Building your resilience toolkit
The human brain can be great at ignoring/forgetting what we do or have done well and focusing on our mistakes, errors or ‘areas for development’. This is known as faulty thinking or cognitive biases.
By building our own Resilience toolkit we can help to balance this out. If we direct our brain more consciously to the good data about us too, we can give it a better chance to appraise ourselves fairly.
How it works? You begin by looking back through emails/texts/certificates etc., finding evidence of things you have done well. This could be a simple email from a colleague thanking you for your time or a good appraisal. You can either print these off and keep them in your physical resilience toolkit folder/box OR if you prefer digital records, then go ahead and create a digital version.
Once this has been created and information gathered, you need to start noticing when you get further positive feedback/thank you’s AND notice when YOU recognise you have done a good job and add it to your file.
When life can become a little overwhelming, how many times have you been told to ‘keep your chin up’? The challenge when our ‘chin’ needs help is that we tend to ruminate on more negative aspects of our life. One way to use this resilience toolkit is to take the time to read it when you are feeling this way. It should help to boost some of those good mood hormones to help you move forward with purpose.
It is also an incredibly useful tool for populating competency-based questions too if you have an interview coming up!
Tips for Completion: I also find that a little mood boosting treat can be useful when reading through our toolkit; Try adding one of the following foods to your toolkit to give your brain an extra boost;
Dark chocolate is rich in compounds that may increase feel-good chemicals in your brain.
Since up to 90% of your body’s serotonin is produced in your gut, a healthy gut may correspond to a good mood. Fermented foods like yogurt, kefir, kombucha, and kimchi, are rich in probiotics that support gut health.
Bananas are a great source of natural sugar, vitamin B6, and prebiotic fibre, which work together to keep your blood sugar levels and mood stable.
Coffee provides numerous compounds, including caffeine and chlorogenic acid, that may boost your mood.
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