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Written By Tessa Warschaw for The Women's Leadership Exchange

Audrey broke away from her employer and went from a $300,000-a-year W-2 to a 1099 in her own interior design business.  She worked non-stop with passion and focus but continued to hire people who exploited her generous heart and inability to confront wasted time or money.  Now, with no buyer in sight, she faces closing her business yet continues to refocus on beginning the career of her dreams…a TV show related to design issues.

Katherine spent three years as a Pilates instructor to the rich and famous, bringing in a six-figure income along with a plethora of perks - parties, gifts, travel.  Then, suddenly, as her clients fell victim to Hollywood strikes and politics, Katherine found herself out of a job and with skyrocketing expenses.

Rita worked in advertising for years and experienced intermittent business success until one demanding client took her business through the roof.  Ignoring her own advice against putting all one’s energy into a single client, Rita took responsibility for her major mistake when her client left for another competitor and she had to start all over again.

Many small business women are in the same boat today because of the tight economy, cut-throat competitors, and errors in judgment.  One-million-dollar small businesses are struggling, yet we are all subject to the vagaries of life… the unexpected, which really tests our resiliency.

Everyday we must make the choice either to remain resilient or to fall back into mere survival, which is a way to walk backwards as you drag your feet forward.  Women in survival will spend time, energy, and money to reinvent the past – trying to solve new problems in old ways.  Staying in the present and moving forward is resiliency.  Resilient women make a choice everyday to stay out of fear.

I have long studied women who make it  - and those who don’t - and have come to the conclusion that those who are resilient find ways to thrive in any changing environment.   Resilient women:

    * Do what they don’t want to do on the days they don’t want to do it.  They are accountable to self and others.
    * Maintain a Resiliency Mindset – a state of readiness, willing to unlearn
    * Demonstrate a Spirit of Generosity - willing to give something away - time, feedback, compliments, expertise, ideas, compassion.
    * Collaborate.  They view win/win as a way of life - with company, customer, community, staff, clients, family, partners.
    * Have a spiritual connection that supports their resiliency.

These businesswomen are not immune to stress. Stress surrounds us daily – from loss of a contract or a partner to staff turnover, financial needs, or caring for an ailing spouse or elderly parent.  Resilient women just make it look easy.  Like the long-distance runner, they pace themselves to avoid burn-out.  By measuring and allocating your time, energy and resources, rather than exhausting them in frantic bursts, you create more resiliency.

Resiliency is hope; the absence of it is hopelessness.  When you choose to build the skills and practice the behaviors that will help you bounce back from setbacks, you are choosing Life. And in my mind the true definition of resiliency is an “unambivalent commitment to life.”

Tessa Albert Warschaw, Ph.D., is a psychotherapist/coach, seminar leader, and speaker specializing in corporate negotiating strategies, entrepreneurial negotiating, and life coaching.  Among the books she has written is Resiliency: How to Bounce Back Faster, Stronger, Smarter.  Warschaw also founded Big Thinking Women, Unlimited, a community of productive, motivated, philanthropic women, 50+yrs, who are committed to redefining age, creating a legacy, and becoming a force. Learn more at www.bigthinkingwomen.com.