Enthusiasm is a common trait in leadership, but endurance is rare. If you are serious about building resilient organizations during an economic downturn, you have to be consistent in your actions until they evolve into resilience. 

Building resilience can help you deal with stress, endure hardship, and look forward to better times, whether you are facing a personal crisis, a global crisis, or a mix of both.

Building resilience to endure economic downturn: 5 helpful ideas

Every hardship can be endured. There are techniques to help calm the choppy waves and recover a sense of control, even though there is no way to prevent obstacles, struggle, or distress in business or in life.

Start by reevaluating your “why.” Does your “why” still serve your purpose? It must be so powerful that reaching the goal becomes a non-negotiable. Only then you are going to be prepared to make the necessary sacrifices in order to achieve the vision that you have for yourself.

Here are 5 ways to endure hardships during an economic downturn:

1. Channel ruthless honesty

The key to building resilient organizations is by being honest with yourself and your team. How well do you know yourself? Many of us aren’t willing to accept our weaknesses. Part of the reason why is that we are not being intentional with the people we surround ourselves with. Our circle of people needs to be relevant to our journey and our roadmap. It’s so important to cultivate the right circle of people around us, especially during an economic downturn. 

2. Believe in yourself and your team

The second question you need to answer is, “Do you actually believe in yourself?” If you don’t, you have to figure out why. People often say that they believe in themselves, but their actions demonstrate the opposite. Looking at your past can help you change your limiting belief systems. 

If you don’t believe enough in yourself and your team, look at the past and figure out what you can take from the negative things that happened. So many of us focus on the negative rather than looking at the positive outcomes. 

3. Focus on the solution, especially during economic downturn

Thirdly, you have to become a master of problem-solving. But if you develop problem-solving skills, you will be able to look back on your journey and pick out the positive. You will become unstoppable. Look at all of the examples of how your team overcame hurdles and use those processes again as you move forward. 

4. Step out of your comfort zone

Enduring hardships and evolving yourself always involves some kind of risk, especially during an economic downturn. Therefore, we all have to figure out what we are prepared to take a risk for. First and foremost, you must determine what “great” looks like for you. If you do that, you’ll be able to move out of your comfort zone to achieve your vision. Most business owners don’t want to spend time outside of their comfort zones, since they’ve spent so much time trying to get there in the first place. 

5. Make learning a habit

Embrace learning as a constant in the process of growth. We should all be trying to focus on becoming the best version of ourselves. You will only want to bet on yourself if you think it’s worth the bet. 

Building resilient organizations during economic downturn

Reassess your vision. If you don’t have clarity about your vision, you will not be prepared to take the risks that are involved in achieving it. Step outside of your comfort zone to find what matters to you. 

Finally, after setting a goal, you have to systemize the process and build the strategy to achieve it. You do that by building on previous achievements. This way, you validate the fact that you have the resources needed to achieve your next milestone.