{"id":5501,"date":"2017-05-31T08:18:45","date_gmt":"2017-05-31T08:18:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.getsmarter.com\/blog\/?p=5501"},"modified":"2018-09-05T12:26:55","modified_gmt":"2018-09-05T12:26:55","slug":"why-care-emotional-resilience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.getsmarter.com\/blog\/why-care-emotional-resilience\/","title":{"rendered":"Why should you care about emotional resilience?"},"content":{"rendered":"

You\u2019ve probably experienced it before. One of those days where\u00a0everything that can go wrong<\/strong> seems to do so all at once. Chances are it wasn\u2019t limited to only one day either, but rather extended over a period of a few days or even weeks.<\/p>\n

But, somehow, you survived. You lived through the panic and anxiety to face another day. Your ability to handle that stress is known as your emotional resilience<\/strong>. And if you want to move up in your career and take on more responsibility, you\u2019re going to need a lot of it.<\/p>\n

What is emotional resilience?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Emotional resilience is, quite simply, your ability to adapt to stressful situations or crises. Author and Stress Management Expert, Elizabeth Scott describes emotionally resilient people as those who are able to \u201croll with the punches\u201d and adapt to adversity without experiencing lasting negative effects.1<\/sup><\/p>\n

\"emotionalIt\u2019s worth bearing in mind that emotional resilience is not about being immune to stress. The American Psychological Association reminds us that \u201cBeing resilient does not mean that a person doesn’t experience difficulty or distress. In fact, the road to resilience is likely to involve considerable emotional distress.\u201d2<\/sup><\/p>\n

Why does emotional resilience matter?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

According to a survey of employee assistance programs involving over 100,000 employees from across the globe, depression, stress and anxiety were responsible for 82.6% of emotional health cases in 2015, up from 55.2% in 2012.3<\/sup><\/p>\n

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This rather alarming rise in stress-related emotional issues in the workplace can be attributed to two factors: Increased demand for high performance in the workplace, and lack of strong emotional resilience.<\/p>\n

Stress isn\u2019t all bad, however. There are benefits of experiencing small to medium amounts of intermittent stress, also known as motivational or productive stress. The Yerkes\u2013Dodson law argues that employee productivity increases when exposed to moderates amount of anxiety, but sharply declines when that anxiety increases past a certain threshold.4<\/sup><\/p>\n

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That threshold is where emotional resilience comes in. If your levels of workplace anxiety upset the sensitive productivity-stress balance, your ability to handle the situation is determined by the strength of your emotional resilience.<\/p>\n

But resilience is not only about succeeding in the face of challenge, but learning from failure too. Dr Rich Fernandez, co-founder of Wisdom Labs, says \u201cWhile working as a director of learning and organization development at Google, eBay and J.P. Morgan Chase, and in my current work as co-founder of the learning solutions company Wisdom Labs, I\u2019ve seen over and over again that the most resilient individuals and teams aren\u2019t the ones that don\u2019t fail, but rather the ones that fail, learn and thrive because of it.\u201d5<\/sup><\/p>\n

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How do you undersell your own emotional resilience?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Before trying to figure out ways to develop resilience, it\u2019s worth taking a look at your current ability to handle stressful situations. Andy Molinsky, Professor of Organisational Behaviour at Brandeis International Business School, claims there is a large disparity between what people think they can handle and what they can actually bear.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike many of us, my students systematically underestimate their resilience in challenging situations. Their fears about being assertive, speaking in public, and networking are a completely unhelpful, inaccurate guide to what it will be like when they actually take the leap and stretch outside their comfort zones,\u201d says Molinsky.6<\/sup><\/p>\n

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Chances are your perceived emotional resilience is a lot lower than your actual emotional resilience. Here are few insights gained from Molinsky\u2019s experience in organisational behaviour and teaching people to deal with anxiety and stress:<\/p>\n