In view of the current crises, the term "resilience" is on everyone's lips. Employees and managers are facing new, constantly changing challenges. Many of the insights and "best practices" gained over the years seem to have little or no effect when it comes to successfully overcoming these challenges. Who wouldn't want a high level of personal resilience? Resilient people show resilience and not only come through crises unscathed, but often even emerge from them stronger.

While it was commonly assumed that resilience is an innate characteristic - in other words, that you are equipped with a more or less "thick skin" by nature - it is now known that resilience can be learned to a large extent. Essentially, it is about sharpening personal self-awareness, i.e. developing a sense of one's own thoughts, emotions and physical perceptions in various areas and, based on this, developing appropriate behaviors and routines. In this context, we also talk about personal resources that need to be identified and utilized in order to achieve a higher level of resilience.

Personal resilience - the importance of your own life story

One such, often underestimated, resource for increasing personal resilience is biography, i.e. one's own life story. But how can dealing with your own past help you to master future challenges? Isn't it actually about developing new competencies and skills? As in so many areas of life, the decisive factor is our personal attitude, i.e. the way we think about something and the attitude with which we approach an issue. And it is precisely this attitude that is - usually unconsciously - strongly influenced by the way a person sees their life story, in particular how they look back on difficult phases and stressful events in their own biography. It makes a big difference whether a person considers their past life to be a catastrophe in which they are the victim, or whether they can gratefully recognize and appreciate their own part in their fate.

Out of the victim role

We know from brain research that the brain does not differentiate between the actual experience of an objective situation and the subjective memory of the situation. In both cases, the same areas of the brain are activated, which can be visualized using imaging techniques. We also know that the emotional coloring of an event and the details can be changed by the brain afterwards. Every time a thought is thought or a story is told, the corresponding neural network is further consolidated.

So we cannot change our biography retrospectively, but we can change the way we look at it, how we evaluate certain events and what story we tell about our lives.

In my coaching work with clients who want to develop their personal resilience, I therefore recommend a thorough retrospective of your own life story:

• How has your life been so far?
• Which life events have had the biggest impact on your life?
• What patterns do you notice in your biography?
• What decisions have you made?
• What are you proud of?
• What do you regret?

Most life stories that emerge from a detailed consideration of the above questions contain three main components:

Positive events: Recalling such moments and focusing attention on them gives strength.
Example: A client reports how he can still remember his first specialist presentation at an external congress several years ago, for which he received a lot of positive encouragement. Whenever he faces challenging business meetings, he recalls this event with pride and fulfillment and draws strength and confidence from it for the task ahead.

Negative events: The fact that setbacks have been overcome and managed is proof that you can deal well with crises and also grow personally from them.
Example: A client recounts how she lost her job at the beginning of her career due to restructuring. After a long period of mourning, she took a conscious break and fulfilled her dream of a long trip to Asia. Back home, she went on a job search with renewed energy and a clear perspective, which was quickly crowned with success. Today she says that, looking back, she is even glad that she lost her job back then, because otherwise she would never have got her current dream job.

Insights and decisions: These insights and steering impulses are an expression of your ability to lead yourself.
Example: A client recognizes that he has already made several "course changes" in his life to date, both privately and professionally. For example, he dropped out of university after a few semesters to start training as an insurance salesman. After initial doubts, he joined an insurance company and quickly developed into a top performer. At the moment of his supposed greatest success, he realized for himself that he was increasingly unable to reconcile his personal values with the company's goals, resigned and set up his own business as a financial advisor. The lessons he learned can be summarized in the following sentence: "I know what is good for me and can trust that I will make the right career decisions for myself, even in difficult situations."

A person's biography can therefore be seen as a collection of resources. Intensive engagement with one's own life story, for example with the help of a coach, strengthens personal resilience because consciously dealing with one's own biography has a positive impact on one's attitude towards the challenges of the present and expectations for the future.

The author

© Harald Gabriel, Leadership Choices

Harald Gabriel is a coach and trainer at Leadership Choices. He works internationally and across industries with managers on communication, leadership, self-management and resilience.