4 Traits You Require to Cultivate Resilience in Life and Business (and Help You Succeed)

Cultivating resilient traits in life and business is more important now than ever before with changing economies, new technologies, and a new generation emerging. Every day we hear about a new app or a new way to market our services, and we have to keep up with this trend. It's not going to go away.

There are times that you may feel overwhelmed, exhausted or frustrated; I know I do. However, these four principles, which are found in resilient individuals and organizations, will help you get through in life and business. Also known as POOF™ Plan ahead, Obstacle mastery, Optimistic and Flexibility.

PLAN AHEAD.

Do you build a house without a blueprint?  Do you start a business without a business plan or capital? Do you start eating healthy without purchasing vegetables and fruits, or having a few good recipes?

PLANNING AHEAD IS CRUCIAL FOR SUCCESS IN ANY VENTURE!

When my husband and I decided to open up a wellness centre , we had to face a few harsh realities. One of them being that we would not get a truckload of customers walking in on day one. This is a service industry, and it takes time to build customers trust when it comes to their health and wellness. Here's a list of what we did to plan ahead:

1. Have a website (keep it updated), a social media presence and a blog.
2. Build an email list and sending out regular emails to our clients.
3. Have an Open House a month after we started and offer a preview of our services for a minimal price with an upsell of enticing packages.
4. Offer seasonal and monthly specials to our email subscriber list.
5. Door-to-door campaign with a marketing company a year after we opened without adding any of our own capital.

These actions alone grew our customer base by 200 percent in six months, and referrals started coming in! We were nominated Best Business of the Year in 2014, just four years after we opened our doors.

OBSTACLE MASTERY

Make a list of things that could go wrong and for each one ask, "What strategies or resources could I implement here?" Don't come up with just one; think of two or three.

For example, when you start eating healthy, one obstacle maybe that you have to travel and may not have access to healthy foods during that time. What would be some of the strategies you could implement here?

Mastering obstacles is important to practice because it keeps you in control of the situation and consistently allows you to take action.

OPTIMISTIC

Richard Wiseman conducted a large study showing the importance of the way we approach goals. He tracked 5,000 people who had some significant goal they wanted to achieve.

He found that the successful goal setters described their goal in positive terms (Plan Ahead) and considered carefully what challenges (Obstacle Mastery) they would face actually doing the work to achieve it.

Wiseman further explained that the successful ones were able to list concrete specific benefits they would get from achieving their goal (Optimistic). In one of his examples, he said, "They wrote them down and explained what each benefit could bring, like enjoying two evenings with friends and visiting one new country each year."

Now, make a list of specific benefits for the strategy that you chose in Obstacle mastery and notice the outcome you desire.

FLEXIBILITY

Even after planning ahead, thinking about what could wrong and having strategies in place, things may not work out the way you want. This is when improving and reframing comes into play. Improvising is all about looking back at what you've done and figuring out what you can do better!

Reframing is about stepping back from what's being said or done and consider looking at the situation from an alternative lens be effectively stating, "Let's look at it another way." This is about challenging one's belief systems around the situation. For example, you can reframe a problem as an opportunity or a weakness as a strength.