Resilience is the ability to BOUNCE back from trauma, failure, setbacks, or disappointments. It’s mental toughness to endure in the face of enormous challenges. Resilience is the grit and glue that enables us to hold on and press in when others with less mental fortitude would fold up or cave in. So, how do we BOUNCE?
In the book, Man’s Search for Meaning, author and psychologist Viktor Frankl details his harrowing experience while interned in a Nazi concentration camp. Frankl turned his imprisonment into a case study. He researched what caused some fellow detainees to grab onto the electric fence and commit suicide while others who were more resilient grabbed onto hope instead. He discovered that one’s motivation to act stems from their own definition of life’s meaning.
There is a success formula that increases resilience: E+R=O.
“E” stands for the “events” that happen in our lives. We often have little control over many things that occur in our environment. Some things are pleasant; others are tragic and painful. Either way, some things are just beyond our control.
“R” stands for our “response” to the events. We can determine the course of our own lives by how we respond to the things that happen that we can’t control. Resilient people focus on those things they can control. Things like thoughts, beliefs, values, dreams, goals, choices, and habits.
“O” stands for the “outcome” that is created as a result of the events combined with our response. The outcomes we experience are the sum total of how we choose to respond to the events in our lives. We can learn from the past as a lesson, but other than that, we just have to keep going.
Resilient people focus on where they are going more than where they have been. They don’t let the past limit their future. And, they don’t wait for their circumstances to align before they begin to enjoy life. Owning our response leads to personal freedom, success, fulfillment, health, and happiness.
Thankfully, we are not born with a fixed amount of resilience. It’s like a muscle that can be built and strengthened. One of the most valuable tools for developing resilience is a positive mental attitude. Resilient people view difficulties as challenges instead of obstacles. They see failures as opportunities for growth and mistakes are viewed as lessons to be learned.
BOUNCE is a choice and there is a process. We choose our thoughts. And, our thoughts become our beliefs. Our beliefs determine our attitudes. Our attitudes affect our decisions. And, our decisions make our lives. Each of us has the power to decide what kind of person we will be.
We can even redesign our personality and rewrite our history. Memories are often more fiction than actual facts. And, we are the author who holds both the pencil and the eraser. We decide which facts are important to us and which facts are not. We can rewrite the past, as well as create our own future, by how we frame things up, similar to a Choose Your Own Adventure story. Whatever we focus on expands.
If we wait for everything to straighten out before we allow ourselves to enjoy life, we might spend our whole lives waiting. Instead, we can train our minds to enjoy the life we currently have regardless of our circumstances.
I have a friend who was diagnosed with colon cancer in his thirties, not once but twice. Too sick to play with his three-year-old daughter, or care for his newborn baby, he lay on the couch watching movies as he contemplated his own epitaph. Then, a line from The Shawshank Redemption changed the course of his life forever: “Get busy living or get busy dying.” Sick as he was, he dragged himself off the couch and began to play ball with his daughter. That was the beginning of his turnaround. He fully recovered and now counsels others who have the same rare form of cancer. Now he probably has the most joie de verve of anyone I’ve ever met!
I was also diagnosed with a life-threatening form of skin cancer in my thirties while raising a young daughter. One of my life mottos became: “I don’t need to get sick to start living.” Now I hardly ever even catch a cold. This is just one of the many ways I have had to BOUNCE.
Healthy self-talk resets the mindset and liberates us from limiting beliefs. Sometimes the biggest bully is the one in our own head. We beat ourselves up and we say things to ourselves that we would never say to our friends. We need to talk to ourselves the same way, with compassion and kindness, like we would to our friends.
They say teens today are more anxious, depressed, suicidal, fragile, and less resilient than previous generations. If you are a parent, you can teach your kids resilience by teaching them how to be aware of their thoughts. Whenever they find themselves thinking critical thoughts toward themselves they can record over it with kind words instead.
Resilient people cultivate joy independent of any outside circumstances. When faced with adversity we all have a choice: will we complain and remain… or will we BOUNCE?
I HOPE YOU BOUNCE!
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