Are you receptive to new ideas, or do you feel stuck in the mud?

Have you ever considered what makes you receptive to new ideas? Are you feeling open, curious and eager to take on new information right now? Are you accepting of new concepts, or do you find yourself digging your heels in, sticking to the old ways, unable to embrace change? If it’s the latter, you may want to work on your resilience.

A Resilient person is more likely to be open to change. Photo credit Erriko Boccia Unsplash

Resilience is about pausing and reflecting on your values, beliefs and goals to enable you to spring forward in the right direction and grab the life you want. It can help you become unstuck if you find yourself in a rut. Developing your resilience helps you move forward with clarity, and feel fully equipped to tackle life’s challenges, make decisions with confidence and become open to new ways of doing things. If you want to understand more about the different aspects of resilience, my  Resilience Wheel could help.

Embracing change

We are more likely to embrace change if it fits with our existing values and beliefs system. If it doesn’t, we will most likely resist it or dismiss it as unimportant or invalid. Our decisions are often made through the lens of ‘confirmation bias’. This means we prioritise and focus on the things that validate and support our existing beliefs, and dismiss or ignore the things that don’t fit it. Becoming more open and receptive can enable you to challenge your own confirmation bias and overcome unhelpful or self-limiting values and beliefs. This is useful in overcoming common issues such as imposter syndrome, where we believe we don’t deserve our success and live in fear of being ‘found out’ as incompetent at work.

Now is an ideal time to think about making positive changes. If we consider the pandemic, we have all been through a myriad of challenges, new ways of doing things, adapting to change and coping with loss. Now, with a chink of light at the end of the tunnel, its the perfect opportunity to evaluate your position. What new ideas and ways of working do you want to take forward, and what have you realised wasn’t helpful that you want to leave behind? It may help to read my recent blog for more about this.

Playing to your Strengths

It’s a great time to think about what energises you, what do you enjoy and feel confident and competent at? Consider ways to take more of these activities on board. That’s not to say you should ignore or stop doing everything else. That is not realistic - we all have tasks we have to do or aspects of our job that we don’t necessarily love. It’s a good idea to consider what areas you might not feel so strong in but would be a challenge and a stretch, to push you outside of your comfort zone and help you develop and grow. If you are frustrated by your lack of skills in a particular area, and this is holding you back, I can help you work through the Strengthscope programme to identify your strengths. Once you have clarity on where your strengths lie, you can channel these to find ways to learn new skills in a more energising way.

What has energised you over the last year? How can you take this forward? Photo Holgatewood Unsplash

Finally, learn to let go. Consider whether you can leave behind some of the things that drain your energy. These are the things you don’t enjoy and that don’t play to your strengths. Trust your gut, and if you get that ‘urgh!’ feeling when you think about a particular task, consider whether there is a way to do it differently, find a better solution or just stop doing it altogether. Is it something you could delegate to somebody who does enjoy this task and excels at it? Is it something you could outsource to free up your own time to spend on the things that do energise you?

Taking time to focus on this now can be extremely beneficial in enabling you to make some changes to get the life you want. If you are finding this particularly difficult, and can’t seem to take steps to spring forward, it may be time to build on your resilience reservoir.

If after reading this you still feel stuck and need help moving forward, why not get in touch? I’d be happy to help.