Everyone’s life is full of happy events and blessings, as well as hard times and challenges that appear unavoidable no matter what we do. Sometimes it is even worse to try to control everything or to focus on avoiding hard times, this approach would even worsen the situation, instead, resilience may come as a game changer in our lives offering us the opportunity to recover faster from hard times and progress in our lives.
Resilience is the ability to bounce back or adapt quickly to difficult situations and experiences and return to our initial state without a major impact. In other words, resilience lies in coping with a problem or crisis and returning to our status before the crisis in a short time. Adaptability and flexibility are the main backbones of resilience. Resilience is made up of 5 main pillars which are as follows:
Emotional well-being: the way you deal with your emotions, and how logical and realistic is your vision of yourself and your environment
Inner drive: your capacity to define objectives and adapt a thinking approach that enables you to progress in life
Future focus: your ability to find solutions and to be optimistic.
Relationships: Maintaining healthy relationships with others such as family members, friends and colleagues
Physical health: being aware of the importance of physical health and its impact on the pillars
Any individual may have in his environment someone who is very resilient and seems very calm and confident most of the time, we may wonder how that person developed resilience. Although resilience may come naturally to some people, It is also possible for anyone to develop it with awareness and practice.
First of all, anyone must have a network of support, it can be our family or a friend we trust. It is highly important to be able to share our thoughts, problems, and issues with someone. A human is social by nature. We all need each other and the more we can express ourselves, and have a lean shoulder to cry on in times of crises, the easier we can get over these hard times. It is very healthy to exchange with others and to feel their support. Nevertheless, unfortunately, some people are not so fortunate and live in total loneliness and in this case, it would be helpful to consult a psychotherapist from time to time. It is also beneficial to practice journaling by writing our thoughts in our journal daily, it helps to release emotions and gain back balance.
Moreover, it is highly recommended to identify what triggers us it can be some stressful situations at work, some fears of the future, or some unpleasant events at home. In this case, we need to train our brain to focus on what we can control and to see the positive in every situation no matter how bad a situation is there is always a good side in it which we probably cannot realize immediately. Focusing on what we can control is a game changer. Let’s imagine that you received an e-mail at work that there is a workforce reduction plan and that some of the employees will be fired in the future. You might panic and fear losing your job and that is normal and natural but let’s think of this situation differently. The workforce reduction is still a future plan that may or may not affect you but it is in any way it is a situation you cannot control. However, if your fear exceeds the limits it can make you make the wrong decisions and it can even impact your health. Instead, you can evaluate this situation wisely by continuing the hard work (when reducing the workforce, the company usually tries to keep the best elements) and at the same time start seeking another job and continuing to develop your network. In this case, you would realize that you focused on what you can control, and in the future, you may either keep your job or get a better one in this case the most important thing is that you didn’t let fear take control of your life.
Another tip to build resilience is learning from the past, if you take a closer look at your past you may realize that you had ups and downs and that you learned from your past mistakes and issues and gained experience, you would also realize that many of your fears didn’t come true, they were always there just to stress you and make you feel sad. You would also realize that despite the difficult times you had you were able to recover and get back to your normal life and that these hard times taught you some important life lessons.
Furthermore, it is highly important to prioritize self-care by taking care of our body and health and not neglecting any of the key aspects of self-care. Practicing sports is highly appreciated as well as maintaining a healthy diet and sleeping for at least 7 to 8 hours while watching out for our quality of sleep as it is the time of the day when our body regenerates and we get the chance to relax and renew our energy which makes us feel more energetic and comfortable during the day and less stressed and irritable. It is also crucial to take care of our health by performing medical checks and analyses regularly and taking any required medicines or supplements.
All things considered, resilience is a key quality that can help us live a more balanced life and recover quickly from crises. Resilience is a true power that can protect us from falling into severe depression and anxiety. It can be perceived as a natural quality for some people but it can also be developed thanks to practice, awareness, and experience.