On Self-Awareness: Your Challenge Response

The role of resilience in your future success cannot be understated.

Welcome to a crucial chapter in our self-discovery journey: understanding how you respond to challenges. Life is full of ups and downs. How you handle these challenges can significantly impact your trajectory, opportunities, and growth.

Understanding The Role of Stress

The Response to a Challenge: Stress

When faced with a challenge, the natural response is stress. Stress is a state of physical or mental tension caused by difficult situations. Everyone experiences stress to some degree. The way we respond to stress, however, makes a big difference on our overall well-being.

Why Stress is Helpful and Harmful

Stress affects every aspect of your life: your mind, body, spirit, relationships, family, career, and more. A little bit of stress is good and helps motivate us to act. Too much stress, however, causes problems. Learning how to cope with stress – or building resilience to challenges - helps us feel less overwhelmed and supports our overall well-being.

Identifying and Recognizing Your Challenge Triggers

Challenges – triggers for stress – are deep, powerful thoughts or feelings. Common triggers are often identified in the following categories:

§  Academic pressure: balancing coursework, exams, and assignments

§  Financial concerns: managing expenses, student loans, or budgeting

§  Career uncertainty: job searching, internships, and career choices

§  Social expectations: peer pressure, fitting in, and social anxiety

§  Family issues: relationship dynamics, conflicts, and obligations

§  Romantic relationships: dating, breakups, and relationship stress

§  Time management: juggling multiple responsibilities and commitments

§  Health concerns: personal health issues or concerns about loved ones

§  Future uncertainties: fear of the unknown and your life ahead

§  Housing challenges: finding and maintaining suitable living arrangements

§  Work-life balance: managing work, social life, and personal time

§  Peer competition: comparison with others in terms of achievements

§  Technology overload: social media, constant connectedness, and digital pressures

§  Discrimination and prejudice: experiencing bias based on race, gender, or other factors

§  Political and global issues: concerns about the state of the world

§  Environmental concerns: climate change and ecological worries

§  Personal identity: identity exploration and self-discovery

§  Sleep difficulties: unexplained insomnia or irregular sleep patterns

§  Pressure to succeed: high expectations for yourself or from others

§  Fear of failure: anxiety about not meeting personal or societal expectations

§  Balancing relationships: navigating friendships and social circles

§  Lack of support: feeling isolated or without a strong support system

§  Work-related stress: pressure in the workplace or during internships

§  Coping with change: adjusting to life transitions and unexpected events

The specific challenges may be big or small, or may layer on top of one another - often referred to as the “snowball” or “spiraling” effect - and may take some work to identify the root of the stress trigger.

Hooked by Your Challenge Response

Your challenge response to pressures or stress can act as a “hook” if you’re not paying attention.

These hooks determine how you respond - both physically and emotionally - to stress. Hooks take you away from the present moment and separate you from your personality and your values, distorting the reaction you would typically have outside of the challenging situation. This disengagement drives unusual (and often negative) responses.

Common physical responses include:

·       Headaches and migraines

·       Body aches or knots in your stomach

·       Fatigue or exhaustion

·       Inability to sit still or focus

·       Trouble sleeping or resting

·       Turning to other distractions

·       Overindulgence, particularly with food, alcohol, tobacco, or other substances

·       Changes in appetite

Common emotional responses include:

·       Irritation, frustration, resentment, or anger

·       Procrastination

·       Feeling overwhelmed or spiraling

·       Feeling the need to shut down or give up

·       Feeling the need to burst into tears

·       Beginning to feel worried, sad, or guilty

·       Engaging in harsh judgment about yourself

·       Trying to blame others or the situation

·       Withdrawing from the people, places, and things we enjoy

·       Inability to find motivation or pleasure

Stressful situations can also cause or exacerbate mental health conditions, most commonly anxiety and depression. When we suffer from a mental health condition, it may be that our symptoms of stress have become persistent and are affecting our daily functioning at work, home, or school.

Stress Management: Coping, Mitigation, and Elimination Strategies

Understanding your challenge response can help you take proactive steps to manage it. We refer to this as stress management. There are three types of strategies we’ll focus on: coping strategy, mitigation strategy, and elimination strategy.

Let’s illustrate these strategies with a common challenging example: the challenge of commuting into an office.

Coping Strategy

When a stress or challenge cannot be avoided or changed, the most common strategy is learning how to cope with the stress. In this example, to work with your colleagues in the office requires a 45-minute drive in each direction. Traffic at rush hour, bad drivers, weather, and other elements affect your level of stress, but in this scenario, you cannot avoid or change this without other drastic changes to your life. So you choose to cope with this stressor in the following ways:

Preparing for the challenge: you know when you will face this challenge, so set yourself up for success ahead of time. Ensure everything is ready the night before, queue up music or podcasts you want to engage with, establish a straight-forward pre-commute routine, and get a good night’s sleep.

Reacting in the moment: find something else to focus on other than intrusive thoughts and feelings about the stressful elements of the commute. For example, you can listen to engaging podcasts or upbeat music; bring coffee and focus on how it tastes, smells, or makes you feel; practice meditative techniques to recognize your negative responses and feelings in the most stressful moments – then let them go.

After the challenge: once parked at the office, re-engage with your normal self. Take a few extra minutes to take a long, deep breath, give yourself a high five, and put the experience behind you, not letting it linger and not allowing yourself to bring the negative energy into the office.

Mitigation Strategy

When a stress or challenge cannot be easily avoided, an alternative strategy is to mitigate the stress with different, less challenging options. In this example, to work with my colleagues in the office requires a 45-minute drive in each direction, causing immense stress. To mitigate this stress, look at alternative options that deliver the same outcome, but with fewer stress triggers:

Change the modality of the stress: perhaps public transportation or carpooling may be less stressful and an acceptable alternative.

Change the recurrence of the stress: perhaps shifting your working hours to avoid rush hour or limiting the number of days you commute could be less stressful and an acceptable alternative.

Change the proximity of the stress: perhaps moving closer to the office or working from a nearby satellite office can mitigate the stressful situation and function as an acceptable alternative.

Elimination Strategy

When a stress or challenge can be easily avoided or changed, one strategy is simply to eliminate it from your life. This is often a last resort option for stressful or challenging situations that create deep barriers to the fulfillment of your basic needs. In our work commute example, eliminating the stress may look like a transition to a fully remote role, rather than in-office or hybrid, to cut out a commute.

Elimination strategies do come with risk: it may narrow your options or keep you in a comfort zone rather than a growth zone. Treat these strategies with skepticism and utilize them when this is the only way to maintain alignment with your core values.

Ineffective Strategies to Manage Stressful Situations

Some people believe that all stress or challenges can be eliminated. This is not realistic. They may believe things like yelling or screaming, avoiding the situation, giving up, criticizing others, or other actions will be enough to solve the challenge. Typically, these make a challenging situation worse.

Improve Your Challenge Response: Build Resilience to Stress

Resilience is your ability to bounce back from challenges, stress, and setbacks. Often, resilience is described as the difference between successful and unsuccessful people. It is both an individual and relational characteristic that takes focus and determination to build and maintain.

Why is resilience so important?

It’s important to your general well-being. By re-framing your perception to challenges or stressful situations, you can protect your well-being (and often your health) and maintain alignment with your core values and goals

It’s important to your ability to adapt, particularly to risk and change. Fast-moving environments are full of doubt, uncertainty, and murkiness, all of which can generate stress and ineffective challenge responses.

It’s important to your ability to collaborate with others. While we can re-frame our perception to challenges or specific situations, it’s important to also re-evaluate your perception of a challenging person, in order to maintain healthy interpersonal relationships.

Resilience is understood through a spectrum of abilities, including:

• Adaptability, or your ability to readjust to changing environments, keep calm in the face of difficulties, and quickly bounce back from setbacks

• Self-control, or your ability to control your emotions, behavior, and desires to achieve your goals

• Self-sufficiency, or your ability to work autonomously without relying on outside help or support to meet your goals

• Optimism, or your ability to look at the bright side of a situation, identify what you can control, and expect the most favorable outcome

• Persistence, or your ability to persevere, despite fatigue or frustration caused by adversity

Understanding your responses to challenges is just the beginning. The key is using this knowledge to build your resilience, an invaluable skill in any professional setting. Remember, challenges are not just obstacles; they’re stepping stones to growth and success.

Action Plan for Your Challenge Response

Understanding your challenge response – and how to manage your perceptions and reactions – requires ongoing assessment, reflection, and action. The steps for action are below, or you can utilize The Know Yourself Workbook from Notes from the Field. Simply download this document, review the examples provided, and follow the path outlined to better identify, evaluate, and build resilience into your challenge response.

Step One: Identify Common Challenges

• Task: List recent challenges faced in both personal and professional contexts

• Objective: Recognize patterns in the types of challenges you encounter

Step Two: Reflect on Initial Reactions

• Task: Reflect on your initial emotional and behavioral responses to these challenges

• Objective: Understand your instinctive reactions to stress and adversity

Step Three: Analyze Stress Management Strategies

• Task: Examine how you currently handle challenges and how effective your response is

• Objective: Assess the effectiveness of your current stress management strategies

Step Four: Seek Feedback from Others

• Task: Ask for observations and feedback from trusted colleagues, friends, or mentors about how you handle challenges

• Objective: Gain external perspectives on your responses to challenges

Step Five: Identify Areas for Improvement:

• Task: Based on your reflection and feedback, identify specific areas where you can improve your response to challenges (e.g. managing stress, decision-making under pressure)

• Objective: Pinpoint specific skills or behaviors to develop

Step Six: Implement and Practice Resilience

• Task: Focus on building resilience where you need additional support; use role-playing or simulations if appropriate

• Objective: Practice and internalize more effective responses to challenges

Step Seven: Regularly Monitor and Reflect

• Task: Keep a journal to monitor your responses to challenges and the effectiveness of new strategies

• Objective: Continuously assess and reflect on your progress

Step Eight: Celebrate Progress Toward Resilience

• Task: Acknowledge and celebrate when you successfully navigate a challenge using your new strategies

• Objective: Reinforce positive changes and build confidence in your ability to handle challenges

More Resources on Your Challenge Response

Want to dive deeper into this topic? We recommend:

Read

Book: "Who Moved My Cheese?: An A-Mazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life" by Spencer Johnson

This is a classic parable that delves into how different personalities deal with change. Through its simple story, it presents profound truths about how we can adapt to change positively and effectively. The book is a quick read but offers lasting insights into embracing change in both personal and professional contexts.

Interview: The 7 types of people you need in your life to be resilient

Are you a “ten percenter” - someone who can handle microstresses and still have fulfilling personal and professional lives? Learn about the role of microstresses in your daily life, how they erode your motivation and enthusiasm, and the best way to build resilience within your personal and professional network.

Book: “Embrace the Suck: The Navy SEAL Way to an Extraordinary Life” by Brent Gleeson

Embrace the Suck provides an actionable roadmap that empowers you to expand your comfort zone to live a more fulfilling, purpose-driven life. Through candid storytelling, behavioral science research, and plenty of self-deprecating humor, Gleeson shows you how to build resilience by using pain as a pathway, reassessing your values, removing temptation, building discipline, suffering with purpose, failing successfully, transforming your mind, and achieving more of the goals you set

Listen

Audiobook: "The Stress-Proof Brain: Master Your Emotional Response to Stress Using Mindfulness and Neuroplasticity" by Melanie Greenberg, Ph.D.

This book offers an in-depth look at the neuroscience of stress and provides practical, mindfulness-based strategies to build emotional resilience. Dr. Greenberg presents techniques to change the way your brain responds to stress, helping you to stay calm and collected under pressure.

Podcast: The Resilience Podcast

A podcast by the Resilience Institute. Dedicated to resilience insights, interviews, and practical tips. Find out how we measure and build resilience skills in the workplace and in your life

Watch

TED Talk: Grit - The Power of Passion and Perseverance

Leaving a high-flying job in consulting, Angela Lee Duckworth took a job teaching math to seventh graders in a New York public school. She quickly realized that IQ wasn't the only thing separating the successful students from those who struggled. Here, she explains her theory of "grit" as a predictor of success.

Take Action

The Self-Awareness Playbook by Notes from the Field

Ready to deepen your self-awareness? Engage with the modules outlined in the playbook to understand, develop, and track your own self-awareness.

The Self-Awareness Journal by Notes from the Field

Self-awareness is a continuous journey. Our weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual journal templates are available in Notion to deepen the connection and evolve your own self-awareness.

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As your identify and reflect on your challenge response, what situations resonate with you? Share with us in the comments.