6 ways to build resilience
It’s true, you can build resilience! And guess what? It’s vital for helping us cope with all kinds of daily stressors. For that reason alone (and many others) it's essential to us, thereby building a strong resilience to challenging situations can improve our mental health and quality of life.
Being resilient is having the ability to bounce back from tough situations or thoughts and manage your emotions as they arise. Resilience is defined as the process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional, and behavioural flexibility and adjustment to external and internal demands, according to the American Psychological Association.
Factors that play into resilience
💫 Being optimistic💫 Overcoming past challenges
💫 Religion or faith
💫 Having social support
Experiences shape the people we are and the people become, sometimes these things aren’t always in our control, resilience however can be cultivated. Learning to boost your resilience through effective coping strategies will help assist you with those curve balls life may throw your way.
"The key to life is resilience.. we will always get knocked down, but getting up is what counts"
In order to change your life you must first change your mindset..
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Think more positively of yourself
What really goes on inside your head? Are you kind to yourself, or would you be considered your worst critic? Do you take time prioritize your body, mind and soul? Maybe it’s time to make a positive change so you can feel good on the inside. When you are at peace with yourself it really shines through and will have a significant impact on your daily life and those you surround yourself with.
Building a positive view of yourself can help boost resilience, here are some daily practices you can get started on today:
- Practice gratitude
- Meditate/pray
- Exercise/movement
- Say what you need
- Prioritize your time
- Focus on your goals
- Always make room for self-care
- Enough sleep and water
- Say no when things aren’t serving you
- For each negative thought, replace it with a positive about yourself
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Identify your own strengths
Use your personal strengths to overcome difficulty. Taking advantage of those strengths can enhance overall wellbeing, if you don’t already know your true self, take time to find yourself! Discover your best qualities, strengths, weaknesses, and things that come naturally to you, then strategize how to use them to improve how you respond to the things you can’t control.
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Practice emotional acceptance
Ignoring our emotions can be harmful, leading to unresolved issues that continue to build further impacting your mental wellness. As cliche as it may sound “the truth will set you free” therefore, accepting and feeling all of your emotions will help you become more resilient and in charge of your ability to decide on how you respond to challenging times.
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Laugh a little, or a lot!
Reframing your thoughts is an important aspect to building resilience, however gaining full control of them can be tough. Try using humor as a distraction and to help alleviate stress. Finding successful ways to improve your thoughts through laughter, and other positive distractions is a healthy way to build a little resilience each day.
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Accept that things change
Change is inevitable, yet we have a hard time accepting it, but there are ways you can learn to cope and prepare, therefore building resilience to whatever life throws your way.
💫 Plan for the future: prepare yourself for unforeseen events like losing a job, or family member, change is much easier to deal with when you have a plan in place. If you know change will be coming in the near future, start getting yourself prepared in advance, once you're equip for these challenging situations you will find yourself less stressed and able to cope better.
💫 Reframe your thoughts: when a challenging situation arises, stop and ask yourself why you're having these thoughts? Awareness is the key to shifting your thoughts from negative to positive.
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Resilience curated mantras
If you thought you couldn’t practice your way to an unbreakable resilience.. think again! These daily mantras are proven to help you build on emotional resilience to become mentally stronger.
Repeat these mantras to yourself daily..
- “I am enough”
- ‘I am complete”
- “I will never ever give up”
- “I am stronger than I was yesterday”
- “I can handle anything, even in uncertain times”
- “I will stay positive and always find a solution”
- “I will always allow myself to be happy no matter what”
The takeaway
Resilience is hygiene for your emotional and mental health, it can be improved through practice and needs to be worked on frequently since our resilience is ever-changing with the world. Taking these small steps every day and preparing yourself for challenging situations is the best recipe for resilience!