Early in the new year I had the opportunity to be one of two speakers at a Speaker Series entitled “Resilience in Action”. The idea was for us to share stories of resilience in our lives and talk about how that has shaped our successes. After giving my talk and listening to my counterpart, former Olympic skier Daron Rahlves, share his lessons that night, it got me thinking a lot about the importance of resilience for each of us as we kick off 2025. In light of that, I’m going to talk about three concepts I referenced in my story of resilience and challenge you to take a deeper look at those concepts in your life.
The first concept is the power of the team. I’ve had so many opportunities in my life where I’ve pursued seemingly impossible goals, and it was the team around me that ultimately led me to victory. While resilience is something that must be built through experience on an individual basis, a great team around somebody can provide them the support they need to really develop that skill. So, the first challenge I have is this: identify someone who isn’t yet a part of your team but would make you a better you. Reach out to them and find more ways to involve them in your life. Teamwork makes the dream work!
The second concept is focusing on controlling what you can control. This is a simple task on paper, but in reality, it’s a lot more complicated than that. In a race or even on a training run, there are so many things outside of our control- weather, what our competitors or other runners are doing, and the terrain we’re up against. Devoting mental energy to those things, even if they are frustrating, is completely and totally unproductive. Instead of that, we should be devoting our mental energy to things that we do have influence over- pacing, nutrition, hydration and mindset. If we can spend our energy in the right places, we will be infinitely more likely to embrace our resilience and find a way forward. My second challenge is this: write down one thing that you devote too much attention to even though it is outside of your control. Work on relinquishing that attention and redirecting it to create more space for something you can positively impact!
The final concept is something popularized by author Brene Brown known as “The Story I’m Telling Myself.” This is an idea in which you interpret a situation by creating a narrative through the lens of your own experience, not recognizing that in some cases the narrative you’re creating isn’t accurate. Here’s an example: an employee is giving a presentation in a board room, and their boss is writing on a paper and not making eye contact with the employee. The story the employee is telling themselves is that their boss doesn’t care about them and their hard work isn’t being appreciated. The reality is that their boss is blown away by the presentation and can’t stop taking notes to share with the rest of the team after the meeting. As you can see, sometimes the story isn’t what we believe it to be. My final challenge is this: what story are you currently telling yourself that isn’t true? How you can you change the narrative in 2025?
We’re all more resilient than we give ourselves credit for. With a great team around us, spending time and energy on the right things, and rewriting the narrative to tell the story we want to tell with our lives, great things will happen. Let’s make 2025 the best year yet!