7 Ways To Build Resilience
Growing up, you may recall watching episodes of your favorite TV series or soap opera that kept you tuned in weekly to stay up to date on what was happening in the lives of your favorite characters. These characters captured our attention, kept us in suspense, and allowed us to look at other people’s lives and how they handled difficult situations they faced.
Watching them overcome their challenges made us happy, and it saddened us when things did not work out well for them. It was both entertaining and taught us life lessons at the same time. However, when it comes to our everyday life, it can also feel like a TV episode with twists, turns, and surprises filled with setbacks and obstacles.
Real life can sometimes be challenging and throw unusual curveballs that test our resolve to overcome them. Have you ever experienced setbacks or failures but did not know how to recover? If this resonates with you, this article will discuss seven ways to build resilience to face life’s challenges.
We will look at what resilience means and follow up with seven ways to increase your resilience. These include the following:
- Manage how you respond to situations
- Understand that failure builds strength
- Avoid negative self-talk
- Find meaning in lessons learned
- Maintain a strong support system
- Focus on your goals
- Love yourself
I am so glad that you are here. Let’s get started with the discussion!
What is resilience?
In simple terms, resilience is the ability to adapt, bounce back, or recover from difficult situations. When faced with adversity, resilience helps us overcome life’s hardships, obstacles, and challenges with courage and determination to move forward.
Now let’s discuss ways to develop more resilience in your life.
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1. Manage how you respond to situations
Each of us experiences different emotions based on the situations we face. In his book, Calm Your Emotions, author Nick Trenton describes emotions as “neural impulses that move you to act.”
When you experience something new or face a stressful situation, your brain receives this information and responds based on how you perceive it. For example, if you sense something has a negative connotation, you may send signals to your brain to react nervously.
On the other hand, perceiving some things as positive or exciting can cause you to become calmer.
Managing how you respond to situations is about thinking about how you feel in the moment and taking a step back to evaluate how to respond. If you feel overwhelmed or under a lot of stress, try not to act out of impulse.
Instead, take a moment to breathe and compose your mind and body to respond with confidence. This way, you can approach the situation more calmly and feel a sense of more control.
2. Understand that failures build strength
A quote by Jackie Chan is, “when life knocks you down, you can stay down or get up.” However, the benefit of getting up pays great dividends.
Each time we experience failure or a setback, it is an opportunity to grow and become stronger. I always look to the lives of others for inspiration. Take, for example, the life of Abraham Lincoln.
Abraham Lincoln failed in business, lost in state and national elections while running for public office, and even had a nervous breakdown early in his life. However, despite his failures, he became the 16th President of the United States.
The experience of failure became a lesson in how to persevere and move forward. This lesson also teaches us that failure does not have to take permanent residence in our minds. Instead, we can rise above our failures with a focus on will and determination to go further and achieve more in life.
3. Avoid negative self-talk
Negative self-talk is the inner critic that talks to us in our heads. It can cause us to experience doubt and be discouraged. While experiencing challenges and obstacles can cause you to feel like a failure, it is essential not to allow them to define who you are.
To avoid negative self-talk, spend time filling your mind with words of inspiration. Read your bible and books that inspire you, develop encouraging habits, and surround yourself with people who can speak words of hope that help remind you that you are not alone.
You will experience situations that are not always positive but don’t let them defeat you. Change the narrative each time you go into negative self-talk mode. Focus your energy instead on building a growth mindset for success.
4. Find meaning in lessons learned
Often, we ask ourselves why this happened to us or why I had to experience that situation. It is okay to ask those questions and to reflect on what you experienced.
However, a more profound question we can ask ourselves is, what have I learned from this experience? Each experience has meaning and is part of our growth and development.
Try to find the good hidden in each situation and use it to help you become stronger and more equipped with the knowledge to handle other challenges and help others.
5. Maintain a strong support system
My father always taught me that “together we stand, divided we fall.” This motto is quoted in various ways but has the same general meaning.
In life, we all need each other. No person can do everything all by themselves. That is why it very essential to have a strong support system to help you through life.
Surround yourself with family, friends, or organizations that can be a source of strength and support when you need help. Develop a network to encourage you and inspire you to reach higher and be a better person.
6. Focus on your goals
Life is a journey where happiness and being fulfilled is the goal of many. However, this journey has distractions, roadblocks, and detours that can easily take us off course.
It is essential to focus on your goals to reach your desired destination. Develop your roadmap by writing down what you want to accomplish and use this as a reminder to keep you on track.
If you get sidetracked, revisit your goals and update them as needed to continue your journey. The main takeaway is not to stop moving forward.
7. Love yourself
Loving yourself is the foundation of your self-worth. When we love ourselves, we are motivated to care for ourselves, develop into better human beings, and create a more compassionate spirit in treating others better.
The ripple effect of loving yourself is that it helps your mental and physical health handle life’s stresses and challenges.
So, take time to love yourself by practicing self-care. Do not compare yourself to others. Instead, love yourself for who you are. In doing so, you will develop the resilience to withstand life’s challenges and bounce back.
Final Thoughts
We discussed seven ways of building resilience to help you with life’s challenges. These included managing how you respond to situations, understanding that failures build strength, avoiding negative self-talk, finding meaning in life lessons, focusing on your goals, and loving yourself.
The irony of our lives is that we all have different challenges to face at different times and in different ways. Whether at work or in our personal lives, we will have days when we want to give up and quit. However, resilience helps us develop the strength and mindset to withstand the storms of life. So, please stay the course and never give up!
I hope that this article is helpful to you in your life journey. Please share your comments and feedback or ideas you have implemented in your own life to become resilient.
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