The Art of Resilience

Assessment due dates are looming, work is hectic and now your kids are all sick with a cold. Sound familiar?  We all hit rough patches where life can seem extra challenging, with failures, mistakes and other stressors beyond your control. This article is about what you can do to build your resilience to get through a tough day/week/month/year when life doesn’t go quite as planned.

Resilience is your ability to cope with tough times by digging deep to find your inner strength, as well as engaging support networks, to help you bounce back when things don’t go as planned. Resilience can not only enable you to face difficult situations, but often provides an opportunity to further develop your coping skills.

Coping with challenges

Stress and setbacks are a part of life, and you can’t always avoid them. A series of small challenges or a traumatic situation can take a toll on your wellbeing and can be hard to deal with. If you know you can cope with adversity that can give you the confidence to get through tough situations.

Coping strategies can enable you to deal with stress and maintain a sense of control in your life. There are many different ways of coping with stress and everyone is different, so it’s about finding something that works for you

Strengthening resilience

Resilience enables you to better cope with challenging situations, and helps with your mental wellbeing. You probably already have skills and support networks that help you be resilient. You can build these up even more, making it easier for you to cope with life.

Five tips to boost resilience:

1. Find meaning in adversity: Every pain contains a lesson. Find a lesson that makes you feel better and align with it.
2. Build a community of support: Equally important, decide that the support you're currently getting is good enough and be grateful for it. If it isn’t good enough, start developing those strong relationships now. You should never face tough times alone.
3. Be hopeful: Hope, like hopelessness, is a choice. We all periodically feel hopeless, but to build your resilience you’ll need to stop defining yourself by momentary emotions. Choose hope.
4. Focus on gratitude: Keep a gratitude journal, or better yet, start a gratitude blog with a small group of friends. It takes ‘training' to see the glass as half full, so why not begin your training right now? Ask yourself what the one thing is you are you grateful for today, and repeat this every day. Soon enough, you’ll have nailed an attitude of gratitude and you’ll be better equipped to deal with the curveballs life may throw your way.
5. Accept and anticipate change: Change is part of life, but as humans, we don’t always heart change. Take this principal a step further and also accept and anticipate pain, rejection, misfortune and loss. Learn from your mistakes and failures and move on.

Resilience is not always something you’re born with, but with these tips, you can put in place some great strategies to cope with life’s setbacks, and continue to flourish in your endeavours. If you're currently enrolled at CDU, you can book a free and confidential counselling session to discuss anything that may be affecting your wellbeing. To find out more about this service, please visit CDU Equity Services.

If you’re experiencing a life crisis, please contact Lifeline 13 11 14 for immediate over-the-phone support.