THE RESILIENCE PLAN

Pelletier presents a comprehensive plan for avoiding burnout and enhancing well-being in this self-help guide.

“We don’t want an unrealistic plan that does not get implemented; we want a realistic plan that you start on today,” writes the author, a mental health expert, in her nonfiction debut. “Done is better than perfect, and when it comes to implementing changes and building self-efficacy, this is even more true.” She observes that most business leaders (her clear target audience) consider themselves tough, resilient people, and points out how dangerous this kind of thinking can be—specifically, how easily it can lead to burnout (Pelletier notes that pre-Covid-19 studies showed that only 8% of the working population took advantage of their corporate employers’ employee and family assistance programs). Productive, resilient people can’t just wing it, the author asserts; they need a strategy, and she provides one in these pages, built around a four-part framework that directs readers to consider the sources of their energy, assess the demands upon it, manage a balance according to values, and to contour the whole process to a specific context. Each chapter contains ample bullet points and “questions for reflection” designed to help readers along the process. Pelletier’s consistent tone of pragmatic optimism very effectively seeds the ground to make the goals outlined in her Daily Resilience Planner seem entirely within reach. Her frequent reminders to her readers that their foremost obstacles come from within (“unhelpful thoughts eat your best intentions for breakfast,” she writes) are a welcome change from the modern emphasis on external factors. The text clearly and forcefully lays out helpful strategies for extracting contentment from a day that pulls one in a dozen different directions, encouraging readers to take such mind-clearing measures as going on a short walk and pausing for a couple of minutes before tucking in to a meal. Advice like this, although familiar, is valuable.

A thoughtful if somewhat pat guide to focusing on resilience strategies.