When faced with adversity resilience means we do one, or both, of these things. We rely on helping ourselves and/or we ask for help.
If we start with the first aspect of our resilience, helping ourselves, we can see this comes from finding our strength in who we are. We aren’t born with greater or lesser amounts of resilience than the next person; we learn resilience. It can be enhanced or undermined through relationships, but as a starting point we all have the ability to grow our levels of resilience. We can build it, like a muscle, to weave our parachute before we need to use it.
Where do we start?
Well, we start wherever we are, with our own unique set of internal resources; who we are. We may be attuned to our own level of competence, or completely out of touch with it, but building resilience can occur by reminding ourselves of the following attributes.
- Our self care practices. How we take care of ourselves through nutrition, exercise, getting outdoors and speaking kindly to ourselves. (see previous blog entry)
- A growth mindset. Recognising that we can learn from situations and get more competent.
- Awareness of our values. Knowing what they are and living by them.
- Assertiveness. Asking for what we need.
- Helping others, with empathy and compassion, and applying that to ourselves!
- Perseverance /self-control/ grit.
- Ability to fail and get back up again/ letting go of perfectionism.
- Taking the long view, having a goal and working towards it.
- Awareness of our own unique strengths.
Each of these areas can be seen as a lifetime’s work, and yet each one can be boosted in little ways everyday.
We all have these skills and attributes but a bit like our physical muscles, we can build more strength, flexibility and tolerance. As a list that might seem a bit overwhelming but just chose one area today to find out about yourself and your strengths a little bit more.
Or have a look at these resources:
www.ted.com/talks/carol_dweck_the_power_of_believing_that_you_can_improve?language=en
www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/questionnaires/brief-strengths-test
