The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties.
That’s resilience. It’s not pretending something didn’t happen or wasn’t as difficult as it was. That’s denial.
Resilience is an acceptance that something wasn’t right, in fact, it may have been terribly wrong, and despite that, you’ve mustered your physical energy and emotional strength to find your way through to the other side.
In our neighborhoods, cities, and across our country, everyday people like you are bravely facing each new moment despite hardships – your own or someone else’s. In our increasingly uncertain world, this is what inspired me to explore resilience and its trait as a superpower.
What factors determine whether you “bounce back” from adversity, or you find yourself derailed by it?
The jury is still out for me on whether resilience is a natural trait we develop over time, or the gift we get from an experience we can build upon. Either way, I am confident that our beliefs, behaviors and our will are key influences.
Beliefs
What beliefs do you hold about yourself? I mean, really hold about yourself. It’s a challenging question and one I invite to you explore further at the end of this blog.
Think about your beliefs as your foundation of truth. The solid structure on which everything else in your life stands. This is where your strength is. This is where you can discern fact (is this my truth) from fiction (is this someone else’s).
Questioning your self worth and capabilities at a time when you experience a setback puts in motion the potential for a self-doubt free fall. Ruminating on what happened, or didn’t happen, and (sometimes) why it happened does not support your resilience. If you made a misstep, accept it and be accountable for it. Don’t assume because one aspect of your life faltered, that you’re a failure.
Instead, in the first moment you can, PAUSE. What is still good here? What will make things better? Take a moment to reflect on what you know to be true and discard what is not.
“Resilient people have a positive image of the future. That is, they maintain a positive outlook, and envision brighter days ahead.”
Behaviors
Be an active participant in your own life. And by that, I mean when you are faced with a challenge or adversity, do you see it as something that is happening to you or for you? To be clear, I am not talking about experiencing a tragic event - that is on a completely different level. I’m talking about the everyday and not so everyday things that come our way.
Being resilient requires absolute clarity about what you have control of, and what you do not. You have full control over how you choose to react in any given situation, and that my friends, is the sum total of it. You may already know this - not so easy sometimes to put into practice. So be kind and compassionate if you find yourself hanging out in the “to me” state.
“Resilient people never think of themselves as victims – they focus their time and energy on things that they have control over.”
Contribute to your own healthiness. Be active, fuel your body with what it needs (not just what it wants) and get the amount of sleep you require. Numbing may bring temporary relief to stress and adversity - who doesn’t long for a glass of wine after a tough day? Enjoying your favorite varietal is not the same as using it, or something else, to keep you emotionally distanced from what’s happening in your life. All that does is keep you in status quo and sets you up for the self-doubt free fall.
With resilience comes growth, and that is what I mean by “for you”. When the initial shock or stress has subsided, what are you discovering about yourself? Are there some limiting beliefs that it’s time to let go of? Have you found a new perspective to move forward with? Do you have to re-think your plan? As a human resource professional, I’ve been witness to many situations where a tough conversation about poor performance or a loss of employment went from being the worse thing ever to the best thing that happened to that person.
Will
If you are talking about resilience, you have to talk about the f-word. Failure. J.K. Rowling, Stephen King even Bill Gates all endured countless failures before realizing their first (significant) win. They leveraged their learnings about what didn’t work, to craft something that did. They exercised their will to keep moving forward.
It can be a natural instinct to hide away when painful emotions overtake us. Those who witness your grief and struggle want to help you. Please, let them in. Being resilient isn’t about suffering on your own.
Push through, and try again. Set goals and pivot when you need to. Engage your resilience, it’s your superpower.
“Do not judge me by my success, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.”
- Nelson Mandela
We’ve entered a period of rebuilding – restrictions are beginning to relax; businesses are preparing to open - many under new conditions. Work from home may return to work from the office. The daily counts continue, travel by any means is still limited and donning protective masks and frequent hand washing is now part of our daily routine.
One thing I know for sure in an environment fueled by uncertainty, resilience is a must have.
Here is some suggestions to help you develop and strengthen your superpower:
Reflect on the beliefs you hold about yourself. What surfaces for you? Which beliefs do you want bring into your foundation of truth? Which ones are ready for the waste bin?
While we generally want to avoid sinking too deep into the self-doubt free fall, there can be some valuable insights here. Think about a time you overcame a set back, what insights did you discover about yourself? What strengths and newly found skills did you bring forward into other parts of your life?
Learn more about resilience. I’ve posted some articles about resilience on the Resources page of my website - you can find them here.
Quotes in this blog are from this article:
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/resilience.htm
