Resilience - The Key Ingredient to Success In Business, Career and Life
Want to know the secret of most successful executives and entrepreneurs? Brilliant Strategic Business Solutions abilities? Impeccable timing? Enormous amounts of charisma and natural born leadership skills? All these things are important and very handy when it comes to success and achievement.
However, the greatest single trait one must possess for success in business, career and indeed life in general – is resilience. Probably not as glamorous as the others mentioned above – but the most important.
So, what exactly is resilience? One definition is “the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.” Winston Churchill touches on resilience with one of his inimitable quotes “success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”
Successful people persisted when they were not successful, and equally so once they were successful. Setbacks are disappointing but never need be permanent. A successful person will bounce back, reload and refocus quicker. Colonel Sanders had supposedly been rejected over 1000 times in business and didn’t find success until his late 60’s. Thomas Edison had thousands of dud inventions that went nowhere, and is remembered widely for only a few of his successful ones.
The successful person is not necessarily smarter, better or more intrinsically talented. They keep going and going until they succeed, never losing sight of the destination – even when they’re down.
Developing Resilience
The best way to develop resilience occurs in our toughest times and darkest moments. If you want to build your resilience - this is how…
In your lowest moments and darkest periods where you completely lack motivation – do the thing you least want to do in that moment. Focus just on doing that task in that dark moment. Don’t even worry if what you do is any good or not at the start – forget perfectionism – just do. As Australian football legend John Kennedy Senior once famously shouted to his charges in the heat of battle “do something... don’t think, don't hope - do!”
Resilience comes from action, doing - when we least feel like it. Next time you just can’t be bothered and it’s all too hard and it's all going south – just do it anyway.
So, in the end resilience is about taking action in hard times, and in the eloquent words of Norman Vincent Peale:
“Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence.
Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear.
Perhaps the action you take will be successful;
Perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow.
But any action is better than no action at all.”
However, the greatest single trait one must possess for success in business, career and indeed life in general – is resilience. Probably not as glamorous as the others mentioned above – but the most important.
So, what exactly is resilience? One definition is “the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.” Winston Churchill touches on resilience with one of his inimitable quotes “success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”
Successful people persisted when they were not successful, and equally so once they were successful. Setbacks are disappointing but never need be permanent. A successful person will bounce back, reload and refocus quicker. Colonel Sanders had supposedly been rejected over 1000 times in business and didn’t find success until his late 60’s. Thomas Edison had thousands of dud inventions that went nowhere, and is remembered widely for only a few of his successful ones.
The successful person is not necessarily smarter, better or more intrinsically talented. They keep going and going until they succeed, never losing sight of the destination – even when they’re down.
Developing Resilience
The best way to develop resilience occurs in our toughest times and darkest moments. If you want to build your resilience - this is how…
In your lowest moments and darkest periods where you completely lack motivation – do the thing you least want to do in that moment. Focus just on doing that task in that dark moment. Don’t even worry if what you do is any good or not at the start – forget perfectionism – just do. As Australian football legend John Kennedy Senior once famously shouted to his charges in the heat of battle “do something... don’t think, don't hope - do!”
Resilience comes from action, doing - when we least feel like it. Next time you just can’t be bothered and it’s all too hard and it's all going south – just do it anyway.
So, in the end resilience is about taking action in hard times, and in the eloquent words of Norman Vincent Peale:
“Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence.
Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear.
Perhaps the action you take will be successful;
Perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow.
But any action is better than no action at all.”
