I CAN barely believe it was almost a year ago that I wrote about the fact we were living in a VUCA world – volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous.

Covid was relatively new and we had to cope with health fears while getting to grips with our work and home lives being turned upside down.

We were in the Brexit transition period with trade deal uncertainty, and I discussed the climate emergency, optimistically assuming COP26 would still be going ahead in some form last year, though of course it was later postponed.

At the time I recommended using the Kubler-Ross Change Curve, with its seven stages of grief, as a way to manage uncertainty and work through those complex times.

With this past year having been somewhat of a rollercoaster of emotion for many, I’m going to recommend revisiting it, because it can also be an incredibly useful tool to help you do something else – build resilience.

Grief is not solely an emotion we feel if we lose somebody – although tragically many have had to deal with that as a result of the pandemic. There is an array of other situations that can make us feel a sense of loss and, right now, even as the green shoots of recovery appear, almost all of us are grieving some aspects of our ways of life.

Business, family and social life are totally different, or even non-existent for some. The phrase “new normal” is a misnomer, as it feels anything but.

We’ve been through shock, denial and stages of blame and most of us are teetering between what the Change Curve calls Stage 5 – immobilisation – and Stage 6, acceptance, before we can move forwards at Stage 7.

The immobilisation phase is a frightening one where we can feel depression and confusion, which in turn can cause inertia, and often the longer we stay in that phase, the harder it can be to escape it and get out the other side.

But as we do so and start to rebuild in Stage 6, this can be the optimum time to put a real focus on building resilience.

Award-winning speaker and thought leader Marcus Child explains the five fibres of resilience – physical, social, emotional, mental and spiritual – and advises we make a concerted effort to nurture each one. They are in fact all interconnected and building two or three can really impact your all-round levels of resilience.

Physical doesn’t mean you have to climb a mountain...even a simple walk can be nature’s best medicine. Focus on progress, not perfection, and you’ll see that getting active can have a range of knock-on effects such as building your emotional strength, melting away stresses and boosting your enthusiasm.

The social side is trickier right now, but you don’t need to throw a party to tick this box. Talk to your neighbour over the fence. Phone your friends. Take some time to have non-work chat with colleagues. It all contributes.

Cultivate your passions, spend more time doing things you love, and challenge yourself to learn new things. One of my heroes, Brené Brown, is a firm believer that it’s important to keep challenging ourselves intellectually.

These ingredients combined can help you build a stronger and much more resilient you as you work your way through the Change Curve and become healthier, happier and more productive.

Last but not least, look out for those around you in case anyone else is stuck in that dangerous immobilisation phase. Simply reaching out and asking how someone is, or giving compliments or praise, can truly turn someone’s day around and help them become stronger too.

Laura Gordon is a CEO coach and group chair with Vistage International, a global leadership development network for CEOs