How Resilience Can Help Small Businesses To Succeed

Overtime, the necessity of resilience has been revealed in various areas. This means that if companies are unprepared or structurally unable to bounce back from tough times, the result is often lost revenue and lost talent, but to prevent this from happening, organizations irrespective of the size, need to be resilient. In short, it helps to strengthen them, makes them more agile and allows them to bounce back after difficult times.

We build our resilience by learning to cope with challenges, because it’s a process of adapting well in the face of trauma, tragedy or significant stress and basically, you have to get knocked down in order to learn how to pick yourself back up. Over time, successful people learn not only how to overcome, but to embrace these challenges. They understand that each crisis they face is a chance to learn and grow.

Low resilience increases people’s risk for developing mental illness. This leads to lost productivity which hurts employers through higher absenteeism and lower productivity. When employees can’t manage stress, it can mean costly turnover, poor customer service and higher healthcare costs. When employers take steps to boost employee resilience, human factor risks can be significantly lowered.

Resilience is an important skill to master in order to be successful for the long haul. Here are five strategies business who want be successful use to build their resilience and continue to grow beyond the crises that would otherwise hold them back

• REFRAME HOW YOU VIEW CRUCIAL SITUATIONS

The way you view a potentially crucial situation can either make the crisis worse in your mind or minimize it. This is called cognitive reframing and it involves looking at things in a way that creates less stress and promotes a greater sense of control and peace. Reframing things in a more positive way can alter our perceptions and relieve our stressful feelings.

In other words, if you’re constantly feeling like a crisis is looming, your body will react as if that’s true and your fight-or-flight response will kick in. Stop yourself from slipping into overly negative patterns of thinking but instead of seeing a difficult situation as an insurmountable problem, try framing it as a challenge you are capable of overcoming.

• TAKE ACTION

Don’t allow yourself and business to become paralyzed, numb or detached during a trauma or crisis. Remind yourself that you’re not at the mercy of events beyond your control and that you can always do something. By initiating action and taking the first small steps, you can gain confidence to take bigger steps.

The mindset and the attitude you approach a problem with can make a huge difference in how resilient you are when dealing with an impasse or troublesome circumstance. Maintaining a hopeful and optimistic outlook will help you see beyond the current predicament you find yourself in.

• ACCEPT THAT CHANGE IS PART OF LIFE

Many people spend their lives trying to avoid change and the prospect of facing change leaves them fearful of the unknown, but change will inevitably catch up to you. One important way people who want to be successful build resilience is by accepting that change will come. They focus on being prepared for change and they learn to adapt and adjust when change is imminent. People who want to succeed must have the ability to adjust to change and also must see change as a necessary component of revising the old way and embracing innovation.

• STRATEGIZING AGAINST FUTURE BUSINESS DISRUPTIONS

In life, it is important to strategize and plan ahead against forthcoming business mishaps and disruptions which are inevitable in most cases. The ability to weather such business storms when they come shows resilience.