Can you learn resilience? The 5 R’s of resilience

Resilience helps you protect your mental health during times of crisis. In order to achieve them, however, it takes self-reflection above all.

Everyone talks about resilience. The magic word to get mentally healthy through even the most stressful times – even if it’s isolated in the home office. But: How do people become resilient in times when every time they think that the pandemic is really over, the next variant comes around the corner? The 5 R’s that leadership coach Kate Berardo uses in her book are helpful for this The 5Rs of Culture Change has developed. The 5 R’s consist of: routines, reactions, roles, relationships and reflection. If these five factors are consciously integrated into everyday work and life, resilience can be learned and changes can be better dealt with. How do the 5 R’s help us in times of the pandemic?

How the R’s accompany us in everyday life

Humans are creatures of habit. There is more truth in this saying than we realize. And from that one sentence comes the importance of the 5 R’s for staying mentally healthy. We have fixed processes, i.e. routines. The first R. Some drink their first coffee in the morning after the shower, others prefer black tea while reading the daily newspaper. Some drive to the office, others bike. Arriving at work, some “usually” have a chat with their favorite colleagues. That brings us to the second R: Relationships are formed in the workplace. people react to each other. Some help new colleagues to find their way around the workplace and explain who has which decision-making powers. They take on different roles in the team, often unconsciously – the third R.

We constantly interact and react – the fourth R – to each other, whether in meetings, during the coffee break or over lunch together. If we are satisfied with ourselves and our situation, everyday life and the world of work settle into a healthy emotional balance. Sport, making music together or even the game night ensure that our organism does not fire around with stress hormones all day long, but also produces sufficient happiness hormones, i.e. endogenous messenger substances.

How the pandemic threw us off course

But since the beginning of 2020, nothing is like it used to be. Since then, all automatisms have been turned upside down – and the new routines do not always promote health, well-being and exercise.

To illustrate this with a hypothetical example: Instead of freshening up and jumping on a bike after looking at the newspaper, some people in their pajamas sit down at their company laptops in their own four walls. The first coffee is followed by the second and third. The boundaries between private and professional are mixed (roles) and relationships with colleagues no longer develop during the coffee break, but via the team chat. We sometimes react very differently to the new situation and the new spatially distanced interaction with each other.

Admittedly, some react in a way that they deal with it healthy and well, others slide into a difficult phase. They don’t switch off their laptops in the evening, find no substitute for the bike commute to switch off and exercise, and no digital counterpart for coffee to meet the need for social interaction. If there is no sport in the group for a longer period of time, resilience is not far off. We then slip all too quickly into burnout due to stress at work.

Reflection as the most important step

The key to resilience is therefore permanent reflection – the fifth R. Basically, but all the more so in times when our long-established habits are being put to the test and when it is difficult for us as social beings to enter into relationships with other people and to take on our different roles in private and professional life.

In order to reflect on whether one’s own routines, roles, relationships and reactions are developing in such a way that they promote one’s own resilience in times of the ongoing pandemic, small reflection exercises are beneficial: It has proven useful for many to calm down about the changes once a week to think about the last week and to question how you behaved in which situations. Through constant self-reflection, we learn a lot about ourselves. In this way, we grow from the changes that take place in our lives, rather than failing at them. So we control our routines and not our routines us.

Reflect through questioning

Especially with regard to the other four R’s one should question:

Typical questions to question your own routines

Do you have enough exercise and variety? Are there periods of rest, short breaks and moments of relaxation to clear your head? Have you replaced the bike ride to work with a daily workout? Do you also switch off in the home office after work or do you even take the last work e-mail with you to your own bed?

Typical questions to question your own roles

Do I feel satisfied with my tasks and work processes as well as the cooperation with my colleagues in the home office or in the hybrid working environment? Mixing the private and the professional world overwhelms me? Do I still have enough time with my family, my children, my friends – i.e. in a different social role than at work? How has my role changed in the last few weeks? Have I correctly communicated my needs for certain tasks and role assignments?

Typical questions to question your own reactions

How did I react in certain situations (thin-skinned, annoyed or happy, relaxed)? Did I often laugh or whine more? How happy was I in certain situations? How tense in others? How can I react more calmly, especially when there is pressure? What signals are my reactions telling me? Have I taken the reactions of my counterpart seriously and listened sincerely? Did I understand the other person’s reaction correctly?

Typical questions to question your own relationships

Have I spent a lot of time with people I care about? Did we have a good time together? How was my contact with my colleagues? How has the relationship with my colleagues and friends changed? Do I take the time to make new relationships? Am I cherishing old relationships?

This is how companies can help to learn resilience

But how can companies use the 5 R’s to support their employees in learning resilience – and in better dealing with change in the world of work?

• Routines: New routines take time. In order to establish the new structures in everyday work, communication is the be-all and end-all. Regular check-ins with superiors and colleagues are necessary in order to discuss the new approaches and processes and, if necessary, to adapt them.
• Reactions: In order to avoid negative moods, employees and managers have to be particularly sensitive to the feelings of their fellow human beings – and in particular to take into account the individual people with their needs and their completely individual private situation (a single mother probably reacts differently to the home office than a single mother , especially if that or the children are in quarantine).
• Roll: The hybrid working world has changed the way people work together. There are no short queries over the desk and direct contact with customers and workshops are also rarer. Clear to-dos and assignments of tasks are now the best recipe for preventing uncertainty and misunderstandings: supervisors or trusted colleagues can provide clarity and provide assistance. Once it is determined what the company now expects from its employees compared to before and how effectively working from home can be done, the stress will also be reduced.
• Relationships: Scheduling regular phone calls or video calls with work colleagues helps to stay in touch. This time should be used for interpersonal conversations in order to escape the work routine in the home office.
• (Self) reflection: In order not to slip into a crisis of meaning, we need individual goals and priorities. The pandemic can also be a kind of opportunity. By regularly taking a short break from the routine of everyday life, we can find out what is really important to us. Reflective questions in regular feedback discussions can also help – provided the basis of trust is right.

Ultimately, humans are not robots of zeros and ones. Body and mind are constantly reacting to our environment and are looking for solutions to the constant challenges. This does not always happen automatically – this is exactly when you should intervene consciously. This also applies beyond the pandemic. Therefore, there is hope that we will all – once the spook comes to an end – emerge stronger and, above all, be able to take better care of our own well-being.

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