Charging Your Batteries

Every exec­u­tive we work with knows about the impor­tance of resilience rit­u­als to keep their bat­ter­ies charged. And yet, when things get rough, many of them make every­thing else a pri­or­i­ty and fail to plug them­selves in. And then they won­der why they run out of pow­er on the side of a busy highway.

I get it. When life is busy and chal­leng­ing, our resilience rit­u­als can be hard to sustain.

But that’s when we need them the most.

We don’t expect a thor­ough­bred race­horse to per­form at its peak with­out prop­er care, so why expect this of ourselves?

That’s why I ded­i­cat­ed a chap­ter to the impor­tance of resilience in Your Oxy­gen Mask First. And why, when I talk to CEOs going through stress­ful times, I try to under­stand where they are on the Men­tal Health Con­tin­u­um and if they need pro­fes­sion­al support.

A Long-Term Com­mit­ment to Health

Every­one slips a lit­tle to care of them­selves when they go through demand­ing peri­ods and that’s OK. But when those peri­ods last for months, not days, and bat­ter­ies aren’t recharged, then phys­i­cal and men­tal health – and per­for­mance – is compromised.

Resilience rit­u­als must be a con­sis­tent, long-term com­mit­ment, not just some­thing you do when you have time or energy.

So don’t fall into the trap of ignor­ing them. If you can’t work out for an hour, try 30 min­utes. If you can’t get out in nature, go for a 10-minute walk. Or make sure you catch up on the week­end. Make look­ing after your­self, every day, a priority.

The Chal­lenge

• If your resilience is less than 8 or 9 out of 10, what do you need to do, today, to enhance it?

Oth­er Blogs

• Dou­ble Your Per­son­al Resilience
• Are You Get­ting Sev­en Kinds of Rest?
• Reju­ve­na­tion for Work Stress

Old­er Podcasts

• Exec­u­tive Burnout: How Do You Know When You Need Help?
• Exec­u­tive Burnout: Build­ing Your Resilience

Resources

9−8−8 hot­line for men­tal health and sui­cide pre­ven­tion support.

Free, 24 hours a day, sev­en days a week, 365 days a year. Trained cri­sis respon­ders will lis­ten to you and pro­vide sup­port with com­pas­sion, and a safe space to talk.