2020 has thrown businesses and individuals some massive challenges as we live through these unprecedented times. Whether your life is starting to look normal again, or at least COVID normal, everyone is feeling exhausted and burnt out.
Mental Toughness and Resilience are skills that can be built and developed, and they are essential to getting individuals, teams and businesses through any challenges they may be facing. So how can you ensure your team has the skills to not only survive challenging times or situations but to thrive in them?
Here are our four top tips on building and supporting the mental toughness and resilience of your team:
Set goals and keep focused
Goal setting is a fundamental step in mental toughness; without goals you are not working towards anything, have no focus and can feel overwhelmed and lost. Goals create a direction, they motivate you and give you something to work towards, no matter how big or small they are. So, set yourself or your team goals, make sure they are realistic and meaningful. To help manage your stress and self-discipline, note down obstacles that have stopped you from achieving goals in the past and then ask yourself what you can do differently? This will ensure you keep focused. Be mindful of when goals need to shift, a goal which was important might no longer be the most important task you need to work on.
Maintain resilience
Resilience comes down to being able to work through your disappointments or challenges and consider what you have learned or what you can do differently next time. Resilience feeds on agility and adaptability, be flexible in overcoming obstacles and setbacks. Acknowledge them as a team or in individual discussions how you can incorporate or overcome the bad things that confronted you and instead turn them into something positive or empowering for the future. Control what you can and come up with solutions to adapt or respond to the things you can’t.
Grow your team’s psychological safety
Create a supportive environment, where individuals feel safe, empowered and mentally prepared to deal with uncertainty, stress and even failure. Individuals need to know that they won’t be put down or punished for failures where they have worked in line with values and behaviours. Instead, a team needs to be able to come together to reflect and provide constructive feedback to help each other overcome challenges and grow capability for the future. Ask what support is needed? What could we do differently?
Wellbeing
Promote the wellbeing of your team. Foster a culture of openness and communication, whilst championing a work/life balance that allows flexibility and time for individuals to manage their hours as needed. This, in turn, will support greater levels of engagement and performance. Promote positive health habits such as exercise, meditation, lunch breaks, social teams or clubs etc. Happier and healthier individuals will be better equipped to respond to stress and uncertainty, especially if they have the support of their team and manager.
The best thing to make sure your team has the skills and tools to maintain and build their mental toughness and resilience is consistency. Ensure that you set up the framework and culture that continues to set goals, promote wellbeing and create a positive and supportive culture to ensure the mental shift of individuals is maintained.
Interested in learning more on the practical tips and resources to support leaders and managers build capabilities in mental toughness and resilience? Ask us about our online workshops and learning options.