Written by Jody Pierce, LCSW
Executive Director, Pennock Center for Counseling
We can’t avoid change, tough circumstances and life challenges. Change may be the one constant we can count on in life, but we can learn how to cope with change and tough times. A good word to describe effective coping is resilience.Resilience is coping and adapting in the face of a challenge or difficult event. It is about being able to bounce back from these challenges. Resilient people look for solutions, lean on their support system, and stay hopeful even in moments of high stress. And this is key, resilience is the courage to try again after a failure and keep pursuing goals despite the obstacles.
Life’s challenges can make us stronger, wiser, and help us grow, however, it isn’t necessarily easy to bounce back from hard things. There are some things we can do to build our resiliency muscle:
- Nurture strong relationships. Relationships are our support network. It takes an investment of time and effort to build and retain these relationships.
- Prioritize our physical health. Our physical well being significantly impacts our resilience. A healthy body can cope better.
- Embrace change and let go of the need to control. Working on accepting change and focusing on what we can control is empowering and builds confidence.
- Maintain perspective. This means looking at failure differently. When things don’t turn out as we plan we can choose to look at it as a lesson and not a failure.
- Develop good problem solving skills. Solving problems help us feel empowered and more confident.
- Learn Stress Management techniques. Effective Stress Management is crucial during difficult times. Exploring activities like meditation, breathing exercises, yoga, therapy, walking, or journaling can be helpful.
By practicing these strategies you will strengthen your resiliency muscle which increases the capacity to navigate stress no matter how big or small.