The Importance of Resilience in Life and Business

You likely know someone who seems as if they can take what seems like a punch in the face over and over but still get back on their feet and try again? Their resilience is powerful and inspiring and something you should be focused on too if you want to succeed in life. Discover a few of the reasons you want to enhance your resilience, below.

To Maintain Motivation and Determination

Resilience is about getting back up on your feet no matter how painful or challenging so you can achieve your goals. It's about maintaining your physical and mental health so you can keep making steps to be better or live your dreams.

It is the motivation and determination you need when nothing else is working or feels right. It's about telling yourself to do anyway because you know in the end it will be so much better than where you are now.

To Be More Self-Efficient and Independent

While it can be scary to hear, the only person you can rely on throughout life is yourself. Your parents, friends, other family members, or spouse can't provide you the same things you can, nor can they do so if they want to. They have their own lives to live and control. You already know what you need to be happy and to get things done. If you wait for others to do it for you, you can be confident you will never be genuinely happy.

To Learn from Failure and Transform It

Failure creates better problem-solving skills and leads to more success. While it sounds like an oxymoron, it's true. Most success comes from failure. Without failure, you can't learn or grow. You discover your true capabilities with failure, gain self-confidence and the resilience needed to get through anything life throws at you.

To Better Embrace Change

As you are aware by now, change is unavoidable. The faster you face this fact and understand it, the better your life will be overall. You can't stop negative stuff from happening. But you can control how you react. The way you respond can then set in motion where you want your life to go. In other words, you can let something debilitate you or build up your resilience to power through any obstacle.

Overall, resilience is vital for your physical and mental health. It keeps you focused on where you want to be instead of scrummaging to defeat. Resilience allows you to have the power to keep going without affecting your overall happiness.

The Powerful On The Spot ABC Coping Strategy

Every day there will be events that happen that test our resilience capacity. You get stuck in traffic, wake up late and have to rush the school or whatever else life throws at you. How you react is crucial to building up your resilience.

Cognitive restructuring (or changing the way we think during a stressful event) is the best method for managing stress at work, according to a "meta-study" published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology.

 In this observation of studies, which focuses on techniques used to manage stress, cognitive restructuring was compared against other common "stress interventions" like deep breathing and relaxation.

The cognitive restructuring came out to be the best intervention of the lot. The findings suggested that "Cognitive restructuring promotes the development of proactive responses to stress." Put another way, it helps prevent stress.

Founded by Doctor Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck, was this mindset reframing technique that gets people to dispute their negative self-talk and therefore use it to control their thinking during a stressful event.

What their research found is that most people the severity of a stressful event. Ellis liked to call this phenomenon: "stinking thinking." This way of thinking results in a common response like:

"I've got the worst job in the world."
"I'll never get all this work done on time."
"Why does this always happen to me."
"I'm a complete failure."

This negative thought process often clouds people's mindsets and leads to irrational and often completely false outcomes.

When we engage in this way of thinking, we are the ones who suffer. In essence, we become our own worst enemy for our often false recognition of the situation that's causing us to feel stressed. Ellis and Beck came up with a way to change our overly negative thinking that's as easy to remember as ABC or, in this case, A+B=C. 

Using The Wellness Wheel To Support Resilience.

One of the best ways to build on your resilience capacity is to audit your wellbeing often. Why? It will be even harder to pull through challenging times if important wellbeing areas are way outbalanced, then the struggle will be made even harder.

For example, if your eating habits and sleep habits are poor, your energy during the day will plummet – not what you want when you are building resilience. By paying more attention to these areas, you'll be to bring them back into balance and thus put yourself in a better position of resilient growth.

Using the wellness wheel which covers various dimensions of wellness makes it easy to identify which areas of your life need more attention while defining an action plan to improve them.

How the wellness wheel works

The core idea behind the wellness wheel is to assess the different areas of wellness that affect your wellbeing. These include the following:

*Physical health including your exercising, sleeping and eating habits.
*Mental health including your day to day mindset thoughts and emotions.
*Relationships in your life, in other words, to what extent do you feel you are connected to others.
*Recreational health. This would be assessing your downtime, including the time you get to practice your hobbies and interests.
*Financial health, including budgeting and saving money for the future.
*Occupation health. This is your current job and career prospects.
*Spiritual health. This is your personal growth and purpose in your life.
*Home health. This is the health of your home, including how safe you feel in it and how happy you are with it.

The eight areas above represent your life. Rank your level of satisfaction with each area out of 10. 1 means you are struggling and feel unfulfilled and unsatisfied in that area. 10 means you're satisfied and complete fulfilled with that area and don't think it needs much improvement. An example of what this might look like is below.....

How Resilient Are You? Take The Test

To work on your resilient levels, you first develop an understanding of how your resilience looks right now. Below is an abbreviated version of the Nicholson McBride Resilience Questionnaire (NMRQ).
For each question, score yourself between 1 and 5, where 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree. Be completely honest: understanding the specific areas in which you lack resilience will enable you to get the most out of our 10 point booster plan

Resilience Questionnaire Score

1. In a difficult spot, I turn at once to what can be done to put things right __
2. I influence where I can, rather than worrying about what I can't influence __
3. I don't take criticism personally __
4. I generally manage to keep things in perspective __
5. I am calm in a crisis __
6. I'm good at finding solutions to problems __
7. I wouldn't describe myself as an anxious person __
8. I don't tend to avoid conflict __
9. I try to control events rather than being a victim of circumstances __
10. I trust my intuition __
11. I manage my stress levels well __
12. I feel confident and secure in my position __

Add up your total score and take a look at the resilience categories below to which one you fall into.
0 – 37
A developing level of resilience. Your score indicates that, although you may not always feel at the mercy of events, you would benefit significantly from developing aspects of your behaviour.
38 - 43
An established level of resilience. Your score indicates that you may occasionally have tough days when you can't quite make things go your way, but you rarely feel ready to give up.
44- 48
A strong level of resilience. Your above-average score indicates that you are pretty good at rolling with the punches, and you have an impressive track record of turning setbacks into opportunities.
49 -60
An exceptional level of resilience. Your score indicates that you are very resilient most of the time and rarely fail to bounce back – whatever life throws at you. You believe in making your luck.
Benchmarking your resilience levels allows you to see how things look right now while providing a framework for improvement (if any) in the future. 

Resilience Starts With Values

If you wanted to lose weight, get fitter and stronger, you would probably go about doing the following:
•Join a gym
•Lift weights
•Walk more
•Cook more nutritious meals
•Rinse and repeat

As a result, over time, you would probably start to see definition in various body parts, more energy levels and better health markers all around. It doesn't happen overnight. However, you have to put in the work to see the benefits. Not only that, you have to keep putting in the work to keep those benefits.

Similarly, building mental resilience is no different. Just like you need to learn proper technique to exercise effectively in the gym, learning the "mental techniques" allows you to build your resilience capacity and mental strength.

 An important part of this is identifying your values. Previous research findings suggest that aligning with personal values helps people be more resilient in the face of stressful situations. For example, according to resilient school leaders, the process of "privately clarifying, publicly articulating, and consciously acting on" core values is a great source of strength in helping them face adversity and emerge stronger than before (Patterson and Kelleher, Resilient School Leaders. 2005, p. 51).

 Another study by Creswell and colleagues (2005) showed that reflecting on personal values buffered physiological and psychological stress responses during a laboratory stress challenge.
In essence, values provide a reason to keep going which is a cornerstone in becoming more resilient. For example, if "providing" and "safety" was an important value for you and you lost your job, it's easier to move quickly and seek out other jobs because you're aligning with your core values. The values themselves act as motivators.

Identifying values
Your values are the things that you consider to be important in life, such as leading, kindness, safety, freedom, helping others and so on. Let's start with a value affirmation task to align the values that are important to you and which you can harness during challenging periods in your life.

Step 1: Describe a stressful life event

Grab a piece of paper or pull out the notes app on your phone and take a moment to consider a challenging area in your life that is currently taking place. For example, you may have recently lost your job because of a pandemic or perhaps your partner has there is more pressure on you finanicially to provide for your family. Briefly, write down what this stressful life event is.

 Step 2: List reasons to come out the other side

Consider why it is worth it to you to keep going and get through this stressful, challenging period in your life. For example, getting through the challenge of losing a job and securing a new job may show your kids that overcoming adversity should be embraced, and therefore you have shown this by being a role model to them. They might see you as a "hero" as a result. Write down as many reasons as you can.

The Components Of A Resilience Mindset

To build a high degree of resilience you will probably have to make some changes to your current mindset. You must adopt a new mindset where you will embrace change and keep on going when things around you are in chaos.

In this article we will explain the components that you need to create a resilience mindset. When you can adopt these things there will be no stopping you. It will take time for you to change your current mindset so you need to be persistent.

Do things outside of your Comfort Zone

You will not develop your resilience doing things that you are already comfortable with. Instead, you need to do things that are outside of your comfort zone. By taking on things that you have never done before you will send a message to your subconscious mind that you are determined to build your resilience.

Decide what your Response will be

This is all about deciding on the response that you need to deal with a setback that has the potential to overwhelm you. If a challenge overwhelmed you in the past and made you give up, what kind of challenge was it and what would have been the best response?

You need to send the right message to your subconscious that you are not prepared to give up any more when the going gets tough. Having the right responses in mind for different challenges will help you to deal with them more effectively.

Someone else did it before you

This is an excellent addition to your current mindset. Other people are very likely to have faced the problem that you are currently dealing with and they found a way around it and bounced back. If you start to feel overwhelmed by a problem then this will help you to remain calm knowing that there is a solution.

You will be empathizing with others that had high levels of resilience and did not give up when they had to tackle the same setback. Remembering this will help you to think more clearly and find a solution to the problem.

You are not a Victim

People with low levels of resilience often play the victim card. They believe that life is against them and they never get a break. These people do not believe that they have any control over their life and you need to condition your subconscious to accept that you are in control and are never a victim.

Make a mindset change to confirm that you are in control of your life and that you take full responsibility. This will help you to focus on the things that you can control and forget about things that you can’t. In addition, it will prevent you for looking for someone else to blame.

Replace bad habits with good ones

Giving up when you face a tough problem is a bad habit. You want to commit to replacing this bad habit with a new empowering one that will provide you with the power to solve any problem and move forward with your life.

Things like mindfulness meditation and regular exercise are good habits to adopt when you want to develop a resilience mindset. Practicing techniques to improve your resilience each day is also a good habit to adopt.

Ways That You Can Build Your Mental Resilience

One of the biggest reasons for people giving up on a challenge in their life is because they don’t know what they need to do to solve a problem. This makes them feel overwhelmed and cuts off their ability to think clearly. With stronger mental resilience, you can tackle any problem more calmly and think clearly to come up with solutions.

In this article, we will show you some ways that you can strengthen your mental resilience. These are not difficult to do and with the right amount of practice you will achieve good results. So let’s get on with it shall we?

Mindfulness Meditation

One of the best ways to relieve yourself of the stresses and strains of modern life is to practice mindfulness meditation. This will take you away from your current thoughts by forcing you to live in the moment.

Some people think that mindfulness meditation is difficult to do but it isn’t. You can find a lot of information online about how to perform mindfulness meditation easily. It is worth the effort because it will enable you to see things a lot more clearly. With a bit of practice you will find it to be both enlightening and relaxing.

Visualization

If you want to change your life for the better then we recommend that you learn the art of visualization. It will help you to imagine a brighter future. You can use visualization techniques every day for a few minutes so that you can imagine what it will be like for you when you have achieved your goals.

The key to visualization success is strong feelings. Think about how you will feel once you have accomplished your goal and make the feelings as strong as possible. What will you see when you have achieved your goal? You can find a lot of information online that will help you to achieve visualization success.

Set Challenging Goals

Determine what you really want from your life and then create challenging goals around this. You will need to take some time out to discover what you really want. Most people will never do this. Setting and achieving goals will help to develop your mental resilience.

The outcome of your goals will help you to view any challenges along the way with a different perspective. You will be motivated to overcome any challenges so that you can achieve your goals. This will help you to overcome any obstacles you encounter calmly.

Don’t Dwell in your Past

We have all made mistakes in our past. It is vital that you do not dwell on these mistakes, as many people tend to do. This will lead to a destructive negative thought spiral forming in your mind, which will severely restrict you from overcoming challenges.

Just use the past as a useful reference. If you made mistakes before then learn from them and move on. Dwelling on your past failures will weaken your mental resilience rather than strengthen it.

Consider any setbacks as temporary

You need to put things in perspective. A big problem that you have today will probably mean nothing to you next week. Accept that any challenges are just short-term tests. They are not worth elevating your stress levels over.

The Factors That Determine Your Resilience

Developing your resilience is no easy task. There is no overnight “miracle” fix to make you more resilient. You need to work on your inner strengths and the external resources that you have at your disposal. We all deal with setbacks in our lives in different ways. Despite this, there are certain factors that will determine your resilience levels.

How do you handle your Emotions?

If you are facing a difficult setback in your life does this overwhelm you? We all have strong emotions that we need to control in the face of adversity. Letting a situation overwhelm you will not help you to overcome it and bounce back.

You need to control the emotions within you that can weaken your position in the face of adversity. Inner strength is required to face tough problems so you do not want any emotion sapping your precious energy. The way that you control your emotions impacts your resilience level.

Your Self-Esteem

If you have low levels of self-esteem you are probably going to have low levels of resilience. You do not have the confidence to tackle all of your problems head on and move forward with your life. Those people with high self-esteem tend to have higher levels of resilience as they believe in themselves more and have more capacity to deal with the unexpected.

You can boost your self-esteem in many ways and you need to do this if you want to be more resilient. Confidence is very important when facing adversity, so work on your self-esteem and confidence levels to build your resilience.

Your Social Network

Do you have people in your social network that you can turn to when you are facing adversity? Are there people that you can call upon that will offer you good advice and encourage you to keep going while tackling a difficult problem?

The people that you surround yourself with are an important factor in determining your resilience. Either these people can help to strengthen your resilience or they can drive your resilience levels down. You do not want a social network that will tell you to give up and that life sucks. Build a strong social network that will support you in times of adversity.

Your Problem Solving Skills

How good are your problem solving skills? Do you have a lot experience of solving difficult problems? Do you practice your problem solving skills regularly? The better your problem solving skills, the higher your resilience level is likely to be.

If you are confident that you can solve problems then you are less likely to be fearful of any setbacks in your life. You know that you can apply your problem solving skills to the situation so that you can solve the problem and move forward.

Anticipation

Are you able to anticipate problems before they arise? If you can then you will probably have a high level of resilience. When you anticipate a problem emerging, you can be prepared for it and take action to solve it before it appears.

Communication Ability

It is one thing to have a social network in place that will support you, it is another to communicate the setback you face in a clear and concise way. If you are a good communicator then it is likely that you can get the help that you need quickly. This will usually mean that your resilience level is high.

The Four Types Of Resilience

Most people make the mistake of thinking that there is only one kind of resilience but this is not the case. There are actually four different types of resilience that you need to be aware of. By understanding these different types, you can assess how well you are doing for each of them and then take action to improve any weaknesses you identify.

1. Physical Resilience

As you have probably guessed, physical resilience is your ability to keep going using your physical body. Your physical fitness levels are more important for your overall resilience than you probably imagined.

If you are not in good physical shape then there is a good chance that you will lack the energy required to tackle a big setback and bounce back. You will not have the level of health required to see out the toughest times.

A good example of physical resilience is someone that has lost the use of their legs due to an accident. The medical experts say that they can fight this with physiotherapy and there is a very good chance that they will walk again. Not doing this will mean that the person has to spend the rest of their life in a wheelchair.

If the person has strong physical resilience then they will learn to walk all over again and fight through the pain. When you play your favorite sport, do you sometimes lack the stamina to carry on? Runners sometimes face this problem but carry on regardless because they have high physical resilience.

2. Mental Resilience

If you are good at solving problems then you probably have a high level of mental resilience. To increase your mental resilience you can take up a challenging hobby such as playing an intellectual game like chess or completing difficult puzzles.

It requires flexible thinking to develop mental resilience. You need to think about the different perspectives that could apply to a situation. Having more potential solutions to a problem is always a good thing.

People that have a low level of mental resilience will give up on things a lot more easily. Let’s assume that you are learning a new skill and there is something that you don’t understand. If you persevere until you find the answer you need, you have good mental resilience.

Emotional Resilience

It is always desirable to have a high level of emotional resilience. The ability to control your emotions when facing adversity is very important. You do not want the situation to overwhelm you or make you angry, as both of these emotions will make it harder for you to resolve the issue and move forward.

People with good emotional resilience tend to have good empathy skills. It is easier for them to stand in another person’s shoes and see things from their perspective. They will also want to tackle problems head on.

4. Social Resilience

We always come into contact with other people throughout our lives. The way that you connect with others determines your social resilience. Think about the different ways that you interact with people at your office compared with close friends and family.

To build your social resilience requires you to develop respect for other people and have a high degree of tolerance. You will also need to be able to build trust with them. So check your people skills to see if you need to improve your social resilience.