Resilience is both natural and teachable; it involves developing the thoughts, behaviors, and attitudes needed to recover from traumatizing events or stressful circumstances.
Build resilience can take many forms, from prioritizing relationships and staying connected, to cultivating spirituality or community involvement. But the best way to build it is through practice.
1. Focus on the Positives
When faced with challenging circumstances, it may be helpful to focus on the positive aspects of your life in order to feel more capable and secure in handling challenges. This can make you feel stronger.
Resilience involves learning how to adapt well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy and threats – such as family and relationship problems, serious health issues or financial hardship – without succumbing to stress-inducing negative influences like family conflicts or financial burdens. People with resilience don’t simply deal with hardship but instead use every opportunity that arises through difficulty to advance themselves further along their life’s journey.
Resiliency building is a highly personal journey and cannot be reduced to an equation or checklist. However, certain protective factors and coping skills can help contribute towards greater resilience – including social support, problem-solving skills and optimism (3). These elements have come to be known as the “7Cs of Resilience”.
2. Take a Step Back
How people respond to trauma is often individualistic and thus it is hard to classify trauma survivors into specific categories. Furthermore, severity of the event often plays a part in how an individual responds.
Resilience is about more than simply facing life’s obstacles; it’s also about using them as opportunities to grow and learn from life experiences and emotions, including negative ones that serve to deepen our appreciation of positive ones.
Steps to build resilience may include practicing self-care, keeping up with loved ones on an ongoing basis and considering your morals on a daily basis. Establishing these strategies can help you weather any storm and build resilience as an asset to you in life’s journeys. Now is an opportune time to bolster resilience levels; more resources means the more easily life presents its challenges!
3. Think Positively
Resilience can be hard for anyone to achieve, but learning positive thinking techniques can help people regain their footing when facing life’s obstacles. Positive thoughts can boost moods, shed more constructive light on difficult situations, and add a ray of optimism into daily living.
Resilience can be enhanced in many ways. Social support from family or friends may provide much-needed comfort during difficult times; meditation or spiritual practices may provide them with the emotional space they need to regain hope and focus on positive aspects of their lives; while stories from public figures or celebrities who have overcome difficult events remind people that resilience can be developed even through difficult circumstances.
4. Practice Problem-Solving Skills
Resilient people understand that solving problems takes time, as opposed to an instant gratification culture. They understand that identifying and dissecting problems into manageable pieces, then exploring possible solutions is no simple matter – yet taking this approach helps reframe challenges so they feel less overwhelming.
They can draw upon internal resources such as social support and the ability to recognize their talents and strengths. Recognizing and capitalizing upon such protective factors can help individuals navigate emotional distress more smoothly while building resilience and developing resilience.
As their support system, resist offering solutions or rushing to solve their problems for them. Instead, let them come up with their own ideas – even if they seem ridiculous at first – as this helps build their resilience and trust in themselves and their own coping abilities.
5. Develop a Positive Attitude
Resilience requires some tough slog, with research showing that most individuals experiencing some degree of emotional distress when trying to cope with hardship and trauma.
Resilience can be increased even during difficult situations and obstacles by adopting a positive outlook; those who tend to adopt a pessimistic stance tend to find fault with every situation, person, and event – often finding all of its negative aspects easily and expressing anger about all their challenges.
Focusing on relationships and healthy thinking to maintain an optimistic attitude and build resilience. Doing this helps activate parts of the brain that make positive thinking easier.
