Self-control is crucial to coping with work’s challenges and being a resilient employee. No matter what the circumstances are, a employees can control only their own actions and reactions to a situation. How they act and react to obstacles builds their resilience, and those actions and reactions are based on the level of self-control they have.
Resilient Self-Control Actions
Psychologists have identified the positive coping skills a person needs to be resilient. When life is difficult, resilient people take action to improve their situation. They know they need to control their:
- Plans
- Goals
- Health
- Patience
Making plans is a positive coping skill that allows your staff to take control of their success. Self-control builds when the staff commit to your plans. Employees who work toward their goals cope with obstacles by growing, adapting, and staying focused on their goals. The self-control needed to carry out a plan builds resilience against difficulties and distractions.
Resilient workers also have goals. Instead of allowing challenges to overwhelm them and struggling with negative outcomes, resilient workers have goals that they perform hard tasks to achieve. They recover from setbacks because they are focused on and committed to their goals. A work team without goals often find themselves without a clear direction, because they don’t have the self-control to work toward their success.
Physical health is essential to resilience because it provides a positive way to cope with stress. Exercise, a healthy diet, and getting enough sleep all contribute to good health. A healthy lifestyle requires self-control. Every worker needs to have the self-control to stick to an exercise plan, commit to healthy eating, and find time for adequate rest.
Because a resilient employee has self-control, they understand that reaching their goals can take time. It can be hard to wait for the fulfillment that arises from of achieving goals, but self-control allows employees to stay focused and follow their plan despite distractions or the immediate satisfaction from doing something else. Being patient makes your employees more resilient when they face obstacles because they know it may take time to overcome them.
Resilient Self-Control Reactions
When faced with a challenge or a situation your workforce doesn’t like, being resilient also involves how they react to those stresses. Life coaches teach that a worker’s reactions are under his or her own control. Learning how to respond positively includes:
- Self-esteem
- Avoiding Overreaction
- Facing Problems
- Humor
Self-esteem is essential to resilience. Workers who believe that their supervisor or their employer is giving them a raw deal, and that others are always trying to hurt them do not have the resilience to cope well with life’s challenges. Self-esteem requires self-control by not reacting poorly to less than ideal situations. Instead, resilient employees use their goals and plan to work through difficulties and don’t let their self-esteem suffer from other’s opinions.
When a resilient person fails, they understand they have control over making changes and trying again to reach their goal. They don’t blame their failure on outside forces and think they can’t make the changes needed to achieve.
Self-control plays a role in avoiding overreaction too. When a worker overacts, they often lose their focus on their goals because of their immediate emotional reaction. While everyone gets upset, angry, and sad from time to time, overacting is a sign that a worker doesn’t have self-control or resilience.
Resilient workers face their problems with a plan, a goal, and a commitment to overcome them. Those who aren’t resilient avoid dealing with their problems and often use unhealthy coping mechanisms like alcohol and other drugs to lessen their disappointment and pain. Workers need self-control to choose a positive way to cope with challenges and be resilient when faced with difficulties.
Humor is an important skill that helps your employees be resilient. Being able to accept difficulties and setbacks by finding the humor in situations lessens stress. Self-control allows your employees to let go of negative feelings and laugh when things don’t go as planned. Resilience includes moving past the difficulty and finding a new way to reach goals.
Resilience is based on the control of your actions and reactions to challenges. Successfully overcoming a challenge increases self-control, helps employees learn and grow, and builds resilience.
Need Assistance Hiring Resilient Workers
If you need some assistance in recruiting and hiring more resilient workers in this uncertain labor market, contact Flexicrew Today.