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For many years now, I have had this desire to start every year with 365 days of daily pages to journal my way through the year to help me gauge how I’m doing, as well as to review what worked and what didn’t work, along with celebrating the wins. But being that I’m not a ritualistic person, I know it’s something I would not be able to be consistent with and thus have spared myself of that extra burden of inducing the feeling of failure for not accomplishing that goal. Hence, I opted for something that was more feasible for me by choosing to focus on a particular quality each new year to work on or strengthen based on how I fared in my life in the previous year. A word that would sum up where I felt I sort of lacked and weakened in to help me focus on shoring up in the new year. This year, I felt resilience was what I wanted to work more on. The more we inch into the year, I’m reassured of how much my instinct didn’t misguide me from narrowing on the quality of resilience as my focus word for 2022.
People that know me well always tend to say the following phrase to me: “you’re very resilient!,” especially after getting to know part of my story and seeing how far I’ve come despite all of the insurmountable challenges I faced throughout my childhood on. Honestly, I never feel as resilient as others think I am, but even if I did have a measure of this quality, I can’t help but feel the little bit of resilience I had may have been eroded by the overwhelming obstacles I’ve faced these past several years. What’s interesting is that researchers say that it’s not only big challenges that require resilience. Even day-to-day stress can take a toll on your health. And I can attest to that. That is why it’s important for us to build resilience, no matter how trivial or how serious our problems may be.
This world, our world, is certainly not an ideal place right now. Increasingly senseless and brutal crime, fratricidal wars of unprecedented violence, genocide, indifference toward others’ sufferings, poverty and hunger, lack of solidarity, ecological problems, incurable illnesses that afflict millions—the list of present woes seems endless. Nevertheless, I’m certain the longing for land without evil and the hope for a better world will become a reality eventually, in which harmony, justice, equality, prosperity, and love will reign. Sadly, in the meantime, life’s situation is far from that, adversity is inevitable, which means we will face painful experiences and circumstances that overwhelm us. So what can help us to overcome such painful moments and keep on moving forward successfully? Resilience!
But first, let’s define what resilience is. Resilience is the ability to handle life’s changes and adversities successfully. Resilient people are not immune to hardship. However, they can emerge from it—scarred, perhaps, yet stronger. People who are resilient are able to recover easily and quickly from unpleasant and damaging events. It is like the ability of a spring that can tolerate pressure and gets back to its original form. In other words, resilience is that feature of character that demonstrates an ability to bend but not break. Part of being a successful and productive adult is to bounce back from the negative experiences, to be able to continue to set new goals or to try to find other pathways to reach our intended objective. That’s why we need to build resilience.
Now that we’ve established what resilience is and why we need it, let’s delve into the factors that make us resilient and different from those that easily give up and surrender. In this post, I’m going to discuss at least, 7 practical ways we can build resilience into 2022!
A lot of us tend to put on emotional blinders and only see what we want to see and slip into denial as a coping mechanism. It’s true that facing reality is a grueling and unpleasant thing and often emotionally wrenching. However, there’s a proverb that says, “the one walking in wisdom will escape.” Which means seeing things as they are, not as they were or as you wish them to be. One way to make it a little easier is by asking yourself in a difficult moment this question: Do I truly understand and accept the reality of my situation?
We might know people who under pressure throw up their hands and cry and say: ‘why is this happening to me?’ Such people see themselves as victims and living through hardships does not teach them any lessons. However, Seeing the bigger picture adds meaning. Understanding living in an imperfect world made up of imperfect people, challenges and difficult situations sometimes are unavoidable—not just once in a while but every day. This helps us to accept the fact that we can’t change that, so the best way we can build resilience is to endure an unpleasant situation or a new circumstance, but also to look at seeming obstacles and see an opportunity in it.
Valuable lessons can be learned from people who have already weathered storms of adversity. As you talk to others, you’ll find that they have gone through a lot of difficult trials, but they are OK now. Talk to them and find out what they did or didn’t do to cope with their situation.
There’s an old saying that says, “You can’t keep a good man down.” Essentially, this is saying a person throughout his life may trip and fall over and over again, but he won’t stay down. He will overcome obstacles and challenges, dusting himself off and rising again. It takes time to come to terms with hardship, so don’t be surprised if you have bad days. The important thing is that you “get up again.” Also, remember that when you are bouncing back from adversity, your heart and emotions have to heal. That is a process, and it takes time. I have learned that the road to recovery gets a little better and a little easier as time goes on. So give yourself grace.
“Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.” —Socrates
Learn to be content regardless of the circumstances. Recognize that adversities are beyond our control. The only thing we can control is our response. The key is to be determined to remain content. Wouldn’t you agree that the way we initially react to adversity is not always the best? One of my ongoing goals is to cultivate a positive attitude toward any situation. Difficult? Yes, but possible with the right mindset.
There is no one-size-fits-all program to fully attain contentment, you can still learn how to be content by being intentional. Below are a few tips you can apply to help you find more contentment in your life. Why not print the image below and post it somewhere where you can be reminded of these tips daily?
Show yourselves thankful. No matter how serious the hardship is that you are facing, there are always things for which you can be grateful. When you are facing adversity, it’s hard not to say to yourself, ‘Why me?’ A big part of resilience is not dwelling on your problems but choosing to be positive and grateful for what you have or what you can do. Think of three things that you’re blessed to have.
I think by now the majority of us have to agree that prayer is extremely needed for our world. Prayer is not a psychological crutch. It is real communication with our Creator, who cares for all of his creation. We don’t have to struggle alone. Praying openly and honestly to God about everything and anything not only helps to get rid of negative emotions by focusing on what God has blessed us with, but it also elicits positive feelings such as feelings of gratitude, compassion, forgiveness, and hope, all of which are associated to having peace of mind, and be more content with our lot.
If you’ve made it this far (thank you for reading), please share this article with everyone you think would benefit from it. Also, make sure to subscribe to my newsletter so you don’t miss out on more inspirational tips.
