Resilience is your ability to “bounce back” from a stressful or challenging experience.

Resilience requires an individual to continually develop their ability to adapt to change, manage stress and overcome challenging or even traumatic events, in an optimal and effective manner. Those with high levels of resilience use optimal tools and resources to effectively manage their life when things do not go as planned.

Firstly, it is about understanding your relationship with a challenge that consequently dictates the quality of your life. Whether you are dealing with being made redundant, acquiring a new skill, changing careers, relocating to a new country, leaving a toxic relationship or overcoming a health issue. Our fears cloud our perspective therefore making it more difficult for us to bounce back quickly. By taking steps to build our resilience, we become stronger as a person and increase our ability to bounce back into life far more quickly; in addition we build our resolve to be able to manage any situation that enters our life.

There are 3 keys ways to build your resilience:

1. Adopt a Growth Mindset

A growth mindset allows us to view challenges with a new perspective, instead of believing that the challenge is permanent those with a growth mindset know that the challenge is temporary and can be overcome. They learn from past mistakes and look for opportunities to grow from the experience rather than accept ‘defeat’.

2. Manage Your Emotions

Our emotions drive our behaviour and can cloud our judgment and overall life perspective, which can make overcoming a challenge far more difficult and time consuming. When we are able to effectively manage our emotions by utilising the tools and resources we have available, we build our capacity to deal with issues that arise. To manage your emotions you could ask for guidance and support from a close friend or family member, exercise, meditate, being kinder to ourselves i.e. booking a massage, sleeping in, buying flowers, or having a long, hot bath.

3. Acceptance 

This is often the most difficult step for people as our preference is to feel like we are in control. Unfortunately, there are many things outside of our control therefore acceptance of what is, is a far easier path than taking the path of resistance. Resilient people understand this fact and look for the factors that are within their control and focus on those areas as opposed to wasting time worrying about what they have no control over.

As our world, organisational business models, the way people live, develop relationships and what people value in life shifts at an exponential rate, it is crucial now more than ever to learn to move into this new world by continually building our level of resilience to ultimately become a bigger, better version of you.