What is your “bounce-back-quotient?” 
            You just found out your best-friend coworker, who has worked with you for 13 years, has just decided to resign in order to sell lip gloss on the Internet.  Your “can-do” IT person just broke an arm while skiing on spring vacation with his church youth group.  Your new VP has made it no secret that she is out to “clean house.”  You were just informed at coffee break you are number one on her “hit list.”
            The priorities keep changing in nanoseconds and the people who seemingly perform self-lobotomies in the parking lot…make your job…well, never boring.
            But, constant change is, over a long period time, debilitating.  When we keep hitting bottom, we get short on patience, anger management and forgiveness.  And, work can be just that…work.
            Resilience is not “toughing it out,” developing a “stiff upper lip” or “grinning and bearing it.”  Resilience is the discipline of spiritually, professionally and physically rejuvenating yourself to come back and enthusiastically grabbing the next challenge.
            So, if your bounce-back quotient is a little low right now, what do you do?
            Here are five, sequential strategies you may want to consider.
            First, talk with a historic friend or family member who walked with you into your career.  You need a “reality-tester” right now.  You need someone to remind you what originally “filled you up” when you secured your job. 
            Ask this confidante questions like, “What changed in me when I took this job?” or “How did I used to describe my career to you?” and then, “In the last six months what have you heard from me about my commitment to my career?” 
            The purpose of this first strategy is to get an honest appraisal from someone who does not tramp around in your head or look in your mirror.
            Second, get a physical exam.  Constant stress can deplete natural tranquillizers and you may have no reserves to bounce back.
            Our bodies produce chemicals called endorphins to bring us back to emotional and psychological balance.  If the chemical reserves are on “empty” there will be no “second wind” for the new challenge that just walked through our doors.
            Your family physician is a good starting place but be prepared to be referred to a mental health specialist.  There is no shame in openly admitting to yourself that you need chemical-replacement therapy.
            Third, remind yourself that “stuff” (I know there are some popular substitute terms) happens!  None of us is protected from victimization by academic degrees behind our names, money in our Fidelity Investment portfolio or our family pedigree.
            Count on it…stuff will happen tomorrow.
            People who are able to openly admit they do not possess a Star Wars invisible protector shield are individuals who can cruise from one crisis to another without losing themselves in the journey.

            Fourth, people who can bounce back usually able to immediately devise a sequential plan.  These people create mental “consensus maps” of how to move from point A to point D and what are the people and processes that have to fill in the empty slots at B and C.
To achieve this ability, spend time doing contingency planning.  Think of the worst challenge you could have tomorrow morning and chart a course to the solution marking all the significant “decision points” along the way. 
Finally, bounce-back individuals usually have an active spiritual life.  I need to clarify, I am not pitching “religion” (the practice of one’s personal faith), rather “spirituality” (the need to find Someone larger than us).
When the bottom falls out, we are all looking for Someone to catch us.  The refrain you will hear from others in those gauzy, hopeless moments normally will be, “You will be in my thoughts and prayers.”  Thoughts are private; prayers are a series of divine RSVP’s.
Who the Someone is for each of us is private and always a personal choice.  Whether or not we can find Someone, I am convinced, is critical when we need to bounce back.
On this last strategy, I would not be writing these words, breathing in and out or finding daily personal fulfillment in my life, family or work if I could not find Someone behind the curtains of my days.  When I have to pull myself up by my bootstraps, and I cannot find them…when I have tried everything and everything doesn’t cut it…when I need to bounce back after hitting bottom, I will gladly admit I need Someone….