In the Challenge of Change Resilience Training we define stress as ruminating about emotional upset, and there’s a question that is almost always asked: ‘Why do we ruminate?’  The widespread oversimplification of evolutionary processes leads many to assume that it is somehow embedded in our genes, and that it got there because when we lived in caves we had to be vigilant about the predators around us.  For a behaviour to evolve there has first to be an accident, a fault in DNA transcription.  This mutation will be selected for and passed on only if it enhances sexual selection or access to food – hence aggression is positively selected, since the more aggressive animal mates more often and more effectively chases competitors for food from its territory.

One of the fundamental principles of the Challenge of Change Resilience Training is that stress is not caused by people or situations but is the self-inflicted habit of ruminating about emotional upset.  Attributing your stress to something or someone else must inevitably make you a helpless victim of circumstance.  In fact, you have a choice whether or not you become stressed, but the view that stress is avoidable probably provokes more initial opposition from training participants than any of our key messages: “You should try working for my boss for a day!”; “You have no idea how stressful my job is!” 

This year, 2017, is being described as a time of uncertainty, but when was that not the case?  It is a truism that the one constant in life is change, but it is nonetheless true, and change unfolds into an unknown future.  The real point is that sometimes change suits us, sometimes it doesn’t, and because the costs and benefits of change are seen differently by different people, change is almost always divisive.  That need not necessarily be a bad thing: democracy depends on having an opposition to the establishment, which is why everyone in the UK ought to be concerned about the weakening of the Labour party.

Why do employees attend training sessions?  Motives are likely to mixed, but will range from a passionate interest in the topic to being told they had to go.  Not surprisingly, responses to training sessions are equally varied: ‘loved it’, ‘boring, waste of time’.  A trainer’s job is to meet the positive expectations of the enthusiasts and to show the sceptics that even mundane-seeming subjects can be both interesting and useful, but whatever the views of the participants, the real measure of the success of a training programme is the extent to which the new strategies are practised back in the workplace.