In the last post, Dangers of Not Coping with Adversity, we described how when we don’t cope well when facing difficult challenges in our life, we end up with a lot to lose. Today we are going to talk about how to build a resilient spirit to overcome adversity.
Over the last number of posts, we have discussed the benefits and disadvantages of standing up during tough times.
Today we are going to devel into why you want to build a resilient spirit.
Here are a number of tips to help get you started.
Every Challenge Can Be An Opportunity
The big difference between people who stand firm when facing challenges and those who run away from a challenge is their perception.
The person shrinking away due to the situation believes there is no way out. They feel the situation is never going to get better.
These people are fixated on what they have lost. They find it difficult to imagine that they can start over again after the work they initially put into the situation.
However, people who are resilient can look on the bright side. They see the experience not as a failure, but as a learning curve and they are prepared to give it another try.
They may not be happy about the situation. Nevertheless, they know that they will be better off by continuing.
They also know that they will not gain a thing by crying and complaining. In fact, they probably know that complaining and sulking are only going to make things worse.
They in fact choose to see the disagreeable experience as an opportunity to be better prepared for future occurrences.
Failure does not mean you aren’t good enough. Rather, it shows that you might not have been prepared well enough or that the situation was just out of your control.
The good news is that if you want to build a resilient spirit, you are going to have to see setbacks as opportunities. These are opportunities where you can grow and learn.
It is important that you see adversity as a trainer that gives you the opportunity to become mentally stronger and better prepared for any future challenges.
It is Important to Learn From the Past
Anyone who refuses to learn from the past is not very smart. In fact, people are just wasting valuable experiences that are supposed to make them do better.
So many people don’t want to learn from their mistakes. They often overlook the fact that mistakes are lessons to be learned and just keep making them over and over again.
They can get stubborn and think things will be different. This is kind of like the definition of insanity: doing something over and over again, expecting different results!
However, when you make a mistake or things don’t go as planned, it is important to learn what you could have done differently.
The fact that a process didn’t work should not mean you need to start from scratch. You might need to only tweak your approach as a way of getting the right outcome.
It is important for our success to continue to grow and learn. A significant part of our learning process is our past.
Our past contains both success and failure and has shown us a better way of doing things.
The best way to build a resilient spirit is by facing challenging times.
Reducing Your Expectations
People often get disappointed with their life because they have elevated expectations. There is nothing wrong with having aspirations that you hope will be satisfied.
You may expect to have a wonderful marital relationship. You may also want to have your dream job.
We all have desires and they are important that we pursue them as much as possible. However, it is not a good idea to see these goals as do or die.
If however your relationship or marriage doesn’t work out as planned, you can learn what didn’t work and make different choices.
For sure this situation can be emotionally crushing. After all, people get married because they plan to spend the rest of their lives with each other.
So, when things go wrong, it can be psychologically overwhelming. However, you can move on.
It is important to believe in the best aspects of your life. However, it is not realistic to assume that nothing can go wrong.
We of course don’t want anything bad to happen to us. However, it is important to realize that things and relationships might not work out as planned.
When you let go of expectation, you might just find it easier to recover should things not work out for you.
Being Optimistic
Notwithstanding the changeable and unpredictable nature of life, we cannot live without hope.
It is important to have some optimism as we go through life. Optimism is a positive expectation concerning certain situations.
Although it is easy to be positive during those days when everything is pleasant, you should keep an open mind regarding upsets.
Just don’t start making predictions of doom in any aspect of your life. This will only end up causing a self-fulfilling prophecy.
This kind of attitude is way too negative, and it isn’t a good idea to engage in such limiting beliefs.
Rember that the best time to be optimistic is after a major difficulty.
You will need to be convinced that you can still be happy and live a fulfilled life despite some unfortunate occurrences.
Taking Life One Step At A Time
You cannot afford to live your life based on the speed of others in the world. If you do you will just end up being overwhelmed with stress and hardship.
It is important to take things slowly. If you are always in a hurry to succeed, you are going to struggle to overcome upsets.
You may feel like you are wasting valuable time, but that will only lead to more frustration.
It is important that you keep moving. As long as you are making progress, even if it doesn’t look that way, you will be more satisfied with life.
If however, you find ways to hasten your progress, you will want to take advantage of them.
Just try to stay positive and avoid desperation. Otherwise, you will just end up bruised and upset.
Try to keep your competitiveness in check. You will want to avoid comparing yourself unnecessarily to others.
It is best to stay focused on yourself and the progress you are making in your life. If you are not making progress the way you want to, then you may need to re-evaluate.
It is important to not measure your success by what others have accomplished.
One thing to keep in mind is to take things slowly, especially after a failure. Just pick yourself up and keep on trying.
It is Important to Be Flexible
There may be times when you need to be unyielding. There really isn’t any formula for success in life.
Everyone has to work it out for themselves. People may use different avenues to get to success, and those may not work for you.
Try to have a strategy and belief in your own work and success will follow.
The Power of Resilience Video:
Just remember that it is often better to do something your way and fail rather than follow someone else’s advice and fail.
That just leads to anger and frustration. Just make sure whatever advice you are going to follow works for you and your success.
Nonetheless, it is a good idea to be open to some types of advice. Just make sure you recognize it as good counsel before you follow it.
Having a mentor or coach that is able to give you support and good advice can help make it easier for you to recover from a setback and still be able to move forward.
This is important if you are going to want to build a resilient spirit to overcome adversity.
