Valley Resilience

Getting through the rough patch in the road in business and in life is a must for success. Employing the option to give up is a very common mistake that people make. It is not necessarily the giving up aspect but the timing of the strategy. Individuals find themselves motivated by the prospects for a new idea, a new venture and move quickly toward the goal in mind. However, the goal is often met with some form of obstacle that had not been considered in the original mindset of goal attainment. Often times the obstacle is too great to overcome, at least in perceptive reasoning, and giving up seems like the most feasible strategy to deploy. One must get past this rough patch – Seth Godin calls this the “DIP”.

I call it “valley resilience”. There are an array of qualities that makes an individual “valley resilient”, however I think I can sum it up with defining 5 of them. The 5 C’s – Commitment, Control, Change, Comfort, Challenge.

Fear is often times the precursor to quitting. It consumes the individual and becomes the hidden rational behind giving up. It is attached to the perception of pain and suffering. Therefore, the commitment that one applies must be greater than the perception of the fear being faced. Just being committed will allow an individual the awareness of control. Control is viewed in the dual sense of internal vs. external locus of control. Valley resilient individuals believe that control is dominated by internal cues, motivations and drive strength secure and stable “from within”. Whereas, individuals that are “successive quitters” give up control to the outside as a matter of fate, as a matter of the “it wasn’t meant to be” mindset. In a nutshell, they give up on themselves which is their premier strategy for life from the onset.

Change resistant individuals also can not move past any obstacle because of their unfamiliar vision of getting past change. Valley resilient individuals view welcome change and view it as a “fresh start” or time to calibrate. (Calibration is very important but we will leave that to another blog post) The resilient individual views the change or the potential “obstacle” as a Challenge which elicits the competitive side of the person to not be beat by the obstacle which harnesses the means to succeed.

Comfort is the perceptual base of being secure in the leadership role. The ability to invoke positive results in others and being comfortable with this charge is a prodromal effect of the valley resilient role.

The typical experience had from a valley resilient individual is that of success, so the belief they develop is that they will not be defeated even if the event seeks to get the better of them. The belief in one’s own ability is typically greater than the overall fear and that my friends is a valley resilient individual. Peace and love…