All soloists juggle multiple responsibilities and so must be resilient. It’s not just about your physical wellbeing: a mental resilience is key. Here are my top five tips to hone a ‘hard-like-rock-and-flexible-like-palm-tree’ mindset.
Tip 1. Understand the ways your business success is not about you …
It is about the results you get for your clients. You don’t need to be the fastest/happiest/most eloquent/smartest in your field; you only need to deliver results that make a difference to your clients. When you focus on delivering results, the pressure to ‘perform’ and measure up drops away and your mental resiliance increases. Drop the self-confidence crisis and put the focus back where it belongs – on your clients. Find ways of delivering better service, improving outputs, over-delivering and under-promising and honouring your clients’ objectives.
Tip 2. Understand your business success IS about you.
If you are not happy and fulfilled, your clients will smell your desperation down the street. Your primary objective in self-management is to maintain a strong sense of inner well-being and harmony. Fulfilment outside of business goals is critical so ensure you nurture a range of interests, not just business ones.
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Tip 3. Use appreciation, not just optimism.
When times get tough it’s easy to fall in to the ‘woe is me’ downward spiral. Pessimism and angst abounds; results deflate. To counter this insidious trap, develop your ‘appreciation muscle’. Learn to appreciate your surroundings, whatever they may be. In this way you avoid bemoaning circumstances and focus on what is good about the situation and what you can learn from it. This is different to optimism which tends to ignore circumstances and instead hope for the best. Appreciation is far more constructive and proactive; it builds a sense of momentum that leads you towards discovering new possibilities.
Tip 4. Watch your language.
How you talk to yourself and others plays a critical role in determining results and circumstances. Be very deliberate in how you tell stories about your work and life. Notice if you embellish things to make them sound more interesting. For example, was your day ‘horrendous’ or was it ‘challenging’ ? Were the quarter’s results ‘depressing’ or were they ’cause for review’? This is not about substituting euphemisms, but about managing your emotional state so that it stays in positive vibration, and away from crisis and chaos. Also, replace ‘hope’ with ‘expect’, ‘want’ with ‘choose’, and ‘I might’ with ‘I am.’
Tip 5. Goof off.
Yup, this is probably the most important aspect of developing inner mental resilience. When you give yourself permission to play and have fun, you release all sorts of fantastic vibes to the universe. It is the best and easiest way to enter the mysterious state of ‘allowing’ – which in turn invites success. Show yourself you DO deserve good stuff by enjoying good stuff now. After all, life is more than merely spreadsheets, numbers and landing a new deal.
Use these strategies to develop inner mental resilience that allows you to weather storms; this is much like a palm tree bends backwards in a typhoon only to bounce upright and produce yet more coconuts.
May you have many coconut days!
