I had the distinct privilege to hear Claire Genkai Breeze speak at a conference this past weekend. Her topic was “The Near Enemy of Resilience is Endurance”. Until I heard her speak I really thought of resilience and endurance as synonyms. One analogy she used was that of an oak tree vs bamboo in the heavy wind storm. If the wind is strong and long enough the oak will break but the bamboo will simply bend to the ground until the wind passes.
How many of you stand sturdy in the face of strong winds of change in your life? Many of us work and work with the hope that we can just push through this last “storm” and then we will relax. This thinking is based on the thought that there is a steady state between periods of change.
Traditional Image of a Cycle of Change
Claire said, “Secretly they simply hope to get through the rough patch and that they and their reactions will return to normal. It’s a sort of conditional future promise: ‘If I just get through this patch I will take better care of myself’; except by the time that future has arrived there is something else equally demanding to replace it. Waiting for a future moment to restore your wellbeing is a fool’s game.”
The VUCA World Cycle of Change
Demonstrating endurance is the idea is that we will work at full speed with no breaks based on the premise that eventually things will slow down and we can rest then. Resilience is a pacing that includes and values time for rest and refueling equally to the value of the work.
The reality of the world today is that change is CONSTANT. There is never is true steady state between periods of change. There are no more built in rest periods. We need to think about increasing our resilience and avoiding the trap of endurance. Endurance is NOT sustainable for the long haul.
Resilience does not mean stop answering emails and reviewing reports, stopping does not always equal recovering. As I am sure many of you have laid in bed thinking about the emails you need to send.
As researchers Zijlstra, Cropley and Rydstedt write in their 2014 paper: “Internal recovery refers to the shorter periods of relaxation that take place within the frames of the workday or the work setting in the form of short scheduled or unscheduled breaks, by shifting attention or changing to other work tasks when the mental or physical resources required for the initial task are temporarily depleted or exhausted. External recovery refers to actions that take place outside of work—e.g. in the free time between the workdays, and during weekends, holidays or vacations.”
What can you do to build resilient practices into your life?
