Resilience
Task: Force yourself outside of your comfort zone | Purpose: Learn your limits | Endstate: Resilience will carry you through any adversity
Seeing him fall, I begin to imagine the very pain he felt, surge through my own body. I knew it too well. But just as quickly as it happened, something amazing quickly followed. That pain that I saw in his eyes began to transform instantly into gritting motivation. He took the hand reached out to him, stood to his feet, striding to the finish line.
It’s true that you need to be challenged in order to grow, because as you successfully overcome those challenges, you build resilience, i.e. the ability to successfully face other challenges. But, if the challenges are too overwhelming, and far beyond your capacity to handle, you get traumatized. This effect reduces your capacity to function effectively, let alone face adversity. You can’t make significant progress until this is healed.
Now, I have 3 tips for becoming more resilient. Take notes
Help Others: Kind acts towards others build your well of fortitude. When you are down and out you have the ability to draw from this well and continue to push on through your pain because you have a desire to help someone else do the same.
Learn Life: Learn the basics of life and its inevitable vicissitudes. Pain is a part of life and will probably never go away. It’s important that we realize this and begin to look for solutions when we encounter problems. Solution-based thinking will allow us to look at problems in life as opportunities, rather than obstacles.
Smile: Simply put, find the silver lining in every situation. If you smile, when all seems lost, your mind will begin to search for reasons to smile. If you do this consistently, you won’t have to look far.
It has often been said that adversity builds character. Likewise, resilience is built when your character consistently overcomes both physical and mental trials. In training, I’ve noticed the distinct difference between those that succeed in negative situations while others crack under the pressure. The key is flexibility brought on by past experiences. Highly resilient people tend to adapt to new situations more quickly and thrive in an ever-changing environment. When you become resilient, you are no longer afraid to fail, because you realize you’ll recover, learn, and grow from every situation, only to become a better version of you in the end.
