What do you do when things don’t go your way? Many of us let emotions paralyze us. Resilience helps us to overcome the setback and move on.
Let’s go over some of the best strategies for developing greater resilience in your life.
What is Resilience?
Resilience is the ability to productively adapt to challenging circumstances. It means remaining flexible and strong when difficulties threaten to break you down.
Resilience isn’t an inherited trait. It’s an acquired skill that requires time and effort to cultivate. Everyone can develop strategies to build resilience and use hardship as an opportunity for growth.
Resilience will not eliminate life’s difficulties, but. it will make it easier to overcome them.
The Different Forms of Resilience
Social
Social resilience refers to how communities respond to events, such as natural disasters, violence, economic hardships, and other difficulties.
Emotional
Emotional resilience describes people’s ability to cope with stress in their personal lives.
Emotional resilience helps us to control how we react in times of crisis and prevent negativity from taking over and paralyze us.
Mental
Mental resilience allows people to cope with adversity by developing strategies to overcome their fears and doubts, remaining calm and focused during times of crisis.
Physical
While we are more familiar with the mental and emotional effects of stress, we often overlook its physical effects. Physical resilience is essential for maintaining health when dealing with illness and disabilities.
A healthy lifestyle that includes a good diet, exercise, meditation, sleep, and recreational activities is an essential ingredient to develop physical resilience.
How to Bounce Back After a Setback
Here are three ways to build more resilience in your life.
Set achievable goals
While we all want to make progress as quickly as possible, setting overly ambitious goals may leave you falling short. As a result, another string of setbacks could leave you feeling more discouraged than before.
Be ambitious, but break your long-term goals into smaller, achievable tasks. That way, you can celebrate each success as they come.
Find meaning in your life
Having a sense of purpose can truly motivate you to keep going and overcome life’s difficulties. This could involve your professional life or contributing more of your time to your community or pursuing a hobby.
Accept the things you can’t change
Resilience doesn’t mean that everything will magically go your way. Some things are beyond our control, and it’s good to recognize that. So instead, focus on the things that are within your control. For instance, studies suggest that acceptance is more effective than a distraction when reducing pain symptoms. Acceptance isn’t the same thing as giving up, it lets you redirect your energy towards influencing the factors within your control.
Reaching Out for Support
Some people confuse resilience with self-reliance. But resilience doesn’t mean standing alone and isolating yourself from others. Instead, connecting with people you trust is crucial when recovering from a setback in a healthy, positive way.
Talking about your problems doesn’t simply make them disappear, but it allows your family or friends to offer support and positive feedback that may help you see your situation from a fresh perspective.
If you feel unable to share your issues with people in your community or don’t know where to start, reach out to a mental health professional. They can help guide you in the right direction and offer strategies for coping with hardship.
As a certified coach, I have extensive experience helping individuals build resilience in their personal lives and careers. You can find more information about the services I provide here. And if you’d like to learn more, don’t hesitate to reach out for a free building resilience call.