The Easy Way To Build Resilience

The wonderful thing about these poses is that even when we believe our negative thoughts are unstoppable or our feelings are overwhelming, we can always simply move our limbs and take up these positions. I am optimistic but also sceptical, so I tested the poses myself. Subjects who had been given the power poses significantly outperformed those who had been given low status poses. Just two minutes in the poses was enough to make significant physiological and behavioural differences. Within two minutes of moving into these poses, our physiology and hence our whole state is changed. I felt great, but I still wasn’t sure. Maybe I had just used them to boost my natural optimism. The greeting on her voicemail sounded like she was apologising for existing. I didn’t explain anything. I just asked her to do the poses for two minutes each. The difference was startling! Now she sounded like a chief executive. I’ve shared Cuddy’s amazing work with many, many friends and clients since.

You Haven't Done Nothing

I believe Amy Cuddy’s work is simple, brilliant and powerful and I want you to try it right now. If these postures feel silly, or unusual, or bad, or difficult for you, that means that for years you have been training yourself to sit or stand in low status poses. You have been telling people you are an underdog. Indirectly and unintentionally, you have been inviting people to put themselves in positions of power over you. If you already find these poses natural and easy, or if they feel familiar, that is great – you already have an excellent base for influencing others – but you will still benefit from practising them, as they will enhance your power and influence even more. These poses are great preparation before a presentation, an interview or an important performance. If you need privacy, you can go and do them in the bathroom and do them beforehand. It’s all about mental preparation. Wonder Woman – Place your hands on your hips, stand tall with your legs apart and embrace the feeling of your inner confidence. Winner – Stand tall, with your arms up high like a star with your fingers pointing skywards. Boss – place your hands behind the back of your head, elbows wide, in a relaxed, confident way. Continue to hold for two minutes.

The Worst You Can Do

Observe and embrace the feeling. Relax and carry on with your life energised and empowered. It changed the way I behaved and the results I was getting in the world. My life changed immeasurably for the better. One process that I did for an entire week in particular made a significant difference to my life. I went on a negative thought fast. This is how it works. When we have a thought, an electrical impulse travels down a set of neural pathways in the brain. The more times it does it, the physically bigger the neural pathways becomes – just like a muscle, the more you use it, the bigger it gets. This is how people get hardwired to certain habits, such as smoking. A person feels stressed, so they fire off the electrical impulses that are associated with smoking and after a while any stress triggers a desire for a cigarette. However, it’s possible to be hardwired to positive and negative things.

Ordinary People

Some people are hardwired to take exercise, feel confident in the face of a challenge, motivated every morning to go for what they want in life, or just feel good for no particular reason. And it is something that can be learned and installed into your brain, just like a new programme for a computer. Later, we will be training your brain to give you powerful motivation. Right now, let’s learn one of the best ways to feel good more often – starve your mind of unnecessary negativity. Whenever you find yourself feeling bad about anything, stop and ask yourself what you are feeling bad about and notice what image, sound, or words come to mind. Remember, your emotions are signals, letting you know when you need to pay extra attention to some aspect of your experience. Every feeling in your body is linked to an internal picture, sound, or by the words you say to yourself in your mind. For example, if I have a worrying feeling and I stop to notice what comes to mind and, say, it’s the image of an upcoming meeting, my mind is trying to alert me to things that might go wrong in that meeting and to make sure I am well prepared. So, in this example, I might make a list of all the things I can do to stop those problems occurring and take action on at least one of them. This is like hanging up the phone or resetting the smoke alarm. When I’ve heeded my mind’s warning, I drain all the colour out of the image, shrink it down to the size of a postage stamp, and send it off into the distance. If the picture pops back, it’s because there’s still something you need to be aware of, so find out what it is. Then, imagine events go exactly the way you want them to. In the example of my upcoming meeting, I make a big, bright movie of the meeting going perfectly and watch it all the way up to the conclusion. If at any time over the next week, you find yourself feeling bad, stop and do this process – it will give your mind an opportunity to signal something to you, but it will stop the message signalling too loud and too often. This process will change the landscape of your brain chemistry by continually emphasizing the positive and not dwelling unnecessarily on the negative. Many people think that resilience is just about toughing it out, about being relentless. Whilst there is truth in that, resilience is also about adaptability and flexibility. So, resilience is really the ability to think creatively, combined with persistence. You know you can hit your own challenge.