Are You Resilient?
Life is full of ups and downs. When challenging experiences inevitably arise, you’ll want to be ready to rise to the occasion. Your ability to bounce back after a transition or hardship can determine whether you view most of your life as enjoyable and meaningful or troublesome and frustrating.
This idea can be summed up in one word: resilience. The more resilient you are, the quicker you’re able to re-adjust to a situation and move forward in life.
I recently had the privilege of listening to retired Navy SEAL Jason Redman speak on the topic of resilience at the Unbeatable Mind Experience. Jason, who sustained life-threatening injuries when ambushed while serving in Iraq, stated that the average person experiences five life ambushes throughout their life. A life ambush is generally described as an unexpected, major life-changing event.
Life Ambushes can take many forms:
- Divorce
- Disease
- Severe injury
- A real ambush
- Loss of a spouse or child
While this list is by no means comprehensive, if you have not yet experienced a life ambush, know that one is likely coming, and learning to be resilient will help you navigate through your challenging experiences.
Consider these ideas as you think about your resilience:
1. First responses
When you initially encounter a setback, how do you respond? Maybe you bury your head in the sand and hope it goes away. Perhaps you just ignore the situation and pretend it isn’t happening.
- Get off the X as quickly as possible! The X is where you are currently standing when your life ambush occurs. Take action! Don’t freeze.
- It is a common response to feel like there is no hope, there is nothing you can do, this is the end. Remember, for every ending, there is a new beginning.
- If you’re resilient, you’ll choose to approach the situation head-on, and promptly. You’ll define the issue, consider your options, and make a plan. You’ll set out right away to resolve the situation before it becomes a full-blown issue.
- Promptly employing problem-solving skills will help you avoid a major meltdown.
2. Approach to past events
Do you try to forget about your prior challenges? Instead, try applying what you learned from each setback, challenge, or ambush to navigate present or future situations. When you reflect on what you’ve been through, you’ll think about the mistakes you made, but you’ll also be excited about how well you handled some situations and use those same skills again.
- The energy required to try to forget something important draws heavily from your present resilience, wearing it down.
- Alternatively, focusing your energies on the lessons and skills you’ve learned from past experiences builds your resilience.
3. Daily practice
Do you work to accomplish something, however small, each day? Or do you find yourself watching entire days go by while you sit and brood or feel sad or angry? To improve your resilience, consider each day an opportunity to do something positive, even if it’s just one thing.
- Write down 3 things or people you are grateful for, journal about the times you have successfully overcome a setback and the lessons you have learned.
- Go for a walk, spending time in nature, or box breathing. Your practice today could even be finishing a novel or calling a friend you haven’t talked to in ages. What you do with your life each day provides meaning for you.
- You have a choice! You have free will. Choose to be the light in the darkness.
4. Your support network
Do you have friends and/or family to call on if you need something? Resilient individuals build a supportive system of people they can visit, call, talk to, and turn to whenever they hit troubled waters.
- If you feel like you’re all alone, start building your support network today by setting a goal to make one new friend within the next month.
- Engage in a community of practice and excellence, join a gym where you will be encouraged and challenged, or mastermind a group of like-minded people that will support your efforts.
- Who matters to you most? Do you treat yourself as if you’re the most important person in your life? When you take care of your own needs, you’ll be more resilient when a crisis knocks on the door.
5. If your health and living situation is at the top of your priority list, you’ll be prepared to face any hardship, be it emotional or physical.
- Taking time to train physically and mentally, build your reserves of resilience whenever trying situations and events occur.
- Pay attention to your nutrition and hydration. What you eat and the amount of water you drink each day, will make a difference in your emotional state and physical health.
- Ensure you are getting adequate sleep. Many sleep specialists recommend 6-8 hours of quality sleep every night.
Challenges, life ambushes, transitions, and hardships will invariably arise in your life from time to time. If you confront situations immediately, use the knowledge gained from prior trying events, and build your support network, you’ll be on your way to constructing resilience for the future.
Do one small thing for yourself each day, and before you know it, you’ll weather any storm with ease!
As a coach, the emotional mountain is an area that I work with clients to develop, however, this mountain is often the most difficult. When working on the emotional mountain, we often uncover events from the past that are still lingering and causing difficulties today, consciously, or unconsciously. If this happens, it crosses the line of coaching into therapy, which is outside the scope of practice for most coaches.
There is tremendous value in speaking with a therapist to help you move past situations in which you may feel stuck, or hopeless. The tired and old paradigms of therapy only being for the “crazy” or “broken” is incorrect.
Coaching combined with therapy is a powerful combination to propel you forward no matter where you are in your life or what challenges you are experiencing.
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