Three Steps to Increase Resilience
Resilience is our ability to continue toward the goal even when things go wrong. When we adopt the mindset that life happens for us, not to us, then every situation is a gift. Every time we encounter an obstacle, it is an opportunity for an alternative path to open up. The first step in becoming resilient is acknowledging that shift happens.
Hi. I’m Shelley Carney, Personal Development Life Coach, and I believe we grow in resilience and confidence whenever we persist through setbacks and move forward. The Confidence Framework shows us that our purpose leads to planning and then to taking action. But sometimes the actions we take don’t give us the results we want. So we have to try again or come at the problem from a new angle. Maybe we start a business or a new endeavor like a YouTube channel or podcast. We keep producing content, but either nobody is interested or we don’t get clients or sales and the future looks bleak. That’s when we have to be resilient, take a hard look at the goal and decide if it is still what we want to pursue or if we need to try something else to get the results we want. As James Michener advises,
“Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.”
I’ll give you an example. My partner Toby and I built a YouTube channel around the Forrest Fenn treasure hunt starting in March 2017. We worked on this channel for three and a half years with the purpose of expanding our brand and building a loyal community while enjoying a hobby that promised outdoor adventure. We hit an obstacle when the treasure hunt ended in June 2020, so we had to re-evaluate and decide what to do next. We needed to know what end results we wanted so we could figure out how to achieve them.
We tried creating our own treasure hunt and book. That was fun and it worked for a few months, but when our treasure hunt quickly ended, we had to pivot again. We tried a Monday through Friday show to tempt more viewers to subscribe but that didn’t produce the results we wanted. Then we started playing Jackbox Games, but only a few people were joining us to play. Most of our viewers wanted to talk about the now-defunct treasure hunt.
This was a really difficult roadblock for us because we hoped to keep our current audience engaged and happy. We took a step back and paused our channel for a few weeks while we came up with a new plan. Sometimes you’ve got to slow down before you can speed up. We still had the ultimate goal of expanding our brand and growing a community while still having fun. How could we do that with an audience that resisted moving forward with us? I think Max Lucado says it best:
“A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.”
We take responsibility for our assets, including our YouTube channels and the content we produce. No matter what anybody else says, we have to love what we do every day, or it isn’t worth our time and effort. We started by looking at the people who choose to spend their time with us and thinking about how we can best serve them.
Over the past couple of years, we helped several friends who are in their retirement years to start their own YouTube channel, Facebook group or Podcast. They came to us for advice to get set up and running with the right technology and we supported them through that process. This happened naturally, so why not take advantage of the situation by sharing it with the world? That’s often how new businesses get their start. We easily made the decision.
Toby and I are podcast and livestream coaches and we help encore entrepreneurs and legacy live streamers master the tech and online platforms necessary to share their wisdom with the world. Once we focused in this way, the rest of the pieces came together. We host The Podcasting and Livestreaming Channel, Messages and Methods and AGK Gaming. This gives us the opportunity to showcase what is possible in live streaming and podcasting so more people will be inspired to follow our lead and create their own shows. We get to interview people and hear their stories and help them with their struggles and it’s fun and exciting work that brings us a renewed purpose and passion. We found our way past the unforeseen obstacle because we were resilient.
Have you come up against challenges and obstacles on your way to achieving your desired result? We all have, right? How can we remain persistent so we can develop the resilience necessary to build confidence in any situation?
Let me share my three-step solution that can help us to persist, gain confidence and continue to take decisive action.
Step 1 Vision.
Begin with the end in mind. Plan from your vision, not your circumstances. Examine your values, priorities and passions to establish a vision for your life. What is your ultimate goal? Close your eyes and picture how you want your life to look in one year, three years, and five years. Are you healthy and strong? Where do you live? What is your career like? How do you spend your time? Once you have this clear picture in your mind, lock it into place.
My ultimate goal is to get paid for being myself. That means I am successful in doing what I love most. What I love is helping people achieve their goals by offering action steps they can implement to move closer to their desired results. That’s why I make videos, write articles and put up a podcast.
But how I help people doesn’t matter as much as the result. That means I can take advantage of whatever opportunities occur along the way. How we get to the end goals in our vision is open to all possibilities. We can make plans, but we have to be flexible because nothing stays the same year after year. As long as each step we take is in alignment with our vision, though, that’s okay. Plans can change as opportunities and situations change.
My vision is to grow an engaged community that comes together to solve the problems of its members. My plan to achieve this is helping one person at a time with their technology needs until I have a group that meets weekly to network and support everyone. Then that group expands until thousands of people have the confidence and knowledge to launch their own livestream channel or podcast and share their ideas and wisdom around the world.
These are broad strokes and small things can still change without affecting the vision. If I persist and stay flexible, it will happen.
Step 2 Ownership.
Whatever choices I make and actions I take are up to me. I can’t control circumstances that change our culture and our lives, but I can decide how I will respond. When one door closes, I look for another that is open. Our YouTube channel had to change direction, and we responded by taking ownership and getting in front of the change. We like to be in a leadership position and we take advantage of new technology to up-level our brand and professionalism. That’s why we let go of what no longer works, the treasure hunt, and move to something else that holds promise, Messages and Methods.
Are there places in your life where you need to take ownership by adjusting your response?
When you take the wheel and guide your decisions with your vision as your destination, it’s much easier to be resilient when you encounter speed bumps and detours.
Those are the first two steps to becoming more resilient. I’ll share the third step in just a moment, but if you would like to strengthen your motivation and reduce procrastination in your life, I have a super helpful online course for you called Stop Procrastinating and Achieve Your Desired Results. Normally, this course sells for $19.99, but use the coupon code DOITNOW so you can get the course free as my gift to you for watching this video. And if you haven’t grabbed your free ebook, Confidence to Grow, do yourself a favor and get it now.
Step 3 Celebrate and Act.
You’ve determined your vision and taken ownership of your actions and responses. It’s time to take a quick look back at where you started and how far you’ve already come and celebrate your progress. Then decide on the next right action you will take. If you need more skills or support, get coaching and then get back in the game.
Albert Einstein said, “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” A trait that I truly appreciate in my husband, Kevin and my partner, Toby is their willingness to stick with a technology or mechanical problem until they have solved it. When it comes to writing, producing and editing my videos, I persist until it is finished. We each have expertise, competencies and confidence that we can fix a particular set of problems. We gain that expertise and confidence by first failing and then trying again. We don’t succeed every time, but as we gain experience, we learn to hang in there longer. So if you come up against a problem you just can’t fix, you’ll know it’s time to ask for help from somebody who’s already solved it before. Don’t hesitate to reach out. You are giving the person who helps you a gift. They will feel valued and fulfilled by helping another person achieve their dream.
These three steps can be your solution to becoming more resilient and persisting until you gain new levels of confidence. Have a clear vision of what you want, take ownership of your actions and responses when your plans go sideways and get the support you need to persist through every challenge.
Connect with me! Schedule a free consulting call to define your social media goals, assess your specific needs, and clarify your best options.
Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.
