Why is it that certain people easily and effortlessly have the ability to bounce back from difficult tribulations but others just can’t seem to ever get their mojo back or regain their enthusiasm? Resilience is the capacity to recover from setbacks and challenges more quickly, it is a type of mental toughness.
Resilience is a skill that can be cultivated, learned and even mastered. You too can learn the secrets of being resilient and bouncing back from setbacks, challenges, and adversity. We can all learn this skill and as it turns out, anyone can learn to become more emotionally competent and emotionally strong. You just have to want it, you have to be willing to put in the time and energy and change your perception of the situation at hand. It is not always easy to cultivate and learn this new skill but at the end of the day, it will be so worth putting in the hard work and effort.
Isn’t it always better to grow bigger than your problems so you can just step right over them instead of trying to resist them and beat them down with your anger, frustration, and impatience? It will take some time, effort and energy on your part to become grittier and more resilient without hardening your heart and embracing your new found skills. However, the more times you overcome your challenges, change your perception and then gain the confidence to overcome adversity, your mental muscle called “resilience,” will get stronger and the more you use it, the stronger it becomes.
1. Choose Your Attitude or It Will Choose You.
YOU can survive anything. Embrace a warrior’s attitude. When you are faced with news or information of some kind that your mind perceives as threatening, BAD or negative, it is not easy to always manage your internal monkey mind. It is your job to stay in control and it is critical you don’t over-exaggerate or over-embellish turning thinking into catastrophic thinking. Remember, you are the BOSS here and you can choose to be the hero of your life and not the victim of it. Catastrophic thinking drives up stress levels, interferes in the harmonious alignment of problem-solving and can negate purposeful action leading to non-action and slipping into a downward spiral of negativity.
2. Challenges are Opportunities Disguised.
When you learn something new a new philosophy or a new way of thinking. You may not be able to incorporate it unless you “experience,” it. if you haven’t learned how to forgive but read the book on forgiveness and compassion, your neural network for forgiveness doesn’t exist yet. It will start to form as you read the book but until you really forgive someone or let go of the past, your neural network won’t be fully formed. And when it happens, you will know it was you will feel it and it may be foreign at first but the more times you practice forgiving your friends, and even your enemies, only then will you know true forgiveness and the neural pathways and networks will help you forge stronger connections and make you better at forgiveness and it will come more easily and more naturally when the time arises.
Setbacks are just opportunities for you to grow and evolve. Don’t let these just pass you by, you don’t have to suffer through them, but grow over them. If you don’t grow, then your life will tend to stagnate and you will suffer the same experiences over and over and over again and this is called the treadmill of suffering also knows as the “human drama.”When you keep repeating your mistakes again because you haven’t transmuted your experiences into wisdom.
Life is going to be easy sometimes and everything will go well at times and that’s a fabulous thing. However, we learn the most when we go through hard and difficult things and crisis ultimately leads to breakthroughs when perceived in a constructive way.
3. We Are Stronger Together.
When you experience a setback or a loss of some sort, and you hide the issue, according to Brene Brown, the more you deny and hide it, the more it has power over you. You have to face issues head on and admit them and embrace them to really learn from them. You will learn the most when you wrestle with the dark knight of your soul and come through it a stronger and more capable person than before. The new research is showing us that the level of connectedness we feel with others helps us recover from life’s tribulations. The more isolated we are, the more difficult it may be to get over hard circumstances.
We are all part of the interconnectedness called the labyrinth of life and we are connected to the lives of others. When going through difficulties, being around other people is productive as it reminds us of who we are. That level of interconnectedness gives us strength and courage and also a sense of belonging which gives rise to living a purposeful life.
4. Take Care Of Yourself.
Loving and taking care of yourself is of paramount importance in being a more resilient person. If you have healthy habits like sleeping, eating healthy, staying hydrated, exercising regularly and avoiding stressors like alcohol and other negative or toxic vices. Healthy people tend to have healthy habits and they take care of their mental, emotional and physical selves. Yoga and meditation are also paving the way to greater health and well-being in living a more resilient and being able to manage your stress more effectively.
Life can be inherently messy and stressful at times, work deadlines, breakups, divorces, bills, cheats, liars, deception, workplace stress, bills, kids, illness, the past, exes, the list is literally endless and ongoing are the things that we need to learn how to manage. And when managed effectively and with a level of emotional fortitude, resilience and capped with a level of mind that is strong, we can overcome just about anything. It takes work to cultivate resilience and live a life that you can manage internally and the results will inevitably show up in your external environment.
Resilience is the name of the game. Resilience and grit are characteristics of hardy and emotionally fit people. Don’t just react in the moment, think, observe and make thoughtful responses. Don’t be governed by your old ingrained habits.
Some other things that also assist in mental toughness are:
- Self-confidence and self-efficacy
- Having patience, humor and an optimistic approach to life,
- Being able to adapt to change quickly,
- Having strong relationships,
- Having personal goals.
Cheers to your journey of being more resilient and leading a life with purpose.
Susie G
Leave a Reply