What is resilience?  

The word resilience in Latin means ‘to rebound’.   

Resilience is a topic that has been studied for some time by psychologists.  Resilience is most commonly known as the ability to cope with and rise to difficulties that one faces in the course of their life and quickly adapt and recover from. An individual with good resilience has the ability to bounce back from stress more quickly than someone with a less developed resilience.   

Individuals with resilience are able to utilise their skills and strengths in times of need, such as when faced with a challenge. Instead of resulting to unhealthy coping strategies, resilient individuals face the issue head on and overcome adversity, which results in them becoming mentally stronger once the struggle passes. Good resilience can also protect us from developing some mental health issues and can also make dealing with everyday life an easier challenge.    

How can I become more resilient?   

The good news is that we all already have resilience and our level of resilience can change over the course of our lives.  We can develop our resilience through several methods; 

• Having confidence in your strengths and abilities, 

• Holding a positive view of yourself, 

• Being able to make plans and stick to them, 

• Having high emotional intelligence,  

• Having good communication and problem-solving skills, 

• Looking after your physical and emotional health,  

• Through gathering more information to assist in your decision-making about a situation, providing the opportunity to explore alternative explanations, and, 

• Having positive and supportive relationships in your life to reassure and encourage you through difficult times. 

Unfortunately, you cannot build resilience overnight. It is a process that takes time, effort and commitment to learn.   

Don’t know where to start? 

Set yourself small targets to gradually build your resilience, I have listed some changes you can start to introduce to your lifestyle below (if you aren’t already doing them!): 

1. Start practising saying no to things that you don’t actually want to do and or agree with, 

2. Develop your hobbies and interests,  

3. Make time for your social life and open up to those close to you, 

4. Spend some time working on some self-reflection activities,  

5. Set time aside for you to focus on relaxing, whatever relaxing looks like to you, 

6. Look after yourself physically (sleep, movement and nutrition), 

7. Recognise and reward yourself for your achievements, 

8. Be kind to yourself, 

9. Find balance in your life.  

Mind, the mental health charity, suggest creating a resilience plan.  You can create a resilience plan by writing down: 

• things that have a positive effect on your wellbeing 

• things that have a negative effect on your wellbeing 

Then create a plan for how you might be able to change these effects, by writing down: 

• things you could try to improve your situation 

• who you might ask for help. 

I would love to hear how you get on with your lifestyle changes and resilience plan!