Building Resilience in You

According to the American Psychological Association (APA), resilience is defined by both the process and outcome of adapting successfully to setbacks, difficulties or challenges in life. Resilience also means that you are mentally, emotionally and have the behavioral flexibility to adapt and adjust to encounter adversities.

In easier words, resilience is the ability to adapt and bounce back up when things are not going as planned. Resilient people will not dwell and be constantly sad about the failures they are facing, instead, they acknowledge the situation, analyze their mistakes, and move forward.

How we perceive adversity hugely affects our success, hence, having a resilient attitude and mindset is important. Dr. Cal Crow from Centre for Learning Connections have identified some attributes that are commonly seen in resilient people:

Resilient people have a positive outlook of the future. Resilient people have solid, well-grounded goals and the will to achieve the goals. Resilient people never blame themselves and dwell for a long time, but they focus on their strategies to bounce back up.

However, it should be noted that it takes skills and efforts to be a resilient person. Building yourself to be resilient requires time, strength and assistance from people around you, and of course, it requires your positive mindset and will. In addition, being resilient also does not mean that they do not experience any adversities such as stress or emotional upheaval. They will definitely face setbacks along the way. In fact, facing those sufferings are part of displaying resilience. It all depends on how well you handle them while continuing to move forward.

On top of that, resilience is not a fixed or constant trait. You might see that you demonstrate different resilience levels when dealing with different kinds of challenges. You may be resilient when facing with one challenge but struggle a lot more to be resilient in another challenge.

By changing certain thoughts and behaviours, people can tap into their resilience through flexibility, adaptability, and perseverance. According to research, when students believe that they can develop both intellectual abilities and social skills, they increase their own resilience, resulting in a lower stress response to adversity and improved performance.

Susan Kobasa's three elements of resilience

Challenge: People with high resilience view adversities as challenges and learn from their mistakes to grow and improve. They do not reflect them as negative outcomes or what more downgrading themselves.

Commitment: Resilient people have goals, and they have the desire to be committed to achieve the goals. Having goals is one of the biggest reasons that made them to be resilient, because it makes them feel that they have purpose to accomplish in life.

Personal control: Resilient people tend to not look back and have very high focus on the things ahead of them that they have control over. They believe dwelling over failures will not bring any benefits to them.

People enter adulthood with varying levels of emotional resilience, however, those who want to improve their resilience can do so by becoming more proactive and taking a committed approach in their lives. Additionally, developing emotional resilience entails learning to interpret and face adversity as a personal challenge to be overcome.

Reconstructing your goals and purpose are also some other alternatives to stand up in resilience. Perhaps by repurposing your goals, you can be more inspired to work on them and could also possibly lead you to a more productive direction.

Resilience is one of the traits that exists in your genes, and it can be decoded so you are able to know your resilience level. Check out our Decode Talent DNA Test to learn more about your traits that can help in your self-growth! Visit agtgenetics.com/our-dna-tests for more information.

References

American Psychological Association. Resilience. https://www.apa.org/topics/resilience

Developing resilience: Overcoming and growing from setbacks. MindTools. https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/resilience.htm

Hurley, K. et al. What is resilience? Everyday Health. https://www.everydayhealth.com/wellness/resilience/

Newman, K. Five science-backed strategies to build resilience. Greater Good Science Center. https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/five_science_backed_strategies_to_build_resilience

Resilience: Hardiness. Mental Help. https://www.mentalhelp.net/emotional-resilience/hardiness/

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