Growth Through Resilience: How to Bounce Back From Challenges

It’s relatively simple to determine your business goals, develop a plan, determine a strategy, and schedule and delegate tasks to reach those goals. 

Sometimes, you pause to gather more expertise or resources. But you know your end vision and the steps to get there.

A little time and patience should be the only thing in your way… right?

Screech! 🛑

That’s you slamming the brakes on what felt like a solid master plan — just call you genius! — when a challenge arises. 

We tend to lose our momentum, get flustered or, worst, act like we’ve permanently failed and give up. Trust me, I’ve had my fair share of setbacks. Like when I encountered tech issues during a webinar launch earlier this year. And when it happened again two weeks ago!

Setbacks and failures are inevitable. That’s just the reality. Sometimes, we’re forced to STOP.

But is a red stop sign the end of the road? Can we go around it or make it turn green?

With resilience, we can. We can even hit the gas to go faster with ease, awareness, and confidence.

Resilience in leadership offers a mindset change with promising strategies that show us how to recover from setbacks. 

Let’s explore how to use resilience to fortify a kick-ass leadership mindset.

Resilience is a Key Leadership Skill

Resilience is classed as a leadership skill not only because it’s essential for bouncing back from challenges, but because it arises as a result of said challenges. 

Leadership skills are intentionally developed.

Unfortunately, they can’t be bought as add-ons when we become leaders!

Developing leadership skills doesn't happen by accident—it takes intentional effort, practice, and learning. Whether you're working on communication, decision-making, emotional intelligence, or any other aspect of leadership, it all requires deliberate focus and action.

During entrepreneurial challenges, a practice of resilience plays out as the ability to turn setbacks into opportunities for growth, learning, and ultimately, success.

We have endless opportunities to develop our resilience and turn failure into success. The stronger our resilience, the more quickly we bounce back from challenges.

It’s a self-perpetuating growth cycle, but only if we choose to see it that way.

With every challenge, we build up our resilience by trying to learn everything we can from those experiences that didn’t go as expected.

How Resilience Helps with Negative Feelings

A resilient mindset is not about numbing our feelings or burying them deeper. It’s about working to undermine tendencies to spiral into negativity.

In that sense, feelings are like changeable behaviours. When we give credence to negative self-talk, we’re only trying to convince ourselves of a false claim — it’s usually along the lines of “we don’t have what it takes or don’t deserve the success we dream of.”

There’s no validity to that claim.

Resilience converts negative feelings into growth experiences through new habits and beliefs that allow us to withstand the pull of old triggers.

Over time, we learn to swiftly restore a path to progression — a set up for ongoing success.

3 Strategies to Bounce Back Stronger

When we face setbacks, we often get triggered.

That is, we typically react negatively and based on an old mindset. If we think it’s the end of the world or beat ourselves up internally, it shows we’re triggered and spiralling. 

But there is an alternative mindset and strategies you can use to avoid the negative spiral, recover quickly from setbacks, and use them to fuel your growth. 

Here are three practices to adopt to build resilience and bounce back stronger from challenges.

Cultivate A Support System For Tough Times

A support system, no matter how small, is a priceless gem to help recover from setbacks. When you feel like people understand you, you can better move on from tough situations.

Bear in mind, your support system may not always “take your side.” Sometimes, seeing things a different way can sting at first, but sudden perspective shifts tend to transform into dazzling epiphanies that leave us smiling or laughing. 

A support system further provides comfort and reassurance and fosters optimism.

Of course, you don’t set out to make connections in anticipation of inevitable failure! But it’s good to have people around you who will be there during hard times. 

Warm, positive, genuine, and supportive individuals are who you want to celebrate the wins with and go through difficulties together.

Engage in Self-Care or Hobbies

Self-care is NOT a reward. Keep that in mind if you find yourself enduring a self-imposed mental lashing when you let failure envelop you — because even with support, you may have your… moments.

And that’s when self-care is most crucial. Personal wellness is as important — if not more — than physical care in challenging times. It’s a balancing act for sure. 

Foundational self-care habits like getting enough sleep, eating well, and regular movement are key to building resilience and bouncing back from setbacks. 

We should also keep up with our facials, massages, and manicures, especially if they’re part of our routine. Hobbies also preserve our mental health. 

No level of failure should propel us to sacrifice our work-life balance.

Instead, we should:

Embrace A Growth Mindset 

A growth mindset means that, without engaging in negative self-talk, we reflect on what took place and adjust accordingly. We take note of errors, appreciate new insights, and use challenging events as stepping stones — not stumbling blocks. 

The more we learn how to shift our perspective to see setbacks as learning opportunities, the deeper we ground our resilience, and the faster we bounce back from challenges in future. 

Think about it. When something goes wrong, is there any usefulness to self-deprecation, anger, or the like?

Some venting may be warranted, but wallowing in our feelings for hours on end is not.

By making a practice out of quick turnabouts from a negative outlook to viewing challenges as valuable, newfound lessons, we recondition ourselves to release triggers and embrace a growth mindset instead.

Sign Up for the Leadership Reboot Event

Want more practical steps to overcome setbacks so you can improve your mindset and become a resilient, kick-ass leader?

In my upcoming Leadership Reboot Event, happening from October 1st to October 4th, you’ll learn more about resilience, staying motivated, and handling challenges like a pro.

You’ll also:

• Receive tried and true techniques for staying organized.

• Learn how to zap imposter syndrome.

This event is FREE. 

Go see the full schedule and Sign Up for The Leadership Reboot for Empowering Entrepreneurs here.

Thank you so much for reading. if you enjoyed reading this post, please consider joining my email list and stay up-to-date with my services, programs and free resources to empower you to lead - regardless of your experience.

Janic 💜

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