How do I Build Resilience?
Photo by Jason Blackeye on Unsplash
First of all, what really is resilience?
Resilience is defined as the ability to overcome obstacles and to achieve positive outcomes even after experiencing extreme difficulties. Resilience strategies are used to increase and maintain it. In this post, I’ll go over some strategies to help you get started.
Strategy 1: Optimistic Confidence
Optimistic confidence is a strategy used to increase resilience. You can try out this strategy by working toward maintaining a positive outlook in stressful situations. It’s not the same as toxic positivity though [toxic positivity is the idea that people should maintain a positive mindset no matter how challenging the situation is. It often invalidates feelings, and we don’t want to do that].
Research shows that in general optimism supports long term well-being and resilience. That doesn’t mean you have to be optimistic or “happy” or positive about every single situation in your life. It just means in general work toward being hopeful if you can. It is about working toward maintaining hopefulness and courage. In some situations it could be looking at things or events as a welcome challenge.
Strategy 2: The use of Humour
This one is probably my favourite strategy, even if it can be challenging to do at times. By looking for the humour in difficult situations, you can cultivate resilience. And here, I don’t mean go and laugh at people who are struggling. I mean, in your own life, next time something stressful occurs, such as, maybe you are running late and you spilled your coffee and you can’t find your keys, try and find one thing that is funny about the situation. It could be more useful to “laugh it off” rather than be pissed off for the rest of the day. After all, humour is a coping mechanism for managing stress.
Strategy 3: Flexibility
Flexibility is a skill that you can work on developing and as an added bonus it could increase your resilience. Working toward being able to adjust your plans and modify them as events unfold is beneficial. It can be stressful if things don’t go according to plan and you have a hard time adjusting. For instance, if important plans get cancelled someone who is more “flexible” will be less negatively affected than the person who is not. Flexibility can feel challenging and overwhelming and that’s okay. You can start slow and don’t have to be “perfect” at it. A little bit of flexibility goes a long way.
Building these skills takes time and it’s normal to not be great at them right away. These are just a few ways to build on the resilience you already have. Don’t forget you’re awesome and you got this.
References: 1)Black, K., & Lobo, M. (2008). A conceptual review of family resilience factors. 2)Gregory, E. M., & Rutledge, P. B (2016). Exploring positive psychology: The science of happiness and well-being.