How to Develop Resilience: Warrior Mind Podcast #497

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In this episode of the Warrior Mind Podcast I’m going to discuss several ways in which to develop resilience and why it’s important.

Referred to as the rubber ball factor, resilience is your ability to recover from or bounce back in the event of adversity. It is not necessarily about overcoming enormous challenges, but coping and adjusting easily with the daily inevitable life setbacks. It also means maintaining a positive outlook and managing stress more effectively. Resilience is, in essence, a mindset that draws from various skills and sources of help such as thinking skills, physical and mental health, as well as your relationships with others.

The Ingredients of How to Develop Resilience

There are four fundamental ingredients to develop resilience:

• Awareness– taking note of what is going on around you and inside your brain
• Thinking– your ability to interpret the things that are going on rationally
• Reaching out– knowing how and when to ask others for help
• Fitness– our physical and mental strength to handle challenges without becoming ill

Enjoy this podcast on how to develop resilience

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More Unique Ways to Develop Resilience

The link between thought and emotion

Emotions influence on thought

It is crucial to apply reason to emotion during your decision-making process. That is because how you think is usually affected by your emotional response towards an event. Psychologist Albert Ellis designed a simple model to elaborate this- the A-B-C model of resilience.

A for adversity – being in a challenging event

B for Beliefs- it entails interpreting the event

C for Consequences- what you feel or do as a result of the event

It is crucial to note that even when an emotion is so visceral that it leaves no time to go through each step rationally, your brain will almost certainly go through the process subconsciously.

Thoughts have influence on emotion

Your thoughts can lead to specific emotions. For example:

• If you think you’ve lost something you might feel sad
• If someone has done something to harm you, you feel anger
• If you hurt somebody you, you feel shame

Understanding that thoughts lead to emotions allows you to fathom what your subconscious thinking processes will be. It also helps you to take the right action to address the challenge.

Thinking traps

Traps are assumptions about yourself or a situation that are made without assessing the evidence. Some of the signs that you are falling into a thinking trap are the use of phrases like always, never, I, or they, to name a few. For instance:

• I have never been able to do things like that
• I just can’t pass math
• They have taken everything from me

You ought to avoid falling into the thinking traps when you are developing a belief towards a situation. That is because; the trap can hinder you from acting effectively or with resilience.

How to improve your resilience

You can develop and strengthen your resilience in the following ways:

• Improving resilience through thinking

You should engage the rational part of your brain in making a decision about a situation. You can do that by:

Gathering more information

When making the right decisions, it is necessary to gather information related directly to the situation. That will help you to generate ideas for possible alternatives or solutions. You can collect information through a self-assessment process (internal) or from other people or sources (external).

Based on your belief system and experience, your brain will typically present the most obvious explanation. But that is not always correct. Thinking about alternatives and comparing them to reality, asking questions, or looking something up can help you to react to a situation appropriately.

Example- Suppose you see a snake on your sidewalk. Your immediate reaction will probably be fear. Your A-B-C will likely be “it is a snake! It is poisonous! I should run away!” But suppose you pause and gather some information- the snake could be dead, not poisonous, or can only move very slowly.

Alternative scenarios

Take these instances- Your boss wants to speak to you, you immediately think she is going to fire you and you prepare to defend your performance. But it turns out; she wanted you to know that she is pregnant and you will be taking over her responsibilities (with a pay rise) when she goes on her maternity leave.

Your child’s teacher asks for a word and you instantly imagine that your child is in trouble. But no, he just fell and cut a knee during break time. No harm was done, but the school had to let you know.

Human beings are prone to imagining the worst (catastrophizing). Fortunately, it is easy to deal with this, and it entails generating alternative scenarios in your brain. Envision both the worst possible as well as the best possible outcomes. Then, imagine the most likely outcomes- probably somewhere between the worst and the best and design your response plan.

• Improving resilience through reaching out

Asking for help, regardless of how small or big the issue is, can be difficult. That is because it takes courage to reach out and acknowledge that you are unsure about something or you need a shoulder to rely on. Human beings are typically taught to be independent and self-reliant, and hence knowing when you need help can also be challenging to identify or admit.

However, since no man is an island, there is no indignity in asking for help. We all need help, and in fact some people function much better when working with others. Therefore, developing resilience requires you to understand how, when, and who to ask for help or reaching out to resolve your challenges.

• Improving resilience through fitness and health

There is a link between enough sleep, healthy food, exercise, and stress. Essentially, health diets, sleep, and exercise influences your daily decisions as well as ensure that you get through tough times with more resilience. For instance, lack of sleep can make you experience small stressors much worse than you could after a good night’s sleep. Also, it can deprive your brain of the time it requires to clean up cells that strengthen neuroplasticity (the capacity of your brain to adapt and change by creating new connections).

Besides, getting enough exercise can increase resilience. Research indicates that even short periods of exercise can contribute to energy levels while a healthy diet and regular exercise lower cortisol levels (the stress hormone). A 10-minute walk will also ease anxiety and increase your daytime energy.

Conclusion

Resilience is your multifaceted ability to draw on all your resources, both internal and external, to face challenges and deal with them appropriately. It also ensures you understand and rationalize situations so as to accord the right solutions. Besides, you can use myriad ways as explained above to improve on these resources and develop your resilience.

For a more in-depth discussion about this topic request your Introductory Consultation.

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