How to Strengthen Your Support Network
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Lessons for Leaders
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Who do you go to for support? This is so important now, since we've been moving through lockdown and our support networks have been restricted. So this week I'm talking about how to strengthen your support network.
When we have people we can talk to and reach out to for support it lessens the load of what we are going through.
It also boosts our mood and feel good chemicals
This week I’m sharing how I get people on all my workshops thinking about support networks differently.
How support has benefitted me personally and
How you can think about gaps in your network
Dictionary definition of support network
“a group of people who provide emotional and practical help to someone in serious difficulty”
I believe they don’t have to be in serious difficult – it’s important to have a support network at all times.
When we were going through the adoption process they asked about our support network. We had to detail it out and it was something I’d never thought about before.
Listen in as I explain the differences I found with my support network during the adoption process and later life.
Find out who has been the most supportive person for me with great supportive qualities such as:
Listening
Not dismissing things
Sharing a story
Helping me feel it wasn't just me
Listen to the things I did when I realised I needed more support for adoption and later when I retrained too and why I felt compelled to do those things.
I really understand the value of support.
So today I want you to think about who is in your support network.
When I deliver my training on resilience, mental health, challenging conversations all of them have a section about your support network.
When we have people we can talk to and reach out for support it lessons the load of what we are going through – just like I did with the adoption support group. You don't have to explain, they just get it.
These are the common areas I look at with people and you can hear on the podcast more info around these too to help you consider if you need to strengthen the support there.
Family
Friends
Colleagues or Co-workers
Manager or other leader
Mentor or coach? (and listen in for the difference between a mentor and a coach)
Spiritual
Community
Many studies show that the primary factor in resilience is having caring and supportive relationships within and outside the family. Relationships that create love or trust and provide role models and offer encouragement and reassurance often help boost a person’s resilience.
Loneliness can take a toll on both mental and physical wellbeing. Having meaningful relationships through a support network helps us feel connected and valued as well as being able to learn from each other and feel that we’re not alone – even when surrounded by people we can feel alone if we feel like no-one understands or is not on our wave-length.
Who is in your support network and what types of support could they offer you. If you’re not getting the types of support you need, consider where this could come from.
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If you want to increase your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to [email protected] . Or head over to my website contact page and either send me an email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diaries.
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If you haven’t yet left a review, please do go and find the little button to leave a review and let me know your thoughts, key take-aways and what you value from the podcast.
Join my corporate leadership and wellbeing newsletter HERE
If you want to be increasing your performance so that you’re more resilient in these current times, so that you can focus easily, use tools and techniques to deal with all the current and unknown challenges then make sure that you either drop me an email to [email protected]. Or head over to my contact page and either send me a email from there or book an appointment straight into my diary – saving all that to-ing and fro-ing that you get when we try to get space in people’s diary.