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Yana Yaneva

Resilience in times of change...what is that?

Does taking control of the change, mean resilience?

I moved to the UK a few years ago from Bulgaria. Since I moved, I discovered a massive

difference between people from home and here, when it comes down to resilience and well

being.

Many times I have witnessed people going on stress leave from work, which is something that I

have never seen before where I come from. So I started thinking about the reasons. I looked at

different personalities, the working environment, and how they affected resilience.

Based on the latest research, more than 80% of the companies in the world are going through

big changes. No matter if it is the transformation change of a whole business, change of

workplace, change at C-levels, or even just change of desks in one small office! Based on that

research, more than 80% of the employees are feeling stressed and insecure during the

process.

So why is that?

We are all going through changes every single day. We change our clothes, our morning coffee,

our route to work. We change apartments, houses, cities, doctors, partners, and even names!

We sometimes change our whole lives. But when it comes to a change in work, we somehow

lose control, we are no longer resilient. When it comes to a point where someone else is making

decisions for us, we put our resilience on “Stand by. As a result, we stress out as we do not

control the change. I think the biggest mistake people make is not trying to get control back

when work changes. We just keep getting more and more frustrated and unhappy.

We spend more than 8 hours at work every day, which is 253 days in one year and more than

half of the time, we are stressed. As we are not resilient to the working change, we bring that

stress home. Home is where we can control things, so we end up making our family stressed

and unhappy too.

The simple and sad equation we all live in:

Stress at work + control at home = unhappy, stressed, angry, tired, and mentally overwhelmed

humans!

More and more companies offer resilience courses and meetings with specialists. This is

different from in Bulgaria, where perhaps people are more resilient themselves – it feels part of

people’s nature.

But what is Resilience?

Google the word! You get millions of videos on how to help yourself to be more resilient - and

thousands of articles and the same number of books for self-help! This is all great, but it feels

like all those guides have been written to be the same for all of us. Yet we are all different. What

I am resilient about is probably completely different from you. Mine changes based on different

situations too.

I think it's really important to understand what situation happens to trigger your resilience? So

the first question, we need to ask ourselves is “what is the source of my own resilience”.

Some of my friends take long walks during lunch breaks, some like to listen to music and others

try to keep their mind empty and focused only on work. Some don’t think that working change is

a bad thing and see opportunity.

I believe this is the first step to building resilience - having a positive mindset.

Then there are lots of tool kits that help us build our resilience and many of them have one thing

in common. They all say we need to know ourselves, very well. If you know your own

boundaries and limits, you can find the best way to build your personal resilience.

But this is the hardest part. To get to know yourself means to face your fears, to dig deeper in

order to find out what worries you and why you are stressing. To admit that you are not perfect

and even that you need help!

It is human nature just to block our own fear and that means we don't take responsibility

ourselves. To blame the company, the environment, the best friend, the boss, or anyone or


anything else. Anything that can make them feel better and avoid owning a situation. But by

doing this, we just go deeper into the “rabbit hole”.

So many researchers have tried to explain how our brain works and what our limits are.

Ultimately they all fail on a very personal level because no one else will know your limits better

than yourself.

If we get to a point where we know and can control ourselves by being happier and less

stressed - then we will able to develop the skill to help others as well.

Then everything around us gets better.

So, here are a few steps that can help as a start:

• Try to keep positive thinking in every situation. After all, we always have a choice and

there is sunshine after every storm

• Find something that makes you smile every morning – a cup of coffee, favourite song a

or even a funny t-shirt!

• Write down the 3 things you have done, that made you feel happy at the end of every

day.

• Try to listen more to what is happening around you and talk with colleagues, friends,

and family often.

Here is my simple and happy equation I think we should all try to live by:

Positive thinking + taking responsibility = resilient, happier, less stressed, energetic, and helpful

humans!

It's my formula for us all to get fit for the future!

Love, Y. Yaneva

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