Imagine having the ability to be able to stick to any goal you desired no matter how hard it was to achieve. Imagine having the stamina to bounce back from your hardships and tackle any obstacles in your way. What would you choose to do, knowing you could do anything you put your mind toward?
Psychologists across the globe have been have been thinking about this for decades. What makes some people more successful than others? What has been implied so far from studies is that there is a common contributing factor to success and that’s good old hardiness – which in psychology has been coined emotional ’resilience.’
Being resilient is a term now used within psychology to describe how one succeeds in the face of adversity. Basically the more resilient you are the more likely you will overcome the obstacles needed to achieve your goals, whatever they may be.
Grit And Hope Are Tools In Your Resilience Toolbox
I have talked about grit in blogs prior to this and that is certainly one of these emotional strategies. Grit is also about helping you achieve your dreams, being able to maintain stamina and persistence for long term goals. Demonstrating grit is like using a tool from your resiliency arsenal.
Hope is also a valuable tool we can use. A psychological study in Boston investigating the relationship between resilience factors like hope and negative emotions like anxiety and depression demonstrated that as we have more hope, our worries go down.
A resilient person would finish doing something even if he had become bored with it and desired change while a non-resilient person would have gone to another goal when he started to lose interest. As you can understand it’s very hard to measure our resilience though there are various ways we can improve it.
How Can We Become More Resilient?
1. Have the ability to make realistic plans… And follow through with them. A lot of us make big plans and never quite get around to completing them. Train your mind to stay passionate by working your way up from small achievements to big goals that require many steps to complete.
2. Confidence in your strengths and abilities! This is where Hope comes in. Be optimistic in all things and have a healthy view of yourself in relationship to the world around you. Stay hopeful; be passionate about your dreams.
3. Communication/problem-solving skills. On the way to achieving your goals you will surely come across obstacles. As big or small as they may be they will require you to take action. Use the skills you think you may need often but remember that failure is a chance to learn and grow.
4. The ability to manage strong impulses and feelings. Whether it’s feelings to give up when it gets tough or anger rising when we don’t get the expected outcome – emotions are important to be able to handle. A resilient person will be able to retain passion for long term goals and not be swayed by emotions pulling them here and there. It’s hard to do, but it can be learnt the more you consciously try it.
This isn’t it though! There are countless ways we can work on our resilience. The key is to have tools and know you have these tools for times when you need them!