Every attorney in any career needs to work on their resiliency! There is just no way around it. Attorneys face mistakes, errors, goofs and downright failures on a daily basis. The ability to “bounce back” is tremendously important in maintaining good mental health. So let’s take a look at what it is and how we can have more of it:
RESILIENCY IS: Being able to confront some down turn in your life and find a way out of it keeping it from influencing your future actions.
RESILIENCY IS: Overcoming obstacles, physical, mental or otherwise, which have decreased your ability in some way.
RESILIENCY IS: Devising methods which will create resiliency on a daily basis.
So how do you do this?
*Acknowledge that you will have challenges which make you want to quit, give up or become depressed.
- *Plan on how you will confront these challenges before they come up. Think back to a time when you made a mistake. How long did you ruminate on it? What could you have done differently to become more resilient?
- Read stories about people with incredible resiliency. People who didn’t give up but made something of their lives.
- What are the major characteristics of resiliency?
- Write down five reasons you want to be become more resilient and how that will improve your life.
****One caveat: Do take time to learn whatever you can from your mistakes, etc. before you use methods to “bounce back”. You can usually learn something from past errors. Also try not to eat inordinate amounts of ice cream or chocolate as a tool to feel better while going through this process. Although that does help!