Resilience-Building Toolkit

Whoever said the secret to happiness is helping others should have qualified this statement with the following proviso: on the condition that you remember to put your own interests first.

Giving may be a gift that gives back but you will be in a far better position to help and support others if you prioritise your own happiness and well-being.

Coaches can sometimes lose sight of that fact, devoting so much time and energy to other people that their own mental health and emotional well-being is prone to suffer.

And if you are unhappy, irritable or emotionally drained, how can you give the people you coach your best self?

For intrinsically motivated people like sports coaches, it is imperative they learn strategies to regulate their emotions as a means of recharging and replenishing their well of resilience. 

Resilience is important as it is the mind’s defence mechanism against adversity. But being resilient doesn’t just help you cope well with setbacks, it is important too for maintaining good health and well-being. 

The hormones dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and endorphins play an important role in developing resilience.

Learning strategies to control our thoughts and actions can help trigger the release of these ‘happy hormones’, which then impact positively on our emotions and mood, thereby helping to fill our resilience tank.

Unfortunately, human brains are wired to think negatively, and to change this default setting and transform the way we feel, we must work hard to modify our lifestyle and alter our accustomed behaviour patterns.

And here are a few techniques for doing just that.

Start a Gratitude Diary

Writing a list of things you feel grateful for, and explaining why, is another sure-fire way to get those hormones circulating around your bloodstream.

When we think about good things, good things happen. This attitude of gratitude helps to top up our resilience reservoir. 

Use this simple four-step framework: Search it, notice it, celebrate it, savour it. 

If you remember from the opening paragraphs, thoughts have a direct impact on our emotions and behaviours; hence, savouring positive emotions elevates our mood and kick-starts a positive chain reaction leading to tangible positive effects on our physical health and psychological wellbeing.

Spend several minutes every day jotting down things you are thankful for. It could be people, places or events from that day or a nostalgic moment from your past. Perhaps a photograph, conversation or television programme has jogged a happy memory, or your thoughts focus on a coaching incident or nature-related sensory experience from which you derived pleasure or amusement. 

Over time this routine of reflection, and crucially, the act of writing it down – which is key to leaving an indelible impression, as action speaks louder than thoughts – helps to carve new neural pathways that reinforce positive thinking. 

It can be done any time of day: in the morning before work to put a spring in your step, or before bedtime to help you get a deeper night’s sleep, with the result that you wake up more refreshed.

Surround yourself with positive people

We all know fully paid-up members of the ‘glass half empty’ brigade. If you surround yourself with emotional drains on a regular basis, they will sap your energy and chip away at your resilience. 

Seek out, where possible, people with a realistic sense of optimism, who are upbeat and have a positive outlook on life. Positivity is contagious, and such people will help to bring the best out of you so you are in the right frame of mind to bring the best out of others and spread a bit of happiness.

Much is made of our frenetic lifestyles and our culture of perfectionism, which breeds dissatisfaction and anguish. And it has already been noted that negative emotions are an inseparable part of the human condition, meaning anxieties and worries have a habit of sticking to us like shadows. Surrounding ourselves with people who add fun and energy into our lives rather than doom-mongers who suck happiness out of situations allows us to lighten that daily load – and serves as another example of how, by taking decisive action, our thoughts and feelings will naturally start to align with our new positive behaviour.