The Women Who Keep Building:Transforming Your Stress into Resilience 

Words Barbara Akinkunmi

Across the construction industry, many of us are now working remotely or not working at all due to furlough, in order to reduce risk to businesses and individuals across the UK. What is your response to the current crisis?

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Our natural response would be worry and to have anxiety due to the quick change in our working lifestyle and environment. Not to mention the uncertainty of what happens next. As we know, the majority of construction roles depend on active site running. Although the pandemic has formed many of us to be placed on furlough or other government help schemes. However, instead of discouragement, let’s take a different response. Resilience is the intentional approach needed to journey through this crisis.

Resilience is usually seen as your ability to recover quickly from failure or difficulty, but it is actually a measure of how you enter, navigate through and exit a crisis! It is your capacity to continuously re-align your focus whilst balancing the reality of the situation with optimism. Emotional resilience helps us survive with change and manage stress. We all have the ability to develop these core resilience skills and what better time to put those skills into action. The real benefit of working on these skills is that while building our own resilience muscle, we are also inspiring and enabling others who are currently hopeless and disheartened to do the same. There is no better time than now to develop and role model the type of female construction industry leader we can be.

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Staying Healthy: Mind & Body

During this crisis, it’s important that we take time to establish positive mental habits that reduce stress. In response to life’s challenging events and experiences, some individuals become overwhelmed whilst others react positively. The good thing is that resilience is a learned pattern of feelings, thoughts, and behaviours. You can bounce back from adversity and hardships, feeling stronger and more capable to cope than ever before. If you are currently struggling during the current crisis with difficult feelings, you don’t need to struggle alone. Offload your mind and speak to someone you can trust. Focus on getting through today one action at a time and do something productive that you usually enjoy. We may be women currently refrained from building the city, but that doesn’t stop or hinder us from continually building ourselves. Use this period to really develop yourself.

For those who are usually positive and resilient, take this period to also be a friend to someone and reach out to them - whether they are your colleagues, friends or family. You can reinforce the support systems around them and get through this period together! 

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Wellbeing Tips During This Time

1. Find a balance routine. Whilst you are at home, make sure that you keep active and maintain a balanced diet as part of your everyday activities. This will help you to break up your day and to maintain your  physical health. Eat well and stay hydrated.

2. Add structure to your day! Being at home can easily cause you to become lazy and fluctuate on your sleeping patterns. However, you can maintain a healthy routine by putting structure to your day, whether you are working from home or on furlough. Scheduling will also help you focus as it prevents you from procrastinating. Being out of work does not mean you should lose your discipline towards time management and productivity gained at work.

3. Create a productive working environment. It can be very tempting to work from your bed, however you will be more productive and focused within a structured environment. Working in an uncluttered and relatively calm environment will help you maximise your productivity during these ‘stay at home’ days.

4. Communicate! Do not let isolation stop you from speaking to people. Conversations are a very important factor in maintaining your wellbeing, so occasionally speak to friends, families and even colleagues. Voice out your struggles and anything you're dealing with to someone you trust instead of keeping it in.

Barbara Akinkunmi - Technical Designer