Are you resilient enough to make it through life?
Resilience isn’t about physical strength — it’s all about what’s going on in our heads and our hearts.
by: E.B. Johnson
Adversity is a natural part of life, but learning how to navigate it isn’t always straightforward. Challenges present themselves throughout life, but it is up to us to cultivate the resilience we need to overcome them time and time again. If we truly want to be happy — and stay happy — we have to learn how to harness our power for constant learning journey that is life. Getting in touch with that power can be a challenge on its own, however, and one that takes a lot of time and understanding to master.
Resilience is key in building the life that we want, and it’s key in becoming the person that we long to be. Our resilience gives us the power to charge through life with the dedication and determination we need to thrive, but it’s also a skill that has to be honed through hardship and the things and people that might otherwise tear us down. If you want to become a stronger and more resilient version of yourself, you have to make the conscious decision to do so…then you have to continue making that decision each and every day.
What is resilience?
Our modern world is a chaotic one and one that is filled with trouble, heartache and hardship. It’s hard to keep yourself grounded, centered and happy — let alone remember to drink enough water and tackle all the to-do’s that fill up your day-to-day life. The real key to overcoming the challenges of everyday life is learning how to cultivate a strong backbone of resilience in our lives; one which empowers us to better understand who we are.
Resilience is a special kind of power which contains a mix of physical determination, mental fortitude and emotional strength. Whenever we are faced with loss, natural disaster or some other kind of tragedy and stress it’s the skill that allows us to bounce back quickly, and tackle the tasks that bring us back to ourselves.
We are all resilient, but some of us are more in touch with our personal power and fortitude than others. Building up that strength requires a lot of introspection, and it also requires a heavy dose of radical self-acceptance. If you want to be more resilient, you have to start getting real about who you are and how you react to the pressures of day-to-day living. Build up the strength you need to thrive by focusing on the skills and abilities you’re already practicing in times of hardship.
Signs of secure personal fortitude.
Getting familiar with our resilience takes getting real about the strengths that we already possess and the strengths that we don’t. There are a number of concrete signs that someone has the strength and personal fortitude to overcome the challenges of modern life, but some of those signs are more subtle than others. If any of the following beliefs or behaviors sound like you, it might be a sign you have what it takes to thrive despite the obstacles like brings to your front door.
Refusal to hold myopic views
A resilient person is not someone who sees the world only in terms of their own perspective. Truly resilient people are powerful not because they’re determined to have or see things their way, they are strong and able to overcome because they refuse to hold myopic and limiting world views. Strong people see themselves in the context of their environment, and work hard to resist the social conditioning that might otherwise lead them off course from their destiny.
Investing in support networks
When we’re stuck in “me, me, me” mode it’s easier to also get stuck in the negativity or disappointed expectations of life. When we get outside of our own heads and invest in the people who provide meaning to our lives, we can often get in touch with a powerful inner strength that allows us to thrive and overcome. Avoiding isolation can help us to embrace our resilience, but we need to build up the right, trustworthy support networks first.
Agile pivoting
No matter who you are, life rarely goes to plan. Being alive means being constantly in a state of flux, balancing yourself between the things that matter and the things that have to get done. A strong person is one who can embrace the chaos of life and pivot when things don’t turn out quite like they wanted. When something goes wrong, they form a new approach, rather than throwing their hands up in the air and giving up altogether.
Able to align values and behavior
Our values are a critical part of who we are, and they are the compass by which we direct our lives toward the things we love. When we align our values to our behavior, it creates a manifestation of the things we want from our futures. The resilent person doesn’t fall for the pressure of their peers. They know who they are, and they know where they’re going and that’s a big part of their strength.
Improved social context
Strong people aren’t afraid to put themselves out there with others, because they know they have the skills to navigate whatever bad situations come their way. More than that, the resilient person is a person who can foster true social change, as they don’t just seek to collect those around them who are a carbon-copy, or similar thinker. Truly resilient people invest in spreading the kindness and niceties that allow other to foster their own resilience.
Endless discovery
Imagine someone you would consider to be “resilient”. Really picture them in your head. Now, think about how they approach things and what they’re general outlook on challenges is. If you’re really paying attention, you’ve probably noticed that they see obstacles as learning opportunities, and they’re not afraid to get up-close-and-personal with the bad times. This is because the recognize new knowledge for the tool that it is, which induces excitement and curiosity — rather than fear.
Reaching out when needed
The resilient person is not a one-person island. They are a person who knows when their skills alone aren’t enough, and they’re people who know how to reach out when they need help. A resilient person knows that asking for others for help isn’t a sign of weakness. It’s simply a part of being human (more on this below).
Self-care, self-care, self-care
Self-care is one of the most important aspects of our inner lives, and the person who is resilient is the person who knows this. Looking after ourselves empowers us to look after others, and empower us to push ourselves beyond the things we think that we can. Self-care allows us to rest and recharge our batteries, which in turn enables us to approach hardships with greater strength and ability.
How to build resilience in your life.
There are a number of ways that we can cultivate the resilience we need in our lives to be happy. It doesn’t matter if you’re college educated, young, old, fit, or healthy. We can all become a more resilient version of ourselves by incorporating a few different techniques into our lives each and every day.
1. Become a master of your emotions
Becoming the master of your own emotions is the first and best way you can begin to build up the resilience in your life. More often than not — when we find ourselves stuck, scared or unhappy — it is because we are living in a reactive state, being ruled by our emotions and every little trigger around us. Finding true freedom, finding true happiness, requires that we learn how to manage our emotions so they don’t, in turn, manage us (and make things worse).
Learn how to master your emotions by learning how to differentiate between your emotions and the things that trigger them. Take your emotional temperature regularly, and figure out what it is that makes you happy, sad, or otherwise frustrated and overwhelmed. Look at your decision-making and see how it’s impacted by your emotions — both positively and negatively by your more emotional states of being, and strive to keep a record of your upsets and your reactions to them.
Emotional differentiation is powerful, and it helps to stop negative emtions from getting worse by building up our confidence in facing them. It allows us to identify what we’re feeling and (eventually) why we’re feeling that way, which leads to true resolution and clarity and, thus, higher levels of happiness and contentment. When we learn how to see our emotions for what they are — and where they come from — we can accept them and then get better at managing them. It’s like being a manager in a restaurant. If you really want to be effective, you have to get to know your staff and figure out what works best for everyone.
2. Practice radical self-acceptance
Only when we learn how to accept ourselves and the way we feel and react to the environment around us can we truly unlock the power of our authentic joy. We all have our baggage and the experiences that define who we are in the moment, but that person is always changing. In order to truly learn how to live in the moment, we have to learn how to accept ourselves as we are.
Let go of all the judgements and preconceived notions you have about yourself and others. Remind yourself that the only behavior within the realm of your control is your own, and own up to that behavior and the things that drove you to those points. Embrace who you are, and embrace what you really want. No one in this universe is the combination of things that you are. Love those things, and see the beauty in them and the purpose for their creation.
If there’s something you don’t like about yourself — make a plan to change it — but only after looking it boldly in the face and accepting it for what it is. Acceptance is the key to all change and understanding, but it is often the hardest hurdle to overcome. Only when we accept something that is within our nature can we dig into the meat of it and come up with a plan to change or transform it. Spend a few minutes each day practicing this radical self-acceptance, and look to build it into your regular routine.
3. Get determined
In order to build the lives that we crave, we have to build up the determination it takes to manifest what we want. If a part of what you want is to be stronger in life, you have to your nose to the grindstone and get focused on making that happen. Nothing in this life manifests by accident. It happens by aligning what we strive for with what we do.
Drop the distractions that interfere with your goals, and start getting focused on the things that bring you joy or otherwise drive you onward. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, narrow your choices, and align the actions you take each day with the personal values that make you feel as though your authentic self is in partnership with what you’re doing.
Building resilience takes action, but that takes setting a singular focus on what we need to do in order to piece together a happy life. Look to your past to inform the decisions you make in future and understand that everything in your life is entirely within your control (as far as you can put yourself into, or remove yourself from it). Assume the reigns of your life, and become the strong person you always wanted to be by becoming determined to be that person no matter what.
4. Reward small victories
We live in a society that tells us to achieve, to achieve, achieve, and this often warps our perception of what true achievement looks like. While the TV and our parents might preach material success as the only way to guage how well we’re doing, there’s much more to being a successful person than just doing well at your job or having a huge family. Taking the time to celebrate the small wins goes a long way in making us feel better about ourselves and who we are — and it goes a long way to make us stronger and more resilient too.
Take a few minutes every day to zero-in on the small wins in your life, and then take some time to celebrate them. Record them in a journal, or share them with a friend. Don’t shy away from the tiniest of victories, and acknowledge what it took from you to achieve even the smallest of wins.
It’s important too to take this time to acknowledge that habits that helped you achieve these victories. Appreciate the added value they have brought to your life, and appreciate too the effort that you had to put in to change those habits or shift them in such a way that they allowed you to achieve. Part of being more mindful is being able to be truly present in the positive parts of our lives. Be present in the moment and revel in your success. Sometimes, just getting out of bed is an achievement when you’re learning how to be happier.
5. Focus on meaningful relationships
Substituting our unhealthy relationships or patterns for the people and support networks that better suit our lifestyles is a great way to boost our own personal power and resilience. Using this method, we can detach ourselves overtime and become focused on the good in our lives, cultivating both a sense of gratitude and a sense of strength.
Look to the people within your support network that do lift you up, and show up when things get hard. Rather than wasting your time, effort and energy on people who tear you down (or distract you from your authentic self) — zero in on the people who allow you to be yourself and thrive as the universe intended.
It can be helpful to allow your attention center on the healthy relationships that bring joy into your life, rather than the ones that attract nothing but negativity. These relationships don’t have to be bound in blood, either. They can include anyone with whom we share our confidences, and anyone who loves us for who we are. Lean into those relationships in time of trouble and find strength through the people that want to support you when you need it.
6. Ask for help when you need it
We often think of resilience as being a strength that allows us to weather all hardships on our own. Nothing could be further from the truth, however, and we realize that when we realize that part of being strong is learning how to ask for help when you need it.
No person is an island. Learning how to talk about where we’re at is often the first step when it comes to healing or working our way through a tough time. When we talk about our feelings with someone we trust, it allows us to dive further into our emotions and understanding and get a better perspective on how we could make things better for ourselves.
Get comfortable talking about how you feel, and find a friend you can trust that is willing to listen to you vent. Let them know exactly what’s going and let them know you need a willing shoulder (and a willing ear) to listen to you on a regular basis. Drop the shame and the guilt that might be associated with reaching out realize — there’s literally not a single human being out there that could exist entirely on their own. Whether it comes down to the clothes we wear or the food we eat, we’re all a part of one another’s ecosystem. There’s no shame in reaching laterally for a helping hand.
7. Get busy and stay busy
Part of keeping your head up in hard times comes down to simply keeping yourself going. Staying busy is one of the best ways to keep yourself strong, eager and distracted when things are going wrong, and it’s often the best way to tackle the tough stuff. When we keep ourselves busy, we keep our brains from focusing on the “what if’s” and the “you’re not good enough’s” and allow ourselves to carry on and weather the storm of hardship.
Jump into activities and pastimes, saying “yes” to as many new opportunities as possible. Invest in your friends and your family, and let them invest time in you. Focus on your work, focus on your own life and focus on anything that interests you, makes you happy, or lets you forget about your heartbreak for a just a little while.
You don’t have to get hyper-aware or hyper-focused on healing in order to build your resilience to things. Sometimes, it’s a matter of working to center yourself around your other reasons for being and just get through it by staying busy. Slowly, over time, you’ll forget more and more about the difficulties, and more and more you’ll come to see that there is meaning beyond the darkness. Stay busy and keep your eyes on the future that you want to build. A little change doesn’t mean an end to the show.
8. Drop the fantasies and dwell in reality
Beyond loyalty, it is often our fantasies that stand between us and the happiness we’re so desperate to achieve. The fantasy throws flowers constantly at our feet, hoping that we never look up to see the things that are crumbling down around us.
The more we fantasize about what could be, the more we stay stuck; chained to our fear and inaction like the slave that we are. While we should always look to our dreams for inspiration, clinging to fantasies as though they are guaranteed realities is foolish.
A fantasy will persuade you to hold on a little longer; to tolerate one more black eye or broken heart, but it’s a lie. When you drop the veil of fantasy, you can see things for what they really are — and therein lies a great portion of your strength and resilience. Only then can you come up with the solutions that can reignite the joy in your life.
Putting it all together…
Adversity is a natural part of life, and it happens no matter who you are. The human experience is all about overcoming obstacles, but that’s something that takes a lot of introspection and a lot of personal resilience to manage. We can cultivate that resilience in our lives by getting more familiar with our own strengths, as well as the techniques that help us to thrive and grow through the challenges of modern living. If you want to be a better person, become more resilient and do it through a little incorporation daily.
Become a master of your own emotions and practice radical self-acceptance that allows you to embrace the strengths you already have. Get determined about who you are and who you want to be, and don’t let the opinions and views of others pressure you into anything outside of that. Give yourself credit and celebrate the little victories that allow you to see yourself for the strong and powerful person that you truly are. Focus on the meaningful relationships in your life that provide the trust and support that you need. Reach out for help when you need it and realize that no person is an island by themselves. If you still find yourself struggling, get busy and stay busy. Sometimes, getting through something is just a matter of getting through it. Decide how you want to thrive and make the conscious decision to live that way every single day. The only person stopping you is you.
