Five tips to build career resilience and set career goals for 2021

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Five tips to build career resilience and set career goals for 2021

Wednesday, 03 February 2021

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Eimear Quigley, Master of Psychology alumna, Clinical Psychologist and Director of the Psychological Services Centre within ECU's School of Arts and Humanities shares her top five tips to build resilience to help guide the process of your career goal setting.

Continued from Alumni News...

As we begin the new year, many of us will be focusing on our career goals. Some may have recently finished their degrees and be embarking on the next chapter in their professional journey. Others may be considering a change of career. No matter where you are, each stage in a career can pose unique and challenging circumstances.

Building immediate resilience
Immediate resilience is the ability to manage day-to-day stressors. It is useful to have some go-to strategies that you know work for you when you are feeling overwhelmed.
- Breathing to regulate. Slow breathing helps regulate our bodies when we are feeling stressed.
  16 second breathing exercise. Breathe in for a count of four, hold your breath for a count of four, gently breathe out for a count of four, and stay at the end of that breath for a count of four.
- Grounding. Grounding exercises bring awareness to our physical body and surroundings, diverting away from negative thoughts or emotions. Noticing your senses. List five things you can see, five things you can hear, five things you can feel.
Building long-term resilience
Long-term resilience is the ability to bounce back after a major set-back, such as a job loss or relationship breakdown, and can be strengthened with these long-term strategies.
- Mindfulness. Mindfulness is bringing awareness to the present moment and noticing your thoughts openly and without judgement.
- Gratitude. Find things you are grateful for each day to help redirect away from negative thinking.
- Self-kindness. Deliberately tune in to your needs during the day.
- Eat, sleep, move. A healthy diet, good sleep pattern and regular exercise helps keep us physically and mentally healthy.
- Personal boundaries. Pay attention to how you spend your time and put personal boundaries in place if this is unbalanced.
Understand your values
Values tell us what we stand for and when we live a life that is aligned with our values, we feel fulfilled and confident.
There are many ways to identify the values that are important to you in your career pathway. Consider:
- What sort of person do I want to be?
- How do I want to behave with other people?
- What does a rich, meaningful life look like to me? A rich, meaningful career?
Recognise your self-critic
Our minds have evolved over time to be very critical. While our negative focus protected us from pre-historic dangers, in a modern context, this focus can often turn inwards. The self-critic can drive high expectations and, when we fail to meet these expectations, we can end up in self-attack mode. It is important to try to notice when your mind is being very critical.
Use compassion to counter-act self-critic

Dr Kristin Neff, Associate Profession of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas has developed a model of self-compassion to help address the self-critic. When your mind is saying very critical things, follow these steps.

Notice what is happening. “Wow, I’m really putting myself down right now.”
Say something kind you yourself. “You can get through this. I’m here for you.”
Remind yourself that everybody feels and thinks like this. "Lots of people would feel down if they didn’t get interviewed for a job they really wanted."

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