Three Common Playground Behaviors To Increase Professional Resilience

Three Common Playground Behaviors To Increase Professional Resilience
By Courtney Clark

When it comes to finding resilience in our professional lives, it turns out that some youthful behaviors could actually be the key.

The playground seems like an unlikely place to take our professional cues, but some of the most common childhood habits can actually work as resilience-building tools. Children often have naturally resilient tendencies - think about a toddler learning to walk and hitting the ground over and over, never giving up. By borrowing some of childhood's innate behaviors, we have the opportunity to increase our own resilience now, as professional adults.

All three of these resilience-building suggestions can be found by observing young kids, and they all translate into the work you do every day. Though you may not participate in these activities in exactly the same way as you did on the playground with Mrs. Cooper's third grade class, practicing a little nostalgia and trying on a few of these childhood habits will give you a taste of what makes kids so resilient.

1. What Kids Do: Everyone Is Their "Best Friend"

It takes approximately five minutes to become a child's new best friend. All friends are their "best" friends, and they really mean it when they say it to one another. In fact, ask a child who his or her best friend is, and you'll probably get the name of whatever friend is with them at that moment.

How You Can Benefit

Attitude is a critical piece of workplace resilience, and it comes out most often in our interpersonal relationships. As adults, we often wish we could change our circumstances and the people around us. Instead, try throwing your energy into the people who are around you today. Treat your current team as though they have great value.

Even if you feel surrounded by dysfunction, your attitude toward the people around you will bleed onto others. And if you don't truly feel it, sometimes even faking it can produce results. Try making the person sitting in front of you in each moment your temporary best friend, and you may notice a shift in your attitude

2. What Kids Do: They're High, Low, and Everywhere

You'll find elementary school kids at the top of the highest tree in the park, surveying the land below. Or you'll find them lying in the grass, taking an ant's eye view of the grass and bugs.

Kids tend to get up in the air or down on the ground more than adults, who spend our days solidly connected to our own two feet (or worse - a desk chair!) They're always seeking out unique ways of looking at the world.

How You Can Benefit:

Sometimes we get stuck thinking our vantage point is the only one (or the only right one). We get so focused on our perspective and the path in front of us that we don't see other options or other ways of looking at a situation.

You don't need to actually climb a tree to change your perspective. But it behooves professionals to look at problems from all angles. Practicing a little professional "tree climbing" gives us new ways of behaving that get our jobs done in innovative ways, and gives us a new perspective on our problems.

3. What Kids Do: Every Day is Either Today or Tomorrow

Ask a preschooler when their birthday is, and they'll likely tell you that it is tomorrow, even if it is months away. And that recent trip to Disneyland? In their minds, it just happened yesterday.

Kids don't always grasp the calendar of life, so everything to them seems much more immediate. That's why they'll wake up and ask "Did Santa come?" for the entire month of December.

How You Can Benefit

As working professionals, we don't have the luxury of pretending that today is the only day that matters, and not having an eye on future events. But being too focused on the big picture can hurt our resilience. One key feature of resilient individuals is that - when the situation calls for it - they can put one foot in front of the other to finish the task at hand.

When you start to feel overwhelmed, boost your resilience, by adopting a child's tunnel vision: today and tomorrow are the days that matter. Worry about the rest of the week once you get today cleared off your plate. You physically can't do all 23 things on your to-do list at once, so stop torturing yourself.

*******************************
Resilience in the workplace is a more important skill than ever before. These three childhood habits can give us clues to boost our own ability to bounce back in a tough work environment. By adopting a few child-like habits, you can actually add a few more resilient tools to your toolbox.

Courtney Clark is the author of "The Giving Prescription: A Personal Plan for Healing Through Helping." She is a two time cancer survivor, a brain aneurysm survivor, the founder of a nonprofit, and a resilience expert. CourtneyLClark.com

Opinions expressed by the author are not necessarily those of WITI.