Introduction
Imagine you’re at home and you get the dreaded phone call that a loved one is in the hospital and they don’t have much time left. You get in your car and rush to the hospital, but on the way there you come to a halt because there is an unexpected roadblock. What do you do? Drive around the roadblock? Take a different road? Walk? One way or another you are getting to that hospital, what you’re not doing is turning the car around and going home. You wouldn’t give up on your loved ones, so why give up on yourself?
Resilience can be seen everywhere; whether it’s something big such as battling a chronic health problem or something smaller such as powering through your workout even though you’ve had an exhausting day. The question is what makes some people more resilient in the face of adversity whilst others crumble? Are some people just favored by natural selection or can resilience be developed?
What is Resilience?
Resilience is the process of, capacity for, or outcome of successful adaptation despite challenging or threatening circumstances. This means that when faced with trauma or adversity, a resilient person will find a way to deal with the emotional pain and create a successful, or positive outcome.
Resilience is a result of having a stronger desire to succeed than to remain in your comfort zone and succumbing to your fears, doubts, and obstacles.
Illinois Bell Telephone Example
A great example of resilience comes from a study (available here) that was done in 1981, which followed the employees of the Illinois Bell Telephone (IBT) company after they downsized from 26,000 to just over half that number in one year. The employees who remained were faced with a major shift in job descriptions, company goals, and supervisors. Results of the study showed that two-thirds of the employees suffered significant performance, leadership, and health declines. On the other hand, the other one-third of employees thrived during the fiasco despite experiencing the same amount of disruption and stressful events as their co-workers. Those employees maintained their health, happiness, and performance, and experienced a renewed enthusiasm.
Researchers found that the group of employees that thrived maintained three key beliefs that helped them turn adversity into advantage: 1) Commitment, 2) Control, and 3) Challenge attitudes. The attitude to be 100% committed to the job and their own success allowed them to forge a path forward and be as involved as possible. This made them indispensable in times of uncertainty and reduced feelings of isolation and confusion about their role in the company. The control attitude allowed them to take charge and try to influence outcomes rather than lapse into passivity and powerlessness. They held themselves accountable for their own success rather than waiting to be given orders. The challenge attitude allowed them to view the situation as an opportunity for growth, rather than a threat to back down from.
Where Can I Get Some Resilience?
While some people seem to be naturally more resilient to adversity, resilience is a skill just like riding a bike, and with practice, it can be developed. Taking action and implementing small changes in your daily life, will over time, significantly change the way you react to adversity.
Tips For Building Resilience:
1. Be Aware of Your Attitude.
The first and most important factor to address is your attitude towards any situation. As difficult as it may be to accept, every situation we encounter in life is neither positive nor negative. The situation itself is neutral; we are the ones that attach positive and negative emotions to it.
In particularly difficult situations, if we can acknowledge the emotions we are feeling and name them, it can make it easier to set them aside and try to objectively assess the situation and find a desirable solution. It’s important to remember that resilience DOES NOT mean not feeling pain or not being affected by adversity. Rather, resilience is being able to create a positive outcome DESPITE how you feel.
Find the Positive.
It’s important to remember that life requires balance. This means if you have a negative there must be a positive somewhere, you just have to find it.
The best way to implement this change in your life is to challenge yourself to find at least one positive in every situation. No matter how small, try to find that silver lining. Try to find the learning opportunity from the situation. Ask yourself what is this situation trying to teach me? Looking at it as an opportunity for growth makes it more positive because you are bettering yourself.
For example, imagine you are the sole earner for your family and you lose your job. It can be easy to become overwhelmed, anxious, depressed, stressed, etc. Rather than allowing all of those emotions to consume you, change your perspective. Make a plan to cut back on some expenses for a while, and start to look forward to the next opportunity. Maybe you reach out to a job hunter or other personal contacts for help finding a new job. Maybe you consider starting your own business, which could change your life. In the meantime, appreciate the time you have at home with your family. Take some time to enjoy their presence. Creating a plan for the immediate future and embracing the time you are being given to spending with loved ones can alleviate negative emotions and make the transition into the next chapter of your life easier. The more you dwell on the negatives the more paralyzing they will become, whereas focusing on the positives will be motivating and energizing.
Remember, your attitude controls your life. When you encounter a situation, take note of your initial reactions, thoughts, and even body language. Identify any negative thoughts or reactions you may have had initially and try to find their positive counterpart.
2. Push yourself outside of your comfort zone.
Another important factor in building resilience is learning to do things outside of your comfort zone. Picture your comfort zone as the town you live in. It’s familiar and it’s comfortable. When you need something you know how and where to find it, but what happens when you need to go somewhere new? You might get anxious, or scared, and choose to remain within your hometown (your comfort zone). Now imagine you get sick and you need a certain treatment to survive, but it’s only available outside of your town. The first time you travel to the treatment center it may feel overwhelming, but as you start to go more frequently it will become normal and comfortable. Then your comfort zone will have expanded. The first time we experience an event it can cause a variety of emotions because of the uncertainty of the situation. The more you do things that feel uncomfortable, the further you will expand your comfort zone and this will make obstacles seem easier to overcome. It will remove the fear and anxiety and build confidence in yourself and your ability to overcome anything.
So, try challenging yourself to do things you fear or that make you anxious (that will improve your life). For example, if you have a fear of public speaking, or you feel anxious during work meetings and dread being asked to speak, find more ways to put yourself out there. Enroll yourself in an improv class, work a few months in a door-to-door sales job, or offer to do more presentations at work. If you have a fear of being judged, find the craziest outfit you can and go for a walk through the mall. Keep your head high and strut through the mall like your life depends on it. These things might seem daunting at first but as you push past that fear, the task will become easier.
3. Create a support network for yourself.
Most of the time resilience comes from within, but from time to time we all need someone to lean on until we can find our feet again. Creating a strong support system around you makes it a lot easier to get through the things life has to throw at you. It doesn’t need to be an army, just one or two people you know you can count on no matter what is important. A big part of creating a strong support system involves assessing our relationships. As hard as it may be, removing toxic relationships is crucial to our well-being. Otherwise, during difficult moments, those toxic relationships could end up being our demise.
It is also useful to have a list of resources as a go-to for when our loved ones can’t help us. This could be anyone from an outside support group to a licensed mental health professional. Alternatively, it doesn’t have to be a person; it could be a place or song that brings you a sense of peace and serenity. We need to find ways in life to recenter ourselves in order to weather the storm.
Closing
Life will continue to throw lemons at you. Sometimes it’ll gently toss it to you, other times it’ll fire them at you from every direction. It’s up to you to decide if you want to be a sitting duck and accept the beating or if you want to prepare yourself, armoring up with the right tools to catch those lemons and turn them into lemonade. The choice is yours, choose wisely.
See this article on how to adopt a strength-focused mindset to achieve the results you want.
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