Issue 29: Resilience
THE LEAP
BY QUANTUM ORANGE
GROW, EXPAND & EVOLVE
ISSUE 29 | RESILIENCE
Each week The (Quantum) Leap summarises a key aspect of success into what you need to Think, Feel and Do to create a personal shift.
THINK
Resilience is generally defined as the ability to “cope well with adversity” and “persevere and adapt when things go wrong.” Resilience is the ability to overcome the obstacles of childhood, move through everyday adversities, bounce back from setbacks and reach out to achieve all we are capable of.
Research tells us that resilient people are healthier and live longer, are more successful in school and jobs and happier in relationships.
Your thoughts and beliefs are two of the keys to maintaining high resilience. You can easily become more resilient by changing how you think about challenges and adversity.
Your beliefs about the way things will turn out have a significant influence on the way you respond to stress and difficulty. Resilient individuals believe they can have an impact on the outcomes of events - they believe what they do is important and regard stressful events as challenges to master, rather than threats to their wellbeing.
Considered thinking is also crucial in developing resilience. Examine yours with the following questions:
- What do you say to yourself when you are upset?
- What thoughts do you have when things go wrong?
- What explanations do you give when things go wrong?
- What interpretations do you make when things go wrong?
FEEL
It is not the events you experience that cause emotions - it’s your thoughts and beliefs about the events that drive how you feel, and therefore what you do next.
Resilient people are skilled at controlling their emotions in the midst of adversity so they can stay focused on their goals. This skill (broadly referred to as emotional intelligence) allows you to choose your responses in a far more deliberate way. Using emotional intelligence, you can make the switch from quickly reacting negatively to responding to a crisis thoughtfully.
Resilient people are also aware that suppressing emotions long term is not healthy, so they make space to process their emotions and let them go. The ability to do that creates far greater capacity to bounce back when you need to, because you won’t be battling against things piling up on top of one another.
- When challenges arise, what do you do with your emotions?
- What effect do these feelings have on your ability to handle the situation?
- What relationship do you observe between your thoughts and your feelings?
- How/when do you make space to process your emotions?
- Are there any beliefs you need to examine/replace?
DO
When we experience adversity, it’s common to attempt to explain to ourselves why the adverse event occurred. As we discussed above, our beliefs (including the ones about the cause of adversity) shape our reaction.
Using the ABC Model created by Dr Albert Ellis, you can identify and understand those beliefs, enabling yourself to make better choices as you move forward.
A - Adversity: The situation or event
B - Belief: Your explanation about why the situation or event occurred.
C - Consequence: The feelings and behaviours your belief caused.
Bring to mind a recent event you found challenging.
Write down the A, the B, and then the C.
What did you learn about yourself by working through the above exercise?
What choice could you make next time that would serve you better?
