Currently, “resilience” is a hot topic in the across the globe, with challenging and uncertain events surrounding us all. I look at the word resilience as a needed skill to survive in the future ahead. I along with hundreds of Life Performance researchers continue to gain a deeper understanding of the complexity and power of resilience as it relates to leadership, purposeful living and how we might teach it and develop it within ourselves.
Resilience can be a difficult subject to understand.
– Why do some people get paralyzed by challenges and crisis, yet others use these same occurrences as launching pad for change and growth?
– How do some people endure life altering difficulties over time, yet remain steadfast and positive?
– Why do children, who are often valiantly resilient to life’s challenges, tend to lose their resilience and “buoyancy” as they get older?
– How do we nurture personal resilience so that it remains with you throughout our lifetimes?
If your thinking what I’m thinking, continue to reading as we dive deeper into the roots of resilience.
“Resilience is the capacity of a system, enterprise or person to maintain its core purpose and integrity in the face of dramatically changed circumstances.” -Zolli
When we go through a massive difficulty we may never return to our prior environment. In fact, we will find ourselves living in a “updated normal” where our usual models, frameworks and practices might be irrelevant and ineffective. This is so relevant for the year we have had with Coronavirus and other widespread global impacts.
So, How do we then lead under these circumstances, when there are no maps or recipes to help guide the way?
It is our capacity for resilience that will enable us to lead through and leave a legacy under these kinds of stressful and ambiguous circumstances.
So what does your version of resilience look like?
Leveraging thousands of a years of research and our own experiences has helped us discover that Resilient Humans are:
- generally optimistic about life and have a positive view on the world around them
- naturally curious and have a continuous learning journey throughout their lives
- have a healthy “Failure Fitness” and see “mistakes” as learning opportunities. They don’t judge themselves harshly when they make mistakes. This allows them to search for lessons as they move through difficult situations and challenges.
- good at asking for asking for help and seeking to collaborate with other, knowing that we are all stronger together.
- self-aware and mindful people, allowing them to be proactive in life development. They now who they are, what they believe about the world around them and the role they want to play in it.
- centered around one or various guiding values systems or outlets, religious or spiritual, and see their faith as both an anchor and a beacon that supports them through trying times.
- good problem solvers who search for solutions and try different approaches when confronted with tough challenges.
- grit or great self- control and the ability to delay near term gratification for long term success.
- firm ability to handle stress well, when difficulty hits.
Want to learn more?
I recently created my first program focused on the helping people, just like you, identify and build their own unique resilience skills that they can leverage when faced with difficulties. In the Resilient Human Playbook we leverage the above characteristics of resilient people as a way to help identify your areas of strength and needed development areas that propel individuals to the next level of their own journey. We all live and play in different environments, are put in different situations and have different experiences, personal growth is not “one-size-fits-all.”
To start your resilience journey, take our Resilience Recipe quiz and learn more about what areas you are crushing and ones you need to work on strengthening. This is a continual process and don’t seek perfection, seek compound improvements over time.
We are here to support your resilience building process.
Until next time,
