Mastering Resilience: The Impact of Metacognition, Journaling, and Daily Rituals on Personal Growth

Julie South [00:00:05]:
You're listening to the Vetstaff podcast, the place where you, the veterinary professional, can go to get your head screwed on straight so you can get excited about going to work on Monday mornings and being the most fantabulous version of you you can be. I'm your show host, Julie south, and this is episode one six nine. We are continuing with the eleven part, well, it's actually twelve part, but today is part eleven on developing one of your secret superpowers, your resilience quotient. Today we are talking about metacognition, reflection, and growth. We're going to look at how you can turn previous setbacks into opportunities for you to bounce forward different ways you can reflect, including journaling. And if you've just rolled your eyes here, please bear with me because I'm going to share how I think all the teeny, tiny, incy wincy, dinky baby steps that I've been taking over the last however many years have saved me from going into total meltdown and total breakdown over the last three weeks. So I invite you to keep listening and to keep an open mind. Now, if you do want to improve your resilience levels, then please check out this episode page at Vetstaff Co.

Julie South [00:01:37]:
NZ podcast because that's where you'll find all the links from today for you to check out. Remember, please, that resilience isn't a one and done fix. One thing in your life that may be broken, and that's it. It's a mosaic. It's a jigsaw of lots of interwoven and interconnected cogs and components and moving parts that all fit together stronger than ever. That make you stronger than ever when you fit them together. Resilience. Let's face it.

Julie South [00:02:10]:
Life works much better when we have it. Fortitude. Call it whatever you want, but think of it as a muscle. One that lets you flex, bend, and bounce forward no matter what life and or work throws at you. For when you have those pear shaped moments, those pear shaped events in your life, like I had over Christmas and the new year, it gives you the gritty grace under pressure. It's your inner strength that keeps you steady when the going gets rough and tough. Have you ever wondered what makes some people bounce forward from setbacks stronger than ever before, while others crumble, need medication and fall apart? Or perhaps you felt like you're just one stressor away from burning out or melting down? What if there's a skill that you could learn in a toolbox that you can dip into to prevent that? Well, there is. And that's what this series is all about because it's called resilience and it can be both learned, strengthened and used whenever you need it.

Julie South [00:03:23]:
Righty metacognition, journaling and reflection let's kick off with what each of these mean so you and I are both on the same page. Metacognition, or thinking about thinking is key to resilience because it allows you to accurately, to truly, hopefully assess and monitor your own thought processes, emotions and your own coping strategies. When you have this level of self awareness, it means you're better situated to respond to adverse events, those pear shaped events, in a composed, thoughtful and a considered way, rather than reacting impulsively. The operative word here when your metacognition skills are strong is respond. You respond versus react. When you respond, it means that you're in control. When you react, you're out of control. You end up having shoe sized moments when you act like a child rather than your chronological age.

Julie South [00:04:37]:
Journaling is the practice of regularly keeping a personal journal or a diary, a place where you write about your thoughts, your feelings, your experiences and your observations on a regular basis, hopefully as close to daily as possible. When you journal, you have a powerful opportunity to process your emotions, to reflect on life's events, to work through challenges. And if you keep your journals or diaries, you can then read back on them, reflect on them to track your personal growth over time, which leads us to self reflection, which is the process of purposefully thinking about and analyzing your own thoughts, feelings and behaviors. It involves critically examining your actions, reactions, motivations and values through introspection. The goal of self reflection is for you to get wisdom, to gain insights into yourself, and to grow personally by learning from past experiences. Common self reflective practices can include contemplation, meditation, expressive writing, and critical thinking. Exercises where you consciously consider your character, your life choices and your areas for self improvement. The origins of journaling can be traced back centuries with diaries and personal logs being kept since we believe at least about the 10th century.

Julie South [00:06:12]:
During the Renaissance period in Europe, journaling became more popular as a means for people to record their daily lives and write about their innermost thoughts and feelings. Keeping a journal was viewed as an important self reflective practice even back then. However, the concept of journaling as a wellness and a mental health tool really began taking shape and gaining legs in the 20th century. Last century, in the 1960s and 70s, influenced by the personal development movement, journaling started to become recognized as a therapeutic activity that could raise someone's self awareness and help emotional healing. Over the last few decades, research has demonstrated the wide ranging benefits of expressive writing for both mental and physical health. This has further validated journaling as an impactful and a meaningful wellness tool. Journaling has become especially prevalent for building resilience, reducing stress, working through trauma, coping with challenges, and tracking our own personal development and growth. There are squillions of apps, well, lots of apps and websites dedicated specifically to journaling.

Julie South [00:07:37]:
As stress mounts, metacognition helps you recognize when your thinking becomes irrational, counterproductive, and hopefully stops you shooting yourself in the foot. Metacognition means that you can consciously adjust your mindset, reframe if you like, and use better coping mechanisms. This way of emotional self regulation is vital. It's critical for resilience. Journaling and self reflection go hand in hand to naturally help strengthen your metacognitive skills. How is that? Great question. Thank you for asking. When you're writing down about peer shaped events, you can't help, I hope, but analyze how you attempted to reason through the event and then whether certain thought patterns enabled you to rebound and bounce forward or made you more vulnerable.

Julie South [00:08:38]:
When you do this repeatedly, this conscious evaluation reinforces and strengthens your metacognitive skills. Each time you do it, each time builds on the time prior. Similarly, when you reflect on past experiences, it means you have to examine how you previously made sense of adversity of that peer shaped event. You can then assess the impact, for better or worse, of different coping strategies and mechanisms and thinking traps that you have going on in your life in your head. It's having these insights that help inform about how you might approach similar situations in the future in a different or perhaps the same the same way going forward to improve and strengthen your resilience. Let's face it, you'd be pretty crazy if you reflected on what you did, on what worked or didn't work in a given situation and then consciously knowing this went out and did the exact same thing that didn't work. That'd be crazy, wouldn't it? You might be thinking, you might be wondering, is all of this journaling stuff grounded in science, Julie? Or is it some out there cosmic new age woo woo thinking? Great question, and I'm so pleased that you asked. When it comes to journaling, research conducted by psychologist James Penny Baker in the 1980s explored the benefits of expressive writing.

Julie South [00:10:23]:
His studies revealed that individuals who engaged in journaling about traumatic experiences for 15 to 20 minutes per session. Over a few sessions, multiple sessions experienced various positive outcomes. These included improved immune system functioning, reduced doctor visits, and enhanced academic performance, all good things to have and to want. Then, in the 1990s and early 2000s, researchers began investigated journaling as a stress management technique. These findings indicated that journaling can help us humans cope better with stressful events, particularly those related to transitions or life traumas. Journaling has been shown to reduce anxiety, improve working memory, and enhance overall well being. And then more recently, positive psychology research has shed light on the benefits of journaling for personal growth, for personal development, and for resilience. Regular journaling now it doesn't have to be daily, but more often than not, please regular journaling helps with developing your sense of gratitude, self compassion, emotional intelligence and gives you a sense of meaning in your life.

Julie South [00:11:57]:
It also enables you to set goals, raise your levels of optimism, and reframe negative thought patterns. Overall, research shows that journaling has many advantages as a psychological intervention. When we write expressively through journaling, the positive side effects on our physical and our emotional health, our stress management, our personal growth and our overall well being are measurable. It's been proven to be a really valuable tool for processing traumatic events, for coping with stress, for strengthening our resilience, and again, our levels of personal development. My own research considered almost 60 different sources for this episode that got narrowed down to about 30. I'll put the most relevant links@vetstaffpodcast.com and Vetstaff co nz for you to have a look at yourself. If you are interested in those now, how do you go about turning setbacks into bouncing forward? Here are seven quick, easy ways that you can turn setbacks, those blips on your radar of life, into opportunities for you to grow. The first one is to reframe your mindset and your attitude, which means rather than seeing a setback as a failure or a disaster, instead view it as a chance to learn, adapt and develop new skills.

Julie South [00:13:39]:
You need to look at things from different ways. Number two is analyze. Reflect on what went wrong. As a veterinary professional, analyzing situations is one of your stocks in trade. It's something that you are good at and you just get better at it's skill that you already have. This time, though, you need to carefully reflect on what factors created this setback without self blame. Look at the situation dispassionately. What events took place? What could you have done differently if you could do it all over again? How did a result in b? Look for the root causes and your own responsibility in the event.

Julie South [00:14:25]:
Realistically. Number three, learn from your or the mistakes. They may not have been your mistakes, but at least learn from them, please. Again, being totally dispassionate. Study the experience to understand what you could improve or do differently next time. If you had the time over again, what would you do differently? What would you say differently? Setbacks can provide if we give them invaluable lessons, but you've got to be open to them. Number four, strategize alternatives. Brainstorm other approaches, other solutions, other contingencies, other plan B's that you can have ready if you were to face the same event again.

Julie South [00:15:15]:
Get creative and get wild with your ideas. Just to see what different ideas, different strategies, different tactics might be available to you next time around. Number five, seek outside input. Get feedback from those whom you trust. Mentors, colleagues, friends, maybe even coaches, if you have one. External perspectives can provide you with even greater clarity if you ask for them. The operative word is if they can't. If you don't.

Julie South [00:15:50]:
Number six, update your plans. Use the insights you've discovered through this exercise of reflection to adjust your goals, plans, and next steps accordingly. Continually course correct to allow for your progress. Because like I said before, I think it was Albert Einstein. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is a definition of insanity. Now, finally, build resilience. Setbacks test your resilience. When you're up to your neck in alligators, remember to use self care to practice self care to talk to yourself nicely and positively.

Julie South [00:16:36]:
Allow your support systems to help you maintain motivation during those difficult times with an open, flexible attitude focused on progress over perfection. Hello, veterinary professional. Who's likely to be an a type overachieving perfectionist? I'm watching you and I'm talking to you here. Look at any setbacks as a catalyst to develop your personal and your professionals evolution. Remember, we want progress over perfection. I know. Who wants to go through stuff that requires resilience? None of us do. But remember, please, that each pear shaped event makes you wiser and better prepared and more resilient for future challenges on your road of growth and life.

Julie South [00:17:34]:
I started this episode by talking about how I believed. It's only because of the little resiliency jigsaw pieces that I've put into place in my life over the last however many centuries that got me through the three weeks from Christmas to mid January. Without going into total meltdown. Pear shaped events happened that I totally hadn't planned for or even anticipated that I needed to plan for. The plan was to give both Kajal and Tanya a well deserved three week break over Christmas and new year. Historically at Vetstaff, it's a slower period. One I've been able to handle solo comfortably. However, the best play plans of mice and men right before they left at Christmas, Tanya and Kajal both joked that we'd be busier than ever.

Julie South [00:18:28]:
I think they tempted fate because we were. We were busy. We were beyond busy. We were manic busy, but not in a way that I'd thought it might even be possible to be busy. Instead, multiple series of challenges arose that collectively and cumulatively created the perfect doozy of a perfect lifestorm. At Vetstaff, just leading into Christmas, we were managing some complex recruitment projects that Tanya had left tidy, with instructions on what I needed to do to finish everything up so that our wonderful clients and our wonderful job seekers could start 2024 getting excited about going to work on Monday mornings again. Nothing I couldn't handle things I've done hundreds of times before. But then no sooner had Kajal and Tanya left for Christmas, the phone started ringing, which is great, exactly what we want at Vetstaff.

Julie South [00:19:31]:
But it just seemed to get busier and busier at the same time. My own Christmas plans started to fray at the edges. A last minute roster change for my airline pilot husband meant juggling logistics neither of us had planned for and time apart when we were meant to be together. Then the first of two family health crisis emerged. Instead of a pot like Christmas, where all I had to take care of was making a salad, I ended up doing all the meals in a kitchen that wasn't mine. The second health crisis was when my wonderful mother in law took ill, requiring hospitalization and difficult medical decisions that no one ever wants to have to make to have surgery or not. Alan and I clocked up thousands of unplanned 4, cooked yet more meals in another kitchen that wasn't mine, all the while marveling at how wonderfully busy Vetstaff had suddenly become. I lost count of how many seven hour return trips we made backwards and forwards on pothole ridden roads, including another chip to windscreen, the fourth in just a couple of years.

Julie South [00:20:49]:
I lost count of the number of the lovely vets and nurses I interviewed over that three week period. I lost count of the number of podcasts I recorded sitting in the car with a chipwindscreen in the hospital car park so I could meet publication deadlines. The weather was foul. The roads were foul. Alan and I were both tired, stressed and stretched to the max. Emotionally stretched to the max. Alan and his sisters were keeping a 24 hours vigil at their mum's bedside. All this time, I was doing my best to be there for him, for all our job seekers who knew nothing about what was going on in the background.

Julie South [00:21:33]:
And then to be at Alan's side. Has he held it together amazingly well and did his mum proud with his eulogy at her funeral. The perfect storm had struck. I honestly believe that what saved me from total meltdown was building, growing, cultivating all the individual resiliency jigsaw pieces that I've talked about on this podcast so far that I've worked on developing and strengthening over the years. I believe it was these that sheltered me, that protected me, that strengthened me. The twelve plus years of daily journaling, the decades long habit of reframing, of always looking for the light in dark situations, my daily attitude of gratitude posts, of looking for more or each day, every day of walking, every single day. Rain, hail, shine. As at recording this today I'm counting down to consecutive day number 900 of remembering to breathe and to focus only on what I could control, of triaging on a daily basis, sometimes hour by hour, of getting up early each morning so that I could get direct sunlight into my eyes.

Julie South [00:22:54]:
During this perfect pear shaped storm. I was even more diligent about walking at dawn because there's plenty of evidence to support how good early morning sunlight is for us humans. I beefed up how I used the four ds of time management and decision making. Delegate, do, delete, defer. I became the master of creating holding patterns which gave me enough breathing space to do what I could do with what I had. I honestly believe that because I have years of doing all of this, playing with the different resiliency jigsaw pieces, this and these enabled me to persevere through turmoil without melting down. I could feel the stress building day by day. I could feel that.

Julie South [00:23:44]:
I'm not denying that. But somehow, automatically, I was actually okay. I just kept breathing. I knew that the storm wasn't going to last forever. I knew that Tanya and Kaja would return to work and that this too would pass. It did feel like a long three weeks, but I honestly believe that I've come out the other side. I'm out of the dark and I'm back into the light. My tried and true resiliency strengthened rituals gave me the mental ballast that I needed at that time.

Julie South [00:24:20]:
The protection that I needed, the strength that I needed. The ability and the skills to dig deep again and again to get through. While I hope never to go through that again, I know I can cope and I can bounce forward again if I need to. Like I've done other times. That on reflection, those three weeks proved to me, just how vital, intentionally strengthening and then banking our inner resources can be when we need them most so that we can tap into that bank. Because I've been adding new habits, new strategies, routines into my life just one at a time. Slowly, cumulatively, I've been able to make each of them into a habit and keep them all going collectively and cumulatively, they've just given me an exponential return on their investment of time and perseverance over the years in this last three weeks. This stuff works.

Julie South [00:25:31]:
How did I do it and how can you do it? Thank you for asking that great question. Here's how I've slowly added different tactics, different habits into my life to build my metacognition, my journaling, and my reflection abilities to strengthen my resilience. Daily walk come hell, hail, sun, rain or shine, I go for a walk every single day. My morning walk is just around the block. At the moment, it's just around the block because I'm nursing an injury. This single walk isn't enough to reach the minimum recommended daily levels, but I do what I do with what I have. I'm not beating myself up about how I could see this as being a failure because I'm not doing enough enough in air quotes. Instead, I focus on what I do do rather than how I fall short or what I don't do before I go to bed each night, I get my walking gear out and ready.

Julie South [00:26:40]:
Most of the time I'm now dressed with my shoes laced up, ready to walk before I even realize what I've done, maybe even before I'm awake. Sometimes the habit is formed. I think it took me on reflection, I think it took me about 90 to 100 daily walks for the habit to set in to form, to have strong roots in my life. What keeps me going now is that I haven't missed a day in 876 days. I don't want to start again from zero. So each morning I walk. On those days when I don't feel like walking, which happens from time to time, I remind myself that if I skip today, then tomorrow I'm going to be back to zero again. And I wouldn't be very impressed with myself if I had to start from the beginning again.

Julie South [00:27:31]:
So all I'm suggesting for you is that you do something simple, a simple exercise like walking. Get some activity into your day, something easy, and prepare for it the night before so that the hurdle in the morning is partially overcome. All you have to do is lace up and open the front door. When I get back from my walk, I feed my birds and I top up their water baths for me. I get a huge sense of wonder from doing this, but it's not rocket science, it's just some simple thing. There are a couple of cock sparrows who are getting quite brave. They're waiting for me now each morning. They're so used to me doing this that they don't even flinch when I'm faffing around with their food and water.

Julie South [00:28:20]:
They're getting closer and closer, braver and braver. I love this. They fill me up with awe and wonder and that's a great way to start my day. Then I come inside and I make my coffee. I do this in a very mindful, almost ritualistic way. It's nothing flash. I don't have an expensive coffee machine. It's just a single one cup french press, a plunger.

Julie South [00:28:48]:
I know how to make a good brew with plenty of crema. I have a ritual. I heat up the cup and I make the coffee. I enjoy doing this. I'm totally focused on what I'm doing when I'm doing it. A very mindful ritual. I make sure that I focus on enjoying it, on smelling the coffee each morning, of watching the crema, of plunging, of pouring, smelling. Like I said, it's a fully mindful thing for me.

Julie South [00:29:21]:
Then I journal daily one of the reasons my morning walk isn't very long is because I want to make and take time to write up my daily journal entry. My attitude of gratitude post my more awe post. This takes me around 15 to 20, maybe 30 minutes. This year my focus is on having more or in my life awe or. Which sometimes means that I have to reframe things, especially when things don't go exactly to plan. I've been journaling since forever, but daily for about the last 1012 years or so, I've got shelves of boring old page a day diaries and beautiful journals that friends have gifted me over the years. Last year I realized, well, the year before I realized that they're starting to take up too much room. So last year I started posting on Instagram and Facebook.

Julie South [00:30:22]:
This year I'm going to be adding LinkedIn to that routine. So if you want an idea of what my more or posts look like, what my attitude of gratitude is about how I reframe, then please connect with me on LinkedIn. I'll put my profile link in the show notes for you. At the same time as I am writing up my more or attitude to gratitude post, I'm sipping my coffee just like I make it reverently and mindfully. So do I sip it that way? The first hour or so of each morning is important to me. It sets me up for the rest of the day. Right now, I'm putting the steps in place to start building another habit. Pilates.

Julie South [00:31:08]:
I plan to add about ten to 15 minutes of pilates into my morning routine. I'm going to play around to see where it fits best before my walk or after it. I'm expecting that to take around 90 to 100 days to become a habit as well. So we'll see. I'm putting the plan in place to ensure I succeed. I talked about how to do this in episode one. Five four links in the show notes for that too. So coupled with these habits, I also have the mindset of this too will pass.

Julie South [00:31:45]:
I always look for the positive in the negative. Sometimes that means stopping and visualizing and making sure that I'm looking at something from many different angles. The something will be the problem, the challenge, whatever it is. I put the problem on the floor in front of me, visually, in my mind's eye. And then I walk around it in my mind's eye so that I can see it from different perspectives. I deliberately put it on the floor so that it's smaller than me, it's below me. It helps take the teeth, the bite out of it. I reframe.

Julie South [00:32:20]:
I deliberately find a positive way of stating whatever it is that's causing me stress. That takes practice. It's lots of practice. And each time you do it, it just grows. So those are some of the things that I've practiced and that work for me over the years, which I believe give me a really strong level of resilience. Coupled with that is that I know. And I believe that when I get through each pear shaped event, I'm only going to be stronger than I was before. I hope this has helped.

Julie South [00:33:00]:
This year I'm going to be holding resiliency strengthening workshops. If you'd like to join the waitlist for those, then visit Vetstaff Co NZ resilience to register your interest so you'll be the first to know as soon as the doors open. Vetstaff co NZ resilience. That link will also be in the notes page for this episode. I really do hope that you found this helpful. If you did, can I ask you to do me a favor, please? Can you please help me spread the Vetstaff podcast word by telling three of your friends or colleagues about how this show helps veterinary professionals get their heads screwed on straight so they can get excited. So you can get excited about going to work on Monday mornings. Thank you.

Julie South [00:33:53]:
If you enjoyed today's episode, then please hit that follow button wherever you're listening to this right now, because that means that you'll automatically receive next week's episode direct into your audio feed, and it means that you won't miss out. I look forward to spending time with you again next week, where we're going to wrap up this series of how to strengthen your resilience quotient by giving you the Reader's digest version of the last eleven episodes in this resiliency series as a recap for you so that you've got everything in one place. Until then, this is Julie south signing off and inviting you to go out there and be the most fantabulous and resilient version of you you can be by screwing your head on straight so you can get excited about going to work on Monday mornings. The Vetstaff podcast is proudly powered by vetclinicjobs.com, the new and innovative global job board reimagining veterinary recruitment connecting veterinary professionals with clinics that shine online Vetclinicjobs.com is your goto resource for finding the perfect career opportunities and helping vet clinics power up their employer branding game. Visit vetclinicjobs.com today to find vet clinics that shine on online so veterinary professionals can find them. Vetclinicjobs.com.