You’ve lost out on a promotion, failed an industry exam or been gazumped over the house of your dreams. How do you deal with such set-backs?

Are you immobilised by regret, disappointment or worry? Or do you quickly shrug it off and refocus on the future? 

These are not the kind of issues you expect to tackle while on holiday. But if you decide to attend Chartered Psychologist Graham W Price’s “Training and Sailing” course in the South of France, then be ready to learn how to shrug them off and come bouncing back with the resilience of the Duracell bunny.

Some coaches and development trainers argue there’s no such thing as failure, only learning opportunities.  Graham disagrees.  He advocates acceptance rather than attempting to ‘reframe’ the set back in a positive way The key to resilience is to be able to accept negative situations and events, at the same time as focusing on action to change and improve the future.

Graham points out that almost all negative thoughts, such as regret, unhappiness or stress involve wishing something were ‘already’ different. In other words we’re wishing something that’s happened hadn’t happened or that a situation that exists right now didn’t exist right now. Both are wishing for the impossible.  Wanting things to be already different is called ‘resisting what is’. The opposite is ‘accepting what is’, which simply means not wishing things were already different. Being able to ‘accept what is’ is the basis of resilience. It allows us to focus only on action to improve the future.

And this is just the start. As part of his ‘Power to Choose’ training in Port Grimaud, near glitzy St Tropez, in the South of France, Graham teaches a range of simple, easy-to-apply techniques that will give you personal resilience and control.  You’ll join a small, exclusive group for a week of tuition, relaxing, sailing, swimming, and yes, some drinking.