How to Start the New Year with More Resilience
Last week was my first full week working from home for myself – on my business, not in a corporate job. Mostly that happens when your “side gig” starts making you more $$ than your job. In my case, it was because I was let go by my company as part of a reorg.
So I decided it was time to invest all my time in Blissful Road (which is what I wanted anyway). Soon I started taking part of social media collaborations, giveaways and lives (the last one being totally out of my comfort zone); hoping for some additional subscribers – only to see all my efforts result in very little returns.
How can someone get over repeated failed efforts and not give up?
The answer is to build resilience.
Resilience Definition
According to the Merriam Webster dictionary:
resilience noun
re·sil·ience | \ ri-ˈzil-yən(t)s \
Definition of resilience
1: the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress
2: an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change
Although definition one reminds me of how grateful I am my belly returned to its normal size after stretching an unthinkable amount while I was pregnant, I am referring here to definition number two.
In the story above, two things I did to cope with the frustration of unfruitful time and effort were: 1, to vent with friends I knew were in the same ship and would cheer me on; and 2, positive self-talk. I will explain below where these two fit in a list of methods to build resilience.
Also, in case you were asking yourself, resilience and resiliency are synonyms.
Why resilience is important
If you are a type of person who (like me) is goal oriented, likes to work on personal development, and want to achieve bigger things in life, resilience will be crucial on your path to growth.
Life will throw unexpected curveballs at you, and you will need to be resilient in order to move on and not give up on your dreams.
Resilience is what will allow you to move ahead and keep trying despite the difficulties, problems and adversities in your life.
If you don’t develop the skill of resilience, you will more likely curl in a corner or run away and give up instead. Not to worry, resilience can be attained. Read on to learn how.
How to develop resilience
As explained below, you will see there are some actions you can take to be prepared for life’s setbacks. You can also check this post about mental strength. The goal is to know beforehand and take precautions to not be taken off guard and react in a self-destructive way when something goes wrong. By having a better understanding of how the human mind tends to react in these situations, you will know better what to do to come out on the other side.
Tips for building resilience
Following the steps below will help you build resilience to come up with better ways to handle setbacks:
Recognize the situation for what it is – without judgement
When things don’t go according to plan, it is easy to let ourselves compound the matter by our interpretation of the circumstances – which are not always true. You can tell this is what is happening when you start thinking in terms of “this always happens to me”, or “this person never respects my feelings”, or “I’m just not good enough”, etc.
Have you noticed the theme here – never, always, not enough? These types of thoughts are harmful even if nothing bad has happened, let alone when it has. It takes you into a spiral down the mental drain and leaves you with only one conclusion: it’s not worth trying; I better give up; it’s easier to maintain the status quo!
What can you do instead?
Recognize when these thoughts come up, are these complete truths? Are these just negative thoughts that have the intention to keep you “safe” by avoiding new (and unknown) situations? Dispute these thoughts as if they came from someone else and not from your head. Call this “person” a name. Say he’s Charles. Say “thank you, Charles, noted. You can leave now,” and question these statements. Human being tends to exaggerate to the negative extreme of things.
Ask for help when needed
Some people think that if they can’t resolve all their problems on their own they are no good.
No one can do everything by themselves. Ask for help. Have a support system. It helps to be someone else’s support system in order to have that in return. Or pay for one (mastermind groups in business settings, for example). Don’t go on alone when you can get help when it’s called for. Being resilient does not mean doing it all yourself.
Take care of yourself
Being in good physical health, exercising, sleeping, eating well – and taking breaks – are essential to be able to endure challenges. Resilience requires energy reserves. Make sure you have them. Overworking and depleting your energy will only contribute to less capacity for patience, reasoning and tolerance to weather tough times.
This is one most people skip, as they have a false belief that resilience means to never stop trying and hustling and working endless hours. What they don’t know is that this tactic will only backfire or possibly cause a burnout. Valuing your breaks, and making them count are key.
How can positive affirmations help build resilience
When negative thoughts bring you down during difficult times, come up with more positive and realistic ones to replace them. “I can learn from this experience”, “This was not personal”, “I can learn these skills and do better next time”, etc.
Read this post about positive affirmations on how to best make use of them. In this case it may be even easier to identify which positive affirmations to use. You will likely derive them from the negative self talk in your head, as demonstrated by the examples above, by flipping them to their positive counterpart.
In conclusion, tough times hit us all. You should not ignore or invalidate feelings resulting from these, however don’t amplify them with false self-defeating thoughts either. Keep these tips in mind and you will see how more equipped you will feel to face your next battles. Here’s to personal growth!