Navigating the journey of excellence requires resilience.

Before we address resilience, we need a common understanding of the very thing we are to be resilient against: the "whirlwind". The whirlwind is your greatest barrier to pursuing your excellence. It's like Professor Moriarty is to Sherlock Holmes. It's your nemesis, the villain of your life story.

With any great foe, it's best to divide and conquer. The whirlwind comes in four flavors: So-So, Seasons, Stages, and Surprises.

1. So-So events are the mundane, everyday, run of the mill events like taking the kids to school, cutting the lawn, getting groceries, going to work, building a shed in the backyard. The list goes on and on.
2. Seasons are periods of time when things get hectic. Examples include starting a new job, moving into a new home, the first day of kindergarten for your first child. They are temporarily frenzied.
3. Stages are what we go through as we age. Childhood, teenage years, young adulthood, middle adulthood, and senior adulthood. Each stage introduces a new set of challenges and limitations.
4. Surprises are things we don't see coming. Examples include the sudden death of a parent, an earthquake, or a pandemic. These types of whirlwind can have a short or lasting impact on us.

The key to a successful journey of excellence amid all types of whirlwind is resilience. So what is resilience?

Resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness. It is the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity.

Let's take the example of a skyscraper. You might think that the ability it has to stand the forces of wind is it's rigidity. Not so. It's actually it's elasticity. Without this capability of movement, a building would ironically collapse.

Some buildings use advanced wind-compensating dampers. The Citicorp Center in New York, for example, uses a tuned mass damper. In this complex system, oil hydraulic systems push a 400-ton concrete weight back and forth on one of the top floors, shifting the weight of the entire building from side to side. A sophisticated computer system carefully monitors how the wind is shifting the building and moves the weight accordingly. Some similar systems shift the building's weight based on the movement of giant pendulums. source

Because you're pursuing a life of excellence, you must recognize the impact the whirlwind has on your efforts. It's very easy to slip back into a life of mediocrity and not even know it. The whirlwind has a certain subtle quality. It's why New Year's resolutions fail right around February.

Recognizing the whirlwind's impact is part of your success. Being actively resilient is the other part. So how do you bounce back? Here are a couple suggestions:

• Preset a buffer zone for anticipated whirlwind seasons. If you know you're going to have a hectic Spring next year, prepare ahead of time.
• Create a "bounce back" routine. It could include 3 deep breaths, reciting a great quote or scripture you've memorized, or grabbing a cup of coffee and reflecting.

ACTION STEP

• Make a list of the seasons you are likely to face over the next 3 months. How can you be preparing ahead of time for them?
• Determine what stage of life you're in. Do a little research into what people in this stage typically face.
• Build your own "bounce back" routine to handle the surprises.

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