Let me ask you a question. What do you do when you have a bad day at work? Or when you face a devastating problem in your life? Do you give up at once and start crying? Or do you learn lessons from such incidents and move forward in your life? If you can recover from a crisis quickly, then voilà, you are a resilient person! That is precisely the quality that we are going to look at in the following article.
Table of Contents
Introduction:
Resilience is our ability to bounce back (even spring forward!) from adversity. It is a characteristic that enables a person to cope with catastrophes psychologically. It allows you to sail smoothly through the rough ‘sea of life’ by harnessing your skills. Resilience is not wholly hereditary or influenced by genetics. It is not something that we are born with or without.
It is a trait that can be developed over the years by practice. However, you ought not to assume that once you have become resilient, you may not face any difficulties or stress in your life. Instead, you will better cope with the incoming issues and emerge victoriously. Contrastingly, people who lack resilience may stop living and start worrying. Another point of difference is that resilient people have a positive outlook on stress. They consider stress as an instrument to live a ‘charged life’.
Benefits of being Resilient:
A Harvard health survey reports resilient people live longer, have a lower incidence of depression and describe greater contentment in life. In a swiftly developing world with fierce competition in every field, it is crucial to improve resilience to stand out from the crowd. Resilience will help us prevent ‘workplace burnout’.
It is a phenomenon that is because of excess stress, anxiety, and uncertainty. It allows us to improve our enthusiasm and productivity and that of those around us. Our physical well-being will automatically improve if our mental well-being is improved because of resilience. This is because the ‘mind and the body are one ‘. Resilience allows us to turn a ‘not’ into a ‘new opportunity ’ and a ‘FAIL’ure into a ‘First Attempt In Learning ’ (FAIL). Resilient people can teach resilience to other people and help them improve their quality of life.
Developing Resilience for Life Improvement
Given the numerous benefits of developing resilience in almost all areas of life, you might think about becoming a more resilient individual. So, there are few tips that you can follow to build resilience gradually in your life.
Foremost, change the way you see events. I am trying to say that you need to adopt a new outlook towards life. You need to stop the process of black-and-white thinking (or All-or-none thinking). If you consider an event as a disaster, then delve deeper and look for lessons that you can learn from that event.
There is a fascinating concept called Yin Yang in Taoism. It talks about the philosophy of duality forming a whole and how the bright side coexists with the grim side. In addition, it explains how the sunny side (Yin) and the shady side (Yang) are not absolute and are changing.
You have to fight permanence to become more resilient. After a tragedy such as losing a loved one, you may feel you have lost your joy permanently in life. That is not true at all.
Affective forecasting is the phenomenon that causes this and makes people predict their emotional future negatively. Instead of this, believe that your future is looking good. If you can change your attitude, you can change your life. Your mind is like a garden from which you should weed out the negative thoughts and plant affirmative thoughts.
Appreciate yourself for the things you did well and learn from your mistakes every day. Remember the mantra; Day by day, every single day, I am getting better and better. You have to take control of your emotions instead of letting them have the upper hand over you. This skill is called emotional intelligence, which will aid you in becoming resilient. Instead of reacting to every situation, start responding to the situation in the best possible manner.
I need not remind you to make lemonades when life gives you lemons, do I? Inculcate effective habits like meditation, eating a balanced diet, and exercise in your daily routine. If you do not make time for these activities, then life will force you to take a chill pill (or anti-depression pill) the hard way.
Examples of Resilience
From the days of iron and steel to that of AI and automation, we can find innumerable examples of resilience in history. Take the Indian freedom struggle against colonialism, for instance. It lasted for over 90 years, from 1857 to 1947. We can find that this struggle lasted only because of the resilience of many leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Subash Chandra Bose, and Sardar Vallabhai Patel.
Another splendid example is that of Nelson Mandela and many others who fought against apartheid in South Africa. Can you believe a person could spend over 27 years in prison not knowing when they will be released (if they would be released)? Well, Mandela was a leader who did that and earned the title of ‘Madiba’, a South African term of respect used to refer to older people.The fight against slavery is a similar example involving many resilient front runners.
Study a more recent example of Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba. He has quoted: “I failed a key primary school test two times, I failed the middle school test three times, I failed the college entrance exam two times and got rejected from Harvard ten times”. Jack Ma was the only guy out of 24 people to be rejected for a KFC job. Various employers turned him down for over 30 different roles. His startup, Alibaba, was even on the brink of going bankrupt. However, at present, Alibaba is one of the top 20 most profitable companies in the world. Further, Jack Ma is one of the wealthiest billionaires around the globe.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, if you develop resilience in your life, you will take it to the next level. Remember that being resilient does not mean that you should tolerate discrimination, injustice, toxic relationships, abusive behavior, and the like. Instead, you have to fight against these with resilience, like the leaders we have seen earlier.
Check out these related links: LinkedIn Course on Resilience
Why Was Nelson Mandela Imprisoned for 27 Years?
I hope now you have understood that being resilient can do wonders in your life and got charged up with the examples of resilience given in this article. In the comments below, also tell us about how you have bounced back from failure in your life. Until then, keep striving for success!
Have a blessed time ahead.
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Ladies and Gentlemen, my name is S. Deva Vikaas. I am from Chennai. Currently, I am pursuing my Bachelor’s in Industrial Engineering from the College of Engineering Guindy. My fields of interest include marketing, poster designing, content writing, and management. I believe in the values of hard work, resilience, and in having a growth mindset.