A Coach Dann field guide · Resilience
Meet the weather. Keep your direction.
Resilience includes endurance, adaptation, recovery and knowing when to draw strength from other people. It grows when difficult experiences are met with workable choices, realistic expectations and enough recovery to continue.
Open the go-to list
Resilience
Start here · Five minutes
Give the storm a weather report
Use four short lines to turn a heavy moment into something more workable.
- What is happening around me?
- What is happening inside me?
- What remains within my influence?
- What is my next useful action?
Useful psychology belongs in people’s hands
The Bison go-to list.
Practical recommendations to return to whenever resilience needs attention.
- 01
Shorten the time horizon
When the future feels overwhelming, work with the next hour, evening or day. Ask what needs attention within that window. A shorter horizon reduces the number of imagined problems competing for attention.
- 02
Separate pain from prediction
Write down what hurts now and what your mind predicts will happen next. Treat predictions as possibilities requiring evidence. This creates space between the present difficulty and a permanent conclusion.
- 03
Map your influence
Divide a page into what you can control, what you can influence and what you must respond to. Put your effort into the first two areas. Decide how much attention the third area deserves today.
- 04
Settle the body before solving
Slow your breathing, release your jaw, move your body or drink some water before making a major decision. A less activated nervous system gives reflective thinking a better chance to return.
- 05
Create fallback plans
For an important situation, decide what you will do if the preferred plan changes. A clear second option can reduce helplessness and make setbacks feel more manageable.
- 06
Protect recovery
Add rest after periods of intense demand. Sleep, food, quiet, movement and safe company help the system replenish. Recovery is part of sustained resilience and deserves space in the plan.
- 07
Use support early
Identify the people who can listen, offer practical help, provide expertise or share responsibility. Contact them while you still have enough capacity to explain what would help.
- 08
Keep a minimum routine
Create a reduced version of your normal routine for difficult periods. A shower, one proper meal, medication as prescribed, ten minutes outside and one message to somebody can provide structure when energy is limited.
- 09
Study previous recoveries
Choose a past difficulty and list what helped, what prolonged it, who mattered and what you learned about yourself. Your own history contains evidence about how you recover.
- 10
Make room for the reaction
Resilience can include sadness, anger, fear, disappointment and tiredness. Give the response a name and a safe form of expression. Emotional acknowledgement can reduce the effort spent fighting your own experience.
- 11
Review without attacking yourself
After a difficult event, ask what worked, what cost too much and what you would adjust. Use the review to improve the next response. Accuracy offers more value than punishment.
- 12
Recognise when the load needs sharing
Persistent distress, reduced functioning, unsafe thoughts or a shrinking ability to cope deserve support. Speaking with a trusted person, GP or mental-health professional can become part of the resilient response.
Resilience is often less dramatic than people imagine. Sometimes it is the decision to rest, ask for help, alter the plan and continue with wisdom.
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A useful next step
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