Resilience. What is it, why do some people seem to have more of it than others, and how do we get more of it for ourselves?
The American Psychological Association (APA) defines resilience as:
“…the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or significant sources of stress… It means “bouncing back” from difficult experiences.”
Resilience is something that most of us think is pretty frickin’ cool, even if we don’t have much of it ourselves.
Consider the wealth of movies that are made with this as their central theme: a person lives a life of hardship, but rather than embodying a victim mentality, they push back and through and reach their personal goals.
The 2006 film “The Pursuit of Happyness” is based on the true story of Chris Gardner, who despite an early life of abuse and uncertainty, pushed through and past his personal obstacles (and there were MANY) to make his dreams a reality.
His success had nothing to do with being born in the right family or having the perfect circumstances present themselves to him. His mindset of resilience was a huge part of his personal quest for triumph over adversity.
Chris Gardner could’ve spent his time lamenting society’s role in his circumstances. The cards were absolutely stacked against him from the start just from being born an impoverished person of color in the United States in the 1950’s.
His parental influences were mostly absent, abusive, and inconsistent, but he still mined for the gold. He credits his mother’s spirit of dreaming big for providing him with the inspiration to chase his own big dreams, but the truth of it all is that he made a choice.
He chose to get back up, time and time again. He chose the path of resilience.
Resilience is not an accident, it’s a skill. In a 2016 commencement address at UC Berkeley, Lean In author Sheryl Sandberg told the graduating class this about resilience:
“You are not born with a fixed amount of resilience. Like a muscle, you can build it up, draw on it when you need it. In that process you will figure out who you really are—and you just might become the very best version of yourself.”
How then, do we build up that muscle of resilience?
According to Meg Salter, author of Mind Your Life, there are 7 Muscles of Resilience:
#1) Ability to persist through obstacles or failures
#2) Ability to stay focused under pressure
#3) Ability to handle unpleasant feelings
#4) Ability to stay connected with others
#5) Sense of self-efficacy
#6) Ability to look AT vs looking through your assumptions
#7) Process of personal change
Out of these 7 muscles of resilience, there are four that stand out to me.
The first and perhaps most obvious—the ability to persist through hardship, is the very definition of resilience.
The three others that I believe to be make-or-break resiliency skills are the sense of self-efficacy, the ability to look AT vs looking through your assumptions, and the process of personal change.
What is a sense of self-efficacy? I believe it to be the opposite of a victim mentality. Some people live their lives with the mindset that life is happening to them. This makes it easy to point fingers at external circumstances as being the reason we can’t move forward in our lives.
A person with a strong sense of self-efficacy believes that while external circumstances may not be working out in their favor at the present moment, they still have choices to make that will either further them on their path or keep them stuck in their present reality.
Next, the ability to look AT versus looking through assumptions. We all carry assumptions through life, looking at the world through our own biases. The ability to question and challenge ourselves is a mark of emotional intelligence – the more we practice it, the easier it gets.
Lastly, personal change. I believe the way we feel about personal change is closely correlated to how much of a growth mindset we have.
A growth mindset is one in which we believe that we can learn and grow to embody the characteristics we want to have, while the opposite, a fixed mindset, is believing that we are born with our characteristics and have little to no control over them.
For me, fixed mindset seems like a defeatist attitude. I don’t want to believe that I have no control over who I am!
How then, do we cultivate and build our own resilience muscles?
To begin, let’s quit being afraid of stress! As Kelly McGonigal says in The Upside of Stress, “The latest science reveals that stress can make you smarter, stronger, and more successful. It helps you learn and grow.”
Rather than fearing stress and avoiding it at all costs, we can try to reframe the way we perceive the stressful situation. “Flip the script,” is the phrase I like best. While the world may be crashing down around us, we can flip the script to find something of value in our experience.
We can choose to view the obstacles in our life as hurdles that challenge us rather than roadblocks that destroy us. We can choose to look at each experience and mine for the gold, just as Chris Gardner did when he chose to focus on and emulate the positive qualities of his parental influences.
We all make these choices every day, all day long.
How will we see the world around us and respond to it?
Will we try to overcome the adversity in our lives or lie down and let it roll over us?
Will we do what we can to create our lives the way we want them to be or use our energy complaining about the life we have created thus far?
Will we challenge the assumptions we have about life and try to look at our situation with fresh eyes or cling to the same thought patterns that we’ve always had?
Will we embrace personal growth or turn a blind eye to the role we play in our own life?
The choice is ours to make. We can work out our resilience muscles, or we can let them atrophy.
Either we view ourselves as active participants in the game of life or spectators that have no control over our fate—either way, we decide.
Check out the links below for more information on how to build resilience and follow Has Baggage, Still Travels on IG and FB for more content to cultivate our best selves.
Five Science-Backed Strategies to Build Resilience
5+ Ways to Develop a Growth Mindset Using Grit and Resilience