Nearly two years of downtime: How does that change the resilience of visitors and employees?
Every crisis brings with it psychological challenges. The best example is the COVID 19 pandemic: everyday life takes place almost exclusively at home, social contacts shrink to a small circle and compensatory hobbies cannot be pursued at the moment. In addition, many employees in the event industry have been on short-time work for more than a year.
But what if events are allowed to take place again on „X“ date? What impact will this have on people who, after one, perhaps even two years of social isolation, are suddenly expected to live and work „normally“ again? Will six to seven day weeks and long double shifts be the norm (again) after two depriving years and tens of postponed fairs, concerts, festivals and weddings? At this point, resilience can help deal with crisis situations and prepare us for stressful, unpredictable situations because: Mental resilience can be learned.
What is resilience?
Resilience refers to the inner resistance or inner strength that helps to survive crisis situations as unscathed as possible. It is more than just a trait or an innate characteristic. Resilience can be trained over a longer period of time and helps not only to cope better with major crises, but also to face life’s challenges without suffering mental health problems.
The seven resilience keys
A variety of character traits and attitudes help people respond constructively to stress instead of becoming paralyzed. Resilience can be broken down into seven so-called resilience keys. These describe factors that have a positive effect on how people deal with stressful situations.
Resilience key one: Acceptance
Accept situations that you cannot change yourself. As humans, we have positive, negative and neutral experiences every day. Recognizing that the whole spectrum is part of our human experience and makes us the person we are helps us deal with stress better.
Instead of blaming others for one’s own experiences, it is important to embrace them and accept them as they are. A negative experience is only ultimately negative if you don’t learn anything from it. Recognizing that even negative or challenging experiences are valuable teachers is the first step to gaining something positive from even crisis situations and learning new strategies for the future.
Resilience key two: Optimism
Do you have an optimistic or a pessimistic attitude towards the world? Is the glass half-full for you instead of half-empty? Are you an optimist and consciously choose to perceive the positive aspects of a situation instead of focusing on the negative? Pessimists often have a negative attitude towards life, optimists perceive their environment appreciatively and gratefully. With this attitude, the focus remains on the beautiful aspects of life despite a crisis situation. And your own satisfaction increases.
By the way, you can work on your own optimism. It takes a little time and practice, but it will enrich your life in the long run. The next time you feel rejection and frustration, take a step back and ask yourself what you can gain from the situation. Did you perhaps just learn something new? Is there an opportunity to expand your horizons or question your own values?
In times of the Corona virus, frustration can quickly arise. Realize that the current situation is for your protection – and for the protection of the people you love. How many people would like to trade places with you right now? You have enough food on the table, a roof over your head and people who care about you.
Resilience key three: Self-efficacy
Self-efficacy is your own awareness of having the necessary skills and abilities to achieve goals through your own actions. When faced with a stressful situation, you can analyze it and find an alternative course of action to achieve your goal anyway. Resilient people know their own needs and abilities and have confidence in themselves.
The following questions will help you find your self-efficacy and develop more resilience:
– What is important to you in life?
– What do you do to feel joy?
– What are you passionate about?
– What are you really good at?
Resilience key four: Responsibility
Why is your life the way it is? Is it always the fault of others – or do you take responsibility for your own decisions and life plans? Become active and take responsibility for how you shape your everyday life. What possibilities does the current situation offer? Start a new hobby, learn a language or read a book. It doesn’t matter: You have it in your own hands to feel good. Structure and routines help you to do this.
Resilience key five: Network orientation
What can you do today to be better off in the future? You will see how much more relaxed and happy you are when you make sure you are doing everything in your power to have a better future. Having goals and plans will also help you stay motivated in your daily life.
Even though restrictions are just being eased again, experts warn that the crisis is far from over. Even when our social circles have returned to normal size, we as a society will have to deal with the consequences of the Corona Crisis for much longer.
So how can we now prepare employees and visitors for the coming loosening and the new old daily business? What needs to be considered so that visitors as well as employees feel comfortable at events and „have space“ to also keep the personally desired distance? Is increased panic to be expected (even at smaller events) because people underestimate the confinement of an indoor concert? How will the event industry react in the future to visitors who wear masks, as well as to those who don’t want to wear one (anymore)? How accommodating do you want to be when booked tickets want to be exchanged or how should you deal with service personnel who no longer want to move through crowds of people?
Personal resilience skills will be a critical factor in how we recover as a society. There is already a small industry for this in the UK, such as the EventWell agency. This offers holistic consulting and concepts for „feel-good“ events.
The IST Study Institute is offering a webinar on the topic of business resilience on Wednesday, 07 July 2021. More information is available here: https://www.ist.de/aktion/1302
A webinar is also planned with IST lecturer Alexandra Löwe, who will specifically address the topic of „Resilience in the Event Industry“. Are you interested? Then register here (https://www.ist-hochschule.de/aktion/1311). We will let you know when the planning for this continues.
