Are you struggling with the trials and tribulations of life? Learn how to build resilience and navigate challenges in a more determined, agile, and healthy way.
Life is tough, there’s no denying it. Bad things happen to us all the time that knock us off course and undermine our sense of self.
It’s stressful. Painful. Disorienting.
Just when things are going smooth… Boom! we get blindsided. Whether it’s work, illness or injury, loss of a loved one, or a financial crises, the anxiety and pressure we feel can be overwhelming.
So what can we do? These events, most of which are out with our control, are common occurrences in life. They can’t always be avoided, but we can’t let them define or destroy us.
What we need is a set of tools to navigate these challenges successfully. With the right mindset and healthy habits we can overcome almost anything. This is resilience.
What is resilience?
Resilience is often mistaken as pure toughness. Our ability to muscle our way through any situation. But it’s much more than that.
Resilience is the ability to cope with a challenge, or multiple challenges, and return to the pre-challenge state quickly. It’s our capacity to respond effectively when faced with a crises, and to grow through the crises.
When we talk of resilience, we are combining a number of attributes that work together to make us more fluid and capable of managing stress. These attributes allow us to respond, adapt and act in a positive way.
People who lack resilience crumble easily and take a long time to recover. They may become depressed and adopt negative ways of coping such as smoking, drinking, drugs and running away from their problems.
Those with a high degree of resilience typically bounce back better and look for healthier ways to cope, as well as new strategies to navigate the current challenge.
How to build resilience
Each of us has the capacity to build resilience. Some attributes will come easier to you than others, but if you take a holistic approach, you’ll get stronger in all areas.
While a few lucky souls are gifted with innate resilience, the majority of people need to build it through dedicated training. You can start with any of these steps and enjoy positive changes through continued practice:
1. Calm your mind. When you’re under a high-degree of stress your mind shoots in a hundred different directions. You feel out of control because of the chaos inside your head. Pause for a moment, slow everything down and focus. Breath slowly and deeply until you feel a sense of calm.
2. Sit with the feeling. Whenever you are frustrated, upset or in pain the impulse to react, or to ‘fix it’ immediately, often makes things worse. Sit with the discomfort, meditate on it, observe it. Allow the entire picture to form and let the feeling burn itself out. Better decisions and actions flow from a quiet mind, or the thing that’s upsetting you will lose its importance altogether.
3. Face reality. Denying reality and running away from problems only makes them worse over time. It’s important to observe and accept life for what it is and move forwards from a place of truth. There are seasons of pain and seasons of pleasure that you’ve got to steer, so facing reality will make you better prepared for it. Remind yourself: “This is happening, this is real, what can I do in this moment to move forwards effectively.”
5. Set your vision. Having a clear vision gives you hope for the future and protection from feelings of stress and anxiety. Especially in difficult times, a vision will give you energy and help maintain that fire in your belly. What do you want to be, do, accomplish? What are you working towards? Who are you trying to help? Keep that in mind when you’re in the eye of the storm.
6. Ask better questions. Most people who are in the middle of a crises ask: Why me? Why does this always happen to me? Then logically, their brain looks for a list of reasons why bad things happen to them – which makes them feel even worse than they did already. If you can ask more fruitful questions you’ll feel better about things and take better actions. Try: Have I overcome a challenge like this before? What are my options here? What one thing can I do right now to turn this around? Is there someone who can help me with this?
7. Challenge yourself. You can increase drive, confidence and tenacity with frequent challenges. No matter how small you start, the act of setting and overcoming obstacles will expand your capacity to handle stress. Take a cold shower each day. Run up that hill. Ask for that promotion. Mental toughness gets stronger through training.
8. Improve your physical fitness. Daily exercise in the form of weight training, cardio, and mobility work not only makes you feel great but toughens you physically and mentally. Your body hardens, your mind sharpens and your confidence grows. A healthy mind and body are essential pillars of resilience, so choose some activities you enjoy that will improve your level of fitness.
9. Balance stress and recovery. Too little stress and we become soft, too much stress and we break. It’s the skilful balancing of stress and recovery that makes us highly resilient. Try to balance each wave of stress with an equal and opposing wave of recovery.
10. Build your support group. Too many people try to go it alone, but a big contributor to resilience is the support group you have around you. People who listen, care and want to help you are a blessing that should never be overlooked. Who is good at listening? Who makes you feel good? Who offers great advice? Keep in contact with them and they will make you feel more secure.
Resilience helps us to get the most out of life and overcome the many challenges that come our way. Whether it’s those that we’ve set for ourselves or those that happen to us, resilience gets us through.
Whenever you face any kind of stress, obstacle, difficulty, pain, injury, grief, failure, disappointment, frustration, anger, or uncertainty, return to the habits that heal, build and channel your energy.
You’re going to be OK.
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Featured Image: @omidarmin
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