What is resilience?
Confucius
“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
These are tough times world-wide, with many of us experiencing challenges we never thought we would face in our lifetimes.
Grit. Perseverance. Persistence.
Call it what you will, resilience is the essential quality needed to deal with the many hurdles we must overcome daily in both our professional lives and personal relationships. It is also a critical skill to develop in our children to ensure their success.
But how do you keep going when faced with a challenge, or even when you’ve failed?
“Resilience is that ineffable quality that allows some people to be knocked down by life and come back stronger than ever. Rather than letting failure overcome them and drain their resolve, they find a way to rise from the ashes.” Psychology Today
Resilience is NOT the avoidance of pain.
Like it or not, life is painful and humans need adversity to grow. A world without problems is a stagnant world. Without problems, we lack the good stress motivation that creates the energy required to change. As a result, we become complacent; we accept the status quo, and we stagnate rather than move forward, grow, and innovate.
We know this to be true because the most significant advancements in human history were in response to a problem. Someone saw a challenge as an opportunity to do something that nobody had done before.
Shannon Huffman Polson writes in her book
The Grit Factor: Courage, Resilience and Leadership in the Most Male-Dominated Organization in the World
that resilience, or grit, is not something we are necessarily born with, but that can be built up like a muscle.
As one of the first women to fly an Apache helicopter in the US army before she held various leadership positions in the corporate world, Huffman Polson says everyone has the capacity to learn to face the impossible. This can be done by reframing a problem, developing the ability to respond to challenges quickly and effectively with little support.
So, resilience is not about avoiding pain. When we live our lives trying to avoid pain, we are ‘playing not to lose’ rather than ‘playing to win.’ We cannot live full lives by avoiding pain, risk, and adversity. If we do, we don’t practice resilience, and so when tough times come – as they always will – we are ill-prepared because we haven’t learned the skills of resilience.
Maslow once said that:
“The person who has not conquered, withstood, and overcome continues to feel doubtful that he could.”
Developing resilience
Implementing the following tips in your daily life will develop your capacity for resilience:
Develop a growth mindset
Our abilities aren’t fixed, we always have the ability to improve.
Assess your abilities realistically
Expecting perfection limits your ability to truthfully see where your shortcomings are, and how you can improve on them.
Challenge yourself
You can do hard things. It is only when we try that we learn how to overcome.
Know when to ask for help
Know when, and where, to seek out support so you don’t get overwhelmed.
Have a plan
Break down your goals into smaller, manageable steps.
Look for role models
Look to people who have been in similar situations to demonstrate how to handle problems.
Remember self-care
Rest, eating healthily and taking care of your mental health is crucial when experiencing change and stress.
Despite increased physical isolation caused by many of us having to keep our distance from each other over the past 18 months, and the sacrifice of human contact for virtual connection, in some strange way, I feel more connected to my fellow humans than ever before. We are all in this together.
I feel more globally connected to people I have never met, communities I have never been part of, and countries I have never visited. There is a sense of global unity I have seldom experienced in my time on earth so far.
My hope is that we can use this adversity to practice resilience and find opportunities for growth, innovation, and new levels of contribution to the greater good.
Just how resilient are you?
Take this assessment from Harvard Business Review to find out how resilient you are.