I’m sure you’ve encountered people who always seem to handle difficult situations without much issue or seem to bounce back from bad situations with more ease than you thought possible.
What makes these people able to handle negative situations more easily than other people?
One word: Resilience.
What is this thing called resilience?
Well, according to dictionary.com, resilience is “the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties,” with additional qualities of “toughness” and “flexibility.”
There are many factors that go into being resilient but the top 3 are:
Accepting a situation for what it is.
Resilient people accept a situation for what it is and avoid the “what ifs.” By accepting the situation, resilient people go reframe their thought of a situation so they’re not dwelling on what has happened but instead of how they can use what has happened as an opportunity. Doing this squarely puts the situation back in their control.
What recent situation has occurred in your life that you are ruminating on? How can you use the situation to your advantage? What opportunity can you take from this change in circumstance?
Are compassionate and accepting of themselves.
Resilient people understand that things happen and don’t blame themselves for what goes wrong. They are knowledgeable about themselves and accountable for their actions to be realistic about their role in a situation and are kind to themselves about their mistakes. They know everyone makes mistakes and see it as an opportunity to learn and grow.
What recent situation are you being hard on yourself about? Realistically, what could you have done with the knowledge you had then to change the outcome? What did you learn about yourself in this situation?
Have a structure and goals to achieve.
Resilient people know when they get up in the morning, they have a purpose with goals (even if it’s just to make sure they clean the house) they have a plan to achieve. It doesn’t matter if they don’t achieve their goal or they put aside the goal to achieve something else, they still have an idea of what they would like to accomplish with a plan to do this.
What goal, even a small one, are you struggling to achieve? How do you plan on achieving this goal? Do you go about each day with an idea and plan of things to do?
Which leads us to…
Not having these characteristics doesn’t automatically make you not resilient. There are many other factors that make up resilient people. But I always like to be reflective and see how I can improve myself, especially in resiliency. How will you try to be more resilient?
Mindbloom Wellness 