Five Steps to Build Your Micro-Resilience

In addition to the ones at her own alma maters, the keynote speaker at the CAMEX 2020 Closing Session has also browsed the stores at five different institutions attended by her three daughters. “I love campus stores and being on a campus,” she told the audience in New Orleans.

She also views college stores as crucial to the student experience on campus. “You’re serving education, helping young people grow up and enter the world,” St. John said, but also acknowledged that the intensive day-to-day work of campus store professionals can be draining.

That’s where evidence-based resilience comes in. “Resilience” is how St. John sums up the ability to keep going even when problems arise, to push yourself to do your best when it counts most, and to power through adversity with a positive attitude.

Like Cassandra Worthy in the Opening Session and Keynote (see the Feb. 21 issue of CM), St. John believes that turning around negative thoughts is critical to dealing with disruption and change, whether in meeting the challenges of routine work responsibilities or major setbacks. “There are many practical things you can do to be less exhausted mentally, emotionally, and even physically,” she said.

St. John developed the concept of resilience through a lifetime of facing extraordinary challenges. At age five, her right leg had to be amputated due to a medical disorder. “When I got my first artificial leg, I had to learn how to walk all over again,” she recalled. She endured abuse from her stepfather, “which later affected my ability to ask for help.”

She had to figure out how to do sports and became intrigued by downhill skiing, despite the fact she lived in San Diego, CA—not exactly ski country. When it became apparent in her teens that she had the talent to compete in skiing, she had to move (by herself) to the opposite coast to attend a Vermont prep school and ski academy.

Through resilience, St. John was able to slalom her way to a bronze medal in the 1984 Paralympics in Innsbruck, Austria, becoming the first African-American to medal in Winter Olympics history. As only the third-ranked female skier on the U.S. team, she wasn’t expected to get a medal. “Just getting to be on the team was so exciting,” she said.

In slalom competitions, skiers must finish two courses and the best combined time wins. On her first course, St. John’s time was the best in the world. The second course, however, had a slick spot that caused most of the competitors to fall—including St. John. “The person who won also crashed,” she said. “But she got up faster.”

The lesson she took away from that: “You’re at the top of the game and resilience still matters,” she said. “When you’re doing well, how can you help your team be more resilient?”

Building resilience doesn’t necessarily require a lot of effort or a complicated system, according to St. John. In fact, small steps may be more effective.

She cited research that tried to identify why the top 10 tennis players won more often than the next tier of players. Researchers couldn’t find any common denominator in the way they played—then noticed something interesting in between points. The very best players were observed using these brief moments to rest their serving hand by holding the racket in the other hand or to give themselves quiet pep talks; they remained focused on the game and didn’t get distracted by their surroundings. Those little actions gave them an edge when play resumed.

“So what does that look like if you’re not playing tennis?” asked St. John. Her own research over six years discovered five areas where people can take small “micro-resilience” steps to keep them on track toward their goals and peak performance. She calls them the Five Frameworks:

         Refocus your brain.

         Reset your primitive alarms.

         Reframe your attitude.

         Refresh your body.

         Renew your spirit.

It’s not possible to maintain a laserlike focus all the time, but you can create “islands of focus” during your day in order to prioritize your attention on things that matter. St. John suggested that might involve finding a quieter place to work or at least to take a moment to gather your thoughts.

She recommended having a conversation with friends, family, and co-workers on the best ways to communicate with you (phone, text, email, in person) during the day, times when they should avoid interrupting you, and the threshold criteria for interruptions. That leads into resetting your alarms: Recognizing the kind of things that may be distracting or annoying, and avoiding them.

Reframing your attitude can help guard against the erosion caused by negative thinking. By nature, St. John noted, humans tend toward the negative, even though positivity produces better results. Her tip was to create “a first-aid kit for your attitude,” items that you can keep close at hand (at your workspace, on your phone) that will lift your spirits. It might be a vacation memento, photos of your kids, inspirational quotes.

“What can help you turn your attitude around quickly?” she asked. “Did you have a bad day or just a bad 20 minutes that you let ruin the rest of the day?” She suggested holding a team-building activity with your staff to encourage them to share their first-aid kits with each other. When someone sees a co-worker is having a bad day, they can be reminded to seek out their kit.

The same idea encompasses renewing your spirit. “Having a touchstone that pulls you back to your values can renew your energy and bring you back to what inspires you,” St. John said.

Refreshing your body may be the easiest step, but is often overlooked at busy times. Even just making sure you’re properly hydrated and your blood sugar is balanced can make a difference.

These five steps can help campus store professionals navigate an increasingly stressful environment. “You can use resilience to be more energized and focused,” St. John concluded.