Berger Leadership Blog

Aug 20, 2021
Categories: Strategy & Growth

Achieving The Resilience Advantage

Leaders need a strong mind to overcome the challenges that we face during our lives and to enable resilience. As we continue to deal with the pandemic, focusing on resilience is timely. A recent study by Everyday Health and the Ohio State University found that the majority of Americans overestimated their own mental and emotional resilience.

In a recent article for SmartBrief, LaRae Quy discusses how a strong mind can help provide resilience.

  • Hope creates a strong mind. Hope provides fuel to keep us going knowing that things will get better at some point down the road. Hope can lead to less stress and anxiety since it prevents people from focusing too much on the current situation. In order to achieve a strong mind, Quy says to sort through your life to identify what is creating anxiety. From there, pile these items into two areas: those you can control and those you cannot. You can claim ownership over the areas you can control and reduce stress and anxiety from these areas.
  • Information creates a strong mind. We are wired to dislike uncertainty. If you focus on obtaining information that is relevant to your situation, it activates your reward networks in the brains as opposed to a threat response that is created with uncertainty. Quy says that to make it all work you must focus on the information that is relevant to the issues you are facing.
  • Mindfulness creates a strong mind. Mindfulness is an important part of ensuring that you can pause and observe what is going on. It trains the mind to stronger and ultimately allows you to be more resilient. To make this work for you focus on concentration. Concentration is the anchor of mindfulness.

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