What is Resilience and How Can You Increase it?
This answer was originally published by Jordan Harbinger on Quora and The Art of Charm. He’s graciously allowed me to publish it in Real Life Resilience under a new headline and format.
Resilience is being able to bounce back from difficult experiences, and it’s an ability that we continue to strengthen.
Resilience isn’t just built by surviving one trauma or tragedy, but it’s developed over time as a way to adapt to the multiple adversities we face over a lifetime.
The important thing to realize about resilience is it doesn’t mean that you do not feel the stress, or you do not feel the emotional impact. It just means that you bounce back from it.
I think a lot of times people view resilience as almost a stoicism of deflecting and not feeling — or a numbness — when actually resilience is built on the back of that emotional distress.
Things to keep in mind while developing resilience:
1. Have confidence in your abilities
Nobody’s perfect, but the world keeps turning anyway.
You’ll make mistakes along the way, but so does everybody — and things get done in spite of it all.
2. Make plans and act on those plans
Following through on what you say you’re going to do is a powerfully positive reinforcement.
3. Understand that facing challenges isn’t going to be pretty
Reign in the emotions urging you to quit and soldier on.
The path from point A to point B is an obstacle course, so don’t leave the journey unfinished just because you tripped over something along the way.
Expect setbacks; don’t accept defeat.
4. You will meet adversity
You’ll either find a tool to work through the adversity to get to the other side, or you’ll find yourself dealing with that adversity until you find the tool that allows you to live through it.
Those are your options.
And when you meet adversity and you don’t have a tool, you will spend time getting depressed, getting angry, getting frustrated, anxious.
But if you continue to battle through, eventually you will find what you need to get to the other side — to get yourself out of that adversity to your end goal.
And that is the hero’s journey…a story that is embedded in human evolution.
Thanks, again to Jordan Harbinger and The Art of Charm…one of my favorite resilience resources!
Stacy Brookman is a Resilience and Life Storytelling Expert and produces the Real Life Resilience podcast.
She helps smart, outwardly confident women who secretly have low self-esteem issues due to an emotionally abusive partner to take back control and begin to develop the resilience they need to be themselves again. Her free monthly webinar will give you 4 Simple, Proven Methods to Writing the First Chapter of Your Life Story in Just 7 Days.
Life is a story…it’s never too late to start telling yours.
