Anne Egros
“Resilience” is the positive capacity of people to survive and “bounce back” after failures and adversity. I think it is a pretty complex topic. In addition, what makes you thrive and happy, may be stressful for somebody else. However, no matter what the nature of the stress, resilience can be developed by learning adaptive coping strategies.
I am just now in the middle of move #12, going back to New Jersey, USA, after two years in Brussels, Belgium. The fact that I have been a serial expat for 20 years, between Europe, Japan and USA does not make the packing and the administrative work easier but psychologically, I feel more confident to ride the emotional roller coaster or “culture shock” most people experience when moving to an unknown city. By living and working abroad I got exposed to a wide range of unusual stressful experiences, sometimes even life-threatening, allowing me to develop specific coping strategies.
The impact of external changes on individuals such as moving to a new country, facing unemployment, switching to a new career can create stress, fear, anger, depression, feeling like a victim, confusion, decrease in performance, ineffective problem solving or poor decision making.
Are long term expats better equipped to adapt to economic turmoil, disruptions, changes, transitions and stress ?
Coping skills are very personal and usually developed by way of past experiences, which is why long term expats who have gone through many transitions develop healthy habits that add to their resilience.
What are the Key Characteristics of Resilient people?
- Ability to “bounce back” and “recover from almost anything”
- Tendency to see problems as opportunities
- Deep-rooted faith in a system of meaning
- Healthy social support network
- Being helpful in their communities
- Are prepared for the worst
- Have a balanced life
- Are confident and develop strengths to take new challenges
- Able to recover from experiences in the panic or trauma zone
How To Develop Resilience ?
1-Awareness : Identify your hot buttons. Who are toxic people in your life? What stresses you, under what circumstances and what are your emotional responses? Do you have negative self-talk? What coping strategies do you use? What activities give meaning to your life? What positive emotions do you experience when you do something your really love?
2-Be in Control: When things go out of your control, focus on part of you life you can control, such as changing your perception and perspective, exercising, journaling, talking with friends, stopping the blame game.
3-Create a support network: Deepen your relationships with people in your network, share a hobby with friends, help other people, write a blog, create your support group, use social networks.
Conclusion: Resilience grows from overcoming setbacks. It is a mind-set that induces positive attitudes and behaviors, thereby enlarging your vision of your life.
Anne Egros is a serial expat and holistic coach who has moved 11 times around the globe working at management levels for various industries . After a 20-year international career in Fortune 500 Companies in USA , Japan and Europe, Anne has a deep knowledge of business management.
Hi Anne
I lived and travelled overseas for 8 years, and I do believe the skills and attitudes I picked up along the way have been invaluable in helping me cope with change, and resilience is definately near the top of the list
Sue
Hello Sue, Thanks for sharing.
I believe that resilience is learned and built by overcoming fears and dealing with unknown situations. Expats have simply more chances to be exposed to dangerous or weird situations.
Anne,
Resilience is both a pre-requisite AND outcome of expat/international moves. After having lived in several countries, nothing can surprise me any more. By now, I don’t consider any unexpected/surprising situation “strange”; I simply consider is “different” and just another “task/new challenge” to figure out & RESOLVE. Without resilience, your “expat/international” career is over before it even begins. BUT, NO MOVE OR TRANSITION IS EASY; it requires lots of both psychological and behavioral coping techniques. After all, the “honeymoon” stage of each move doesn’t last beyond 2-4 months. In short: expat experience builds up one’s resilience, but you must work at it!
Hi Anne, I’m also a long term expat. I think I would agree with your article to a point and say it depends on why the person became an expat in the 1st place.
Looking at your profile, I suspect that you occupied the business/managerial/diplomatic end of the expat food chain – the end with the money. These people decided to become expats because they saw an opportunity and took it. I suspect that these people have the kind of personality traits that would enable them to adapt and survive even if they hadn’t been expats.
When you look at the other end of the expat market, TEFL teachers, you see a very different kind of person. I know, I was one of them. In many cases, long term TEFL teachers are no longer expats by choice, they are expats because they have more or less made themselves unemployable at home.
A long term TEFL teacher who finds himself on the wrong side of 35 cannot usually realistically re-invent himself and develop a career in another industry back home. In many cases, he or she will not even be able to teach in state schools back at home, because their TEFL qualifications are not recognized, so they stay on abroad just about scraping enough cash together to get home once a year to see their families.
In many cases, they resort to alcohol and in some cases drugs and end up behaving in such ways that they lose the respect of the local community and become increasingly insular. The local language school owners look upon them as unreliable drunks and see this as an opportunity to keep wages down even lower.
These people are not resilient, in many cases, they left their own countries because they wanted to avoid debt, the “corporate world” or the fact that they had studied something that was totally useless when it came to getting a job to match their middle class aspirations.
I would recommend any potential employers when reading this to beware – try and find out what kind of expat you are employing. The right kind will have all the qualities that Anne specifies, the wrong kind will be a disaster from day one!
Excellent article Anne. I especially like how your ‘Awareness’ was personally (and individually) focused. I would dare say that the majority of expats ‘of any stripe’ (or anyone who lives cross-culturally) would say that they either bounced back due to existing emotional resilience or developed/enhanced it along the way. I’ve focused a little more narrowly on emotional resilience which is getting back to the positive self-view. Obviously it takes some longer than others, with twists and turns in the road on their journey to being strong and at peace with themselves.