Can you actually learn to be resilient? Or, in the words of Lady Gaga, are you born that way? Do the people who cope with life’s toughest challenges come out of the womb with a smile on their face, high-fiving the doctors and midwives as they pass? Even descending through the birth canal is seemingly a breeze.
Well, no…they don’t. Which is good news for the rest of us.
Learning to be resilient is something you can do, learning to adapt your thinking and have a resilient mindset. Physical things are helpful for resilience too, like having a good sleep pattern, exercising regularly, spending time with friends and eating well.
Another good weapon in your resilience toolkit is humour and laughter. Being able to see the world differently using humour can be a powerful technique for managing emotions. It’s not about laughing at situations that are sad or poo-pooing how you feel, it’s about the ability to stop in the moment and assess how you might feel about something in three, six or twelve months’ time.
It’s also being able to think about how you might relay the story to someone, once you have some distance. You might exaggerate it to get a laugh, observe some of the funny behaviours that happened or twist some elements of the story for fun. These are just cognitive skills used by comedians to view the world in a way that makes it funny.
You don’t have to be born with a sense of humour to develop these skills either; just like resilience, humour is a way of looking at the world that can be learnt.
That’s what FLIP-it thinking is, a humour toolkit developed for cognitive flexibility to help build resilience, problem solving and creative thinking. It’s a tried and tested toolkit that has been used in workplaces and psychology practices all around the world, for supporting people to think and feel better. It might just give you a laugh too.
To help you learn all about FLIP-it thinking we have created some free modules that explain what it is and how you use it. Just click on the links below, have fun and let us know how you get on.
Module one introduces FLIP-it thinking and the first element of FLIP, focus. It explores behaviours and thinking you can do to help you FLIP your mood and feel better
Module two of FLIP-it thinking explores Language and Imagination (the L and I in FLIP – clever innit, it’s the acronym we’re most proud of, and we do a lot of acronyms).
Module 3 of the FLIP-it Thinking looks at how pattern-breaking can help with Wonky Thinking. It will help find the positives in situations, embrace challenges, and deal with change and transformation.
Book FLIP-it thinking resilience training for your organisation. We can deliver in a variety of ways to suit you and your team.
