4 Steps to build resiliency

How are you doing with your New Year’s resolutions? If you are trying to make a significant change in 2023, at some point you are going to run into some adversity that will cause you to question your commitment to change. Self-doubt and depleted motivation are natural, it happens to even the most confident and resolute people. When you face adversity, it is important to tap into your personal resilience to help you push through and continue to move towards your goal. In this article, I will share with you the four actions I encourage clients to take when they are looking to make significant changes in their career.

Define who you are

The first action I encourage clients to take is to define who they are today. Knowing who you are is an important aspect of emotional intelligence, and supports you being resilient. Being resilient means being willing to continue to move forward, even when you start to feel internal and external pressure to stop. For you to do this it is critical to be grounded in the knowledge of your strengths and your passions. Your strengths are the things that come natural to you, and that support your self- esteem. Your passions are the things that you can do for a long amount of time without needing motivation from outside sources. By being aware of your strengths and your passion you will have anchors of support that you can leverage when change efforts begin to get difficult.

Define who you want to be

The second action I encourage clients to take is to define who they want to be. I encourage clients to take the time to write down descriptive words for their ideal self. This ideal self is rooted in their values, and acts as a north star to guide their actions. By clarifying who you want to be, and how that ideal self is rooted in your values, it is easier to find the motivation to continue to push forward despite the obstacles that will arise as you pursue your goals.

Define what you want to do

The third actions I encourage clients to take is to define what they want to do. Being clear on what you want to do, is equally important as defining who you want to be. The Co-Active Model that I use for coaching emphasized the importance of finding the balance between doing and being. As you pursue your goals, it is critical that you define the actions that you are going to take. These actions should be as precise as possible so that you can hold yourself accountable. Developing precise action means being specific on the who, what, where, when and how associated which what you are planning to accomplish.

Define how you will hold yourself accountable

The final action that I encourage clients to take is to define how they will hold themselves accountable. Some clients are great at personal accountability. To hold themselves accountable, they simple declare to themselves that they will do a task. For others they find it helpful to use things to do list, or calendars to help keep task top of mind. There are also clients that find it helpful to leverage others to help them with holding themselves accountable. For many people, it is easier to honor commitments made to others than themselves. No one knows you better than you know yourself, so it is important to identify what you need to hold yourself accountable, and to build that accountability into your growth plan.

Staying committed to your New Years’ resolutions takes resiliency. There are going to be times when you lack the motivation to push forward towards your goal. During those times, it is important to remember who you are, who you want to be, why it is worth you pushing through the adversity. The better you can root your New Year’s resolutions into your values, the easier it will be to stay committed. Many of the changes that have brought you the most benefit to your life, require the most effort. Think back to the proudest accomplishment of your career. How did you feel in that moment? What did you have to overcome to achieve that milestone. When times get difficult, remember the strength you demonstrated in pursuing that accomplishment. Remember the values that you had to tap into to help you push through those hard times. Leverage the knowledge that you have accomplished difficult things in the past, and that you are capable of accomplishing increasingly difficult things in the future. Resiliency comes from within. It is a muscle that is built through experience and the more that you work to know who you are, and pursue who you want to be, the easier it will become to push through adversity.

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What is Co-Active Coaching?

The Co-Active Training Institute has been around for 30 years and has trained over 65,000 coaches worldwide. The program has been certified by the International Coaching Federation which is the largest coaching accreditation organizations in the world. The Co-action training model is powerful because it challenges clients to declare their values, self-reflect, develop actions items, and commit to change. The model’s foundation is based on 4 guiding principles.

People are naturally creative, resourceful, and whole

The first principle is that people are naturally creative resourceful and whole. In the Co-active model, it is not the job of the coach to fix the client. The client does not need fixing. What the client needs is assistance defining who they want to be, support in identifying negative thoughts, strategies for tapping into internal motivation, assistance in identifying options for improving their current situations, and encouragement to hold themselves accountable for their goals.

Dance in the moment

The second principle is dance in this moment. This principle is rooted in the fact that coaching is not therapy. During coaching sessions, we will only lightly touch on the client’s past. The past is fixed and cannot be changed. Our focus and attention are on the future. During coaching sessions, coaches will talk about what is happening now, and coming up with strategies to help the client move from their current state to their desired goal.

Focus on the whole person

The third principle is focus on the whole person. In the co-active model, coaches examine a client’s life from nine different segments. Career, Family and Friends, Significant other/Romance, Fun & Recreation, Health, Money, Personal Growth and Physical Environment. The reason coaches focus on all these segments is that they are all interconnected. As a client works on one segment of their life, it is important to understand the impact that it is having on other areas.

Evoke Transformation

The final principle is evoke transformation. People work with coaches because they want to experience a change in their life that they have not been able to achieve on their own. Coaches are taught to hold space for clients, so that they can self-reflect, gain emotional intelligence, define their goals, establish and renew motivation and develop actions plans to improve their lives.

Within my coaching practice, my primary focus is helping leaders define what they want from their careers and developing strategies to help them grow. As a former corporate executive and small business owner I know the importance of surrounding yourself by people that push you to be the best version of yourself. I help clients transform by deeply listening to them, asking thought-provoking questions, and reflecting back to them the things I have heard. With the information, I affirm the client's identity, challenge thinking that does not serve them, encourage action, requesting commitments and act as an accountability partner.

In summary, the Co-active coaching model can be summarized as a coaching approach where a coach, helps clients to define who they want to be, and what actions they will take to transform from who they are today, to who they want to be. Part of the magic of the coaching process is clients having the ability to get personalized unbiased help. If you have never experience executive coaching, I encourage you to give it a try. It will likely be one of the first times in your life that you speak to someone for 45 minutes, have their undivided attention, and know that they are exclusively listening to you with the unbiased goal of helping you self-reflect and develop plans to improve your career or business.

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Dorian Cunion is an Executive Business Coach with your Path Coaching and Consulting. He specializes in coaching service for managers, executives and small business owner.

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If you are interested in working with me as a coach, contact me at

• Email: dcunion@yourpathexecutivesolutions.com

• Phone: 804-220-5771