Stress, resilience & mental toughness

How to develop true grit!

In a 24/7 world we are exposed to stress from many different angles. Handled well, this can boost our performance; handled badly, it can have a real impact on our wellbeing.

We all need to be able to manage different stresses and pressures if we are to think clearly, make the right decisions and avoid unnecessary stress and worry. This workshop explores the best way of doing that, giving you a range of strategies to use, based on a number of proven models and approaches. It will help you understand your stress and pressure points, develop your resilience and move towards mental toughness and ‘grit’.

What’s in it for you?

  • Understand the nature of stress and its impact on our lives
  • Learn how to turn stress to your advantage
  • Understand the ‘Control / Support / Demand’ model and be able to use it to achieve healthy work/life balance
  • Understand how mindfulness can help you manage your personal reactions to stress
  • Develop strategies for increasing your resilience, toughness and self-care
  • Find out how to develop your coping mechanisms
  • Learn how to deal with pressured situations more effectively

Workshop outline

(Full-day version, 9.30 – 5.00)

1 Understanding and defining stress

  • Different workplace pressures – and the different responses to them
  • The difference between pressure and chronic stress
  • Why the way you think about stress changes the way your body responds to it
  • The upside of stress
  • Why it’s important to avoid sustained periods of stress

2 Factors that trigger stress

  • The Demand Control Support Model – why high demand alone doesn’t cause unhealthy stress
  • The difference between acute and episodic stress

3 Recognising stress

  • How to recognise stress
  • The role of emotion
  • How the body responds to stress – spotting the signals

4 Mindfulness

  • Mindfulness – the definition
  • Mindfulness – the hype
  • Mindfulness – the science
  • How re-framing thoughts can change everything
  • The A-B-C-D model

5 Mental toughness and ‘grit’

  • What do we mean by ‘mental toughness’?
  • The benefits
  • How to build it – the Grit scale test

6 Resilience and ‘bounce’

  • What do we mean by ‘resilience’?
  • How to bounce back
  • Developing strategies for resilience

7 The locus of control

  • Who’s in charge?
  • How to manage your thoughts to take positive action in times of pressure and challenge

8 Dealing with difficult situations

  • A series of workplace situations – sharing suggestions and strategies for managing each of them

9 Self-care

  • Diet and fitness
  • Attitude
  • Organisation and
  • Taking time for ourselves
  • Developing a self-care plan

10 Actions and next steps

  • Developing a self-care plan
  • Review
  • Personal action planning
  • Next steps

‘Stress, resilience and mental toughness’ was popular even before the pandemic. Scott Rumsey is one of our most popular trainers. See some of the feedback he’s had from delivering this module face-to-face:

  • Informative, helpful and enjoyable. What new skills have you learnt and what will you start doing/change as a result of this course? The effect of stress on the body and how to use mindfulness effectively.’
  • ‘Course gives you useful tips/techniques to assist with stressful and difficult situations. What new skills have you learnt and what will you start doing/change as a result of this course? Planning, structure, taking a moment to breathe and control, avoid too much stress.’
  • Very useful, great to communicate with each other, and learning rememberable strategies to deal with various causes and areas of stress.’
  • ‘It’s eye opening, gives you a certain level of self awareness and good techniques one can use.’
  • ‘A good reminder on being mindful and some good tips on dealing with stress.’
  • ‘A great overview of the areas especially good introduction to mindfulness.’
  • ‘Gives a new way to perceive stress and how to manage it. I will take stress positively now and own change.’
  • ‘A chance to learn stress management techniques. Definitely changed my perception of stress from being negative to being positive.’
  • ‘Informative, helpful and enjoyable.’
  • ‘Course gives you useful tips/techniques to assist with stressful and difficult situations.’
  • ‘Useful advice on dealing with stress, tips on mindfulness, breathing techniques to help calm you/the situation.’
  • Very useful, great to communicate with each other, and learning memorable strategies to deal with various causes and areas of stress.’
  • A great overview of all the areas, with an especially good introduction to mindfulness.’
  • ‘Good awareness training with practical tips.’
  • ‘A good reminder on being mindful and some good tips on dealing with stress.’
  • ‘It’s eye-opening, gives you a certain level of self-awareness and good techniques one can use.’
  • ‘Made session informal/fun – good!’
  • ‘Very well presented.’
  • ‘Excellent trainer, patient, caring and approachable.’
  • ‘Very good trainer, friendly and informative.’
  • ‘Very friendly and knowledgeable trainer – easy to get on with and felt comfortable on the course.’
  • ‘Really friendly, knowledgeable trainer – positive and calm
  • ‘Very good presenter – enthusiastic and keeps the audience engaged.’
  • ‘Scott really knows how to engage all participants.’

To discuss which management and personal effectiveness modules would best suit you, just give us a call on 01582 463460 and we’ll be happy to talk you through the options.