Self Composure and Situational Awareness Skills for Resiliency
Self Composure and Situational Awareness skills are critical aspects of growing your Resiliency Quotient. In this episode of the Vet Staff Podcast Julie South explains some of the why and how.
Keeping Your Cool: Growing Your Self-Composure
Overview
In this week’s VetStaff Podcast episode, host Julie South continues the resilience series by focusing on the importance of self-composure. She explains why staying calm under pressure is a critical skill for personal and professional success and happiness. Julie then provides practical tips and tools for strengthening self-composure using the acronym TRIGGERS.
The High Costs of “Shoe Size Moments”
Julie opens by describing the high costs of losing one’s composure by having “shoe size moments” – emotional meltdowns where adults essentially act their shoe size rather than age.
These temper tantrums are embarrassing for all involved and create negative ripple effects across relationships and workplaces. Unfortunately, Julie has seen many examples of these episodes first-hand from a principal lawyer to clients to volatile colleagues.
Why Developing Self-Composure Matters
In contrast, self-composure refers to managing emotions, thinking clearly, and responding appropriately even when situations become difficult or stressful.
Along with resilience overall, strong self-composure skills help us perspective take, self-regulate behaviour, adjust tactics to handle unpredictable events, and bounce back quicker from adversity.
As Julie emphasises, this gritty grace under pressure and inner strength is what separates those who crumble from those who thrive during challenges.
The TRIGGERS System for Enhancing Self-Composure
The second half of the episode outlines the TRIGGERS framework for recognising personal triggers and actively improving self-composure:
T – Take notice of meltdown times and patterns
R – Record reactions and responses
I – Identify other contributing stressors
G – Cultivate gratitude
G – Get outdoors
E – Examine thoughts
R – Recognise physical sensations
S – Strengthen Situational Awareness
These steps raise self-awareness of our buttons and baselines while providing tools like gratitude, getting outside, thought training, and breathwork to self-soothe before we reach the boiling point.
Start Building Your Resiliency Today
Julie closes by emphasising the value of applying TRIGGERS daily to grow self-composure skills over time until they become unconscious habits we can tap whenever pressure mounts.
Combined with past podcast resilience tools like managing imposter syndrome, any veterinary professional can screw their head on straight, get excited for Mondays again, and be the best version of themselves through turbulent times by growing their Resiliency Quotient.
So whether you want to avoid embarrassing meltdowns or model maturity for others, make sure to listen to this episode on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music or your favourite podcast app!
And stay tuned as Julie continues equipping veterinary professionals to get their heads screwed on straight so they can get excited about going to work on Monday mornings.
Links Mentioned in this Episode:
Research
Seligman, M. E. P., Steen, T. A., Park, N., & Peterson, C. (2005). Positive psychology progress: Empirical validation of interventions. American Psychologist, 60(5), 410-421.
Wood, A. M., Maltby, J., Stewart, S., Linley, P. A., & Joseph, S. (2009). The role of gratitude in the development of social support, stress, and depression: Two longitudinal studies. Journal of Research in Personality, 43(6), 1193-1203.
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Other Vet Staff Episodes Worth Listening to
ep 157 – Resiliency Quotient pt 1
ep 158 – Resiliency Quotient pt 2
Ep 159 – Resiliency Quotient – pt 3
EP 160 – Resiliency Quotient – pt 4
Ep 161 – Resiliency Quotient – pt 5
Ep 162 – Resiliency Quotient – pt 6
ep 39 – 12 Statements Low EQ People Make
ep 40 – Emotional Intelligence – 6 Ways to Lead as an Emotionally Intelligent Leader
ep 145 – Exploring Social Intelligence – A Key to Personal and Professional Development
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