2012 International Year of Resilience – top 10 Tips

In thinking about the year ahead I’ve decided to call it the International Year of Resilience. With everything that appears to be going on in the world there’s unlikely to be any quick fixes and so I provide for you here below, my Top 10 Tips for building more resilience into your lives. If you want to follow and contribute to the Twitter conversation, please use the following tag #2102YearofResilience. Tip 1: Be Productive, not ‘busy’ – you can’t be both.

From what I can tell, busy people are RARELY productive.  So stop doing all that stuff that makes no difference or even harms your productivity.

Tip 2: Understand that variations to your times-lines are likely.   This tip reminds us that what we expect might need to change because things might take longer or happen quicker than what we anticipate

Tip 3: If you haven’t thought about a preferred and realistic future outcome, you have no right to complain when you don’t like what you end up with.  Don’t think I need to explain that one further, though I know some people will complain all the same!

Tip 4: Planning is NOT execution.  But without it you might bet better off NOT executing at all.  So think and prepare is the key here because acting without thinking first might put you in a far deeper hole than you really want to be in!

Tip 5: Resilience means to have the ability to bounce back into shape.  From what?  From the ‘impact’ of unexpected outcomes and the occasional surprise.  The more you’ve thought about potential outcomes, the better prepared you are likely to be and the less need for resilience.

Tip 6: Make sure your expectations are realistic – base them on a wide array of information.  If your expectations are realistic you’ll rarely be disappointed but if not…

Tip 7: Your Future is a negotiation with yourself and with others.  It will almost NEVER arrive in a smooth & straight line Remember that there are stops and starts and diversions is every part of your life – that’s what makes your life interesting!

Tip 8: It might be frustrating but it’s probably not really a disaster.  This tip reminds us to take a breath remember tips two and seven, to then think about options and then act

Tip 9: Stuck? You can overcome your current challenges – It may need persistence and it might also require you to come up with a new plan.  Your future is about options.  People who lack resilience have often run out of options or (as is more likely) can’t think of alternatives.  Tip 10 can help here too

Tip 10: Ask for help and then ALLOW people to help you in ways that they know how.  One of the biggest hurdles we face is our belief that we have to do it alone.  For others they ask for help but then insist their ‘helpers’ do things the way they want them done.

So there’s my quick tips for 2012 International year of Resilience.  I’d love to find out your tips too so Twitter in at #rightfuture using the tag #2012YearofResilience