisations in career coaching. An environment of growth provided opportunity,and career coaching conversations have often focussed on ‘what more do I want now that I have experienced success?’, or ‘what do I need to do to get . . .?, Conversations which assumed abundance, and an expectation that will and belief could control outcomes. Career coaching has often focussed on the ‘talented’, and for them a career conversations has had the implication of that more will be on offer.

In that climate career conversations have focussed on skills, interests, values, strengths and motivations – with a belief that once the data was gathered the right opportunity would be available. But things have changed.

Even before the impact of the Spending Review becomes clear, the mood of the country has changed. A nervousness about the future, and a certainty that the next decade will feel very different from the last. 450,000 public sector jobs going and an uncertain number of private sector jobs following means that career conversations will be different. For those who leave, the fortunate will be offered outplacement support. For those who remain the issue of career will still be relevant, but the reality of the career journey will look different. Fewer opportunities, changing skills demands, less budget for development. Managers, HR professionals and internal coaches are all going to become involved in career conversations which will tax their skills.

- How to bring the skills of support while not denying reality.
- How to help someone back on track whose resilience has been
sapped by disappointment
- How to balance belief in the resourcefulness of individuals without it
seeming like naive optimism

That is why we need a new approach to careers coaching, which can work with the tough stuff skilfully, and with integrity.

That is why Coaching to Solutions has developed 2 new offerings for those who are being asked to coach :
- A programme for those new to career coaching which provides tools
and models for working with range of career issues.
- A programme for those with established coaching skills which focuses
on career coaching to build resilience.

Both programmes lead to a recognised qualification from the Institute of Leadership and Management.

To find out more click here

Ask most people why they did the first job that they did, and the answers will usually reveal the power of family messages. Middle class families often have direct role modelling – think of acting dynasties, or the generations of doctors, lawyers or teachers that are often found in one family.
For working class families the influences are often more aspirational: the desire to have a doctor, lawyer or teacher in the family. For both groups the story they have created is one that has often been given to them. It is only with increased distance and maturity that that such narratives begin to be questioned.
Often it is in the 20′s that the story begins to feel uncomfortable. A tension can emerge between doing what others want for you and your own growing sense of unease. Working with GPS I was struck by how often their story was one of following a career that gained considerable approval from others, only to find that the reality of living the role was not what they expected. Discovering that what you do does not meet your own needs, although it may meet others is a difficult place to be. Marcia B Baxter Magolda in her book Authoring a Life interviewed 35 adults over a 20 year period, and found that facing a career crossroad was a significant feature of her interviewees. At some point, individuals began to hear an inner voice which told them that their needs were different from what they had come to believe. That voice was often suppressed because it opened up fears of disapproval, but at some point the individual had to make a decision. Do I continue on this path that has been set for me, or do I start to risk listening to and trusting my inner voice? The process of building trust in that voice as a guide to taking action was not one of linear progression. Often the interviews reveal how people moved towards and then away from accepting their own values and beliefs over a number of years. Gradually and tentatively they came to recognise the strength of that inner voice. They moved towards what Magolda calls ‘self authorship’. Becoming one’s own author provided a compass point for dealing with life’s challenges in both work and relationships. It was not that their lives were any easier because of developing that voice, but that they had something they could call on to get them through the vicissitudes of life, and to help in decision making on career issues.

A starting point for developing that voice is to examine your own career narrative.

Sit down and write your career story so far – not as a cv story, but in terms of the following questions:

Think of the role models you were presented with in childhood and early adulthood and how they influenced your decisions about work?

Has there been a point when you were challenged by something in life that changed your perspective on your career?

If you have passed over a career crossroad, which road did you take and why?

What has resulted from the road you chose?

If you are currently at a crossroad, what is the tension you are caught between?

How much of what you are doing now is guided by your own inner voice?

If you are on a journey towards developing that inner voice – then when is it at its strongest, and when does it get drowned out?

In a world where careers are constantly changing in response to global, economic, social and technological shifts, creating self authorship will become ever more important. A starting point is to take time to reflect on how well your career narrative is working for you, in order to check if a different story needs to be written.

What aspect of your career narrative do you feel you have been in control of ?

If you have reached the crossroad, what signs were there that were reaching that point?

If you are at the crossroads right now, what are you noticing about what you are responding to that gives you clues as to what your inner voice wants you to hear.

If you have started to listen to that voice how do you keep it from being drowned out by the ‘old story?’

If you have begun to trust that voice, what does it enable you to do differently?

If you have reached ‘self authorship’ then you have acquired a gift that will serve you for the rest of your life.