The Ability to Bounce Back with Resilience

We often find ourselves getting battered around or knocked down, especially during these times of economic uncertainty, layoffs, financial woes, and other stresses of life. Having the ability to rebound with resilience is an essential skill. Setbacks happen, and that is just a fact of life. But how people respond to those – and how much resilience they show in the face of obstacles or reversals – is what can make the difference between success and failure and victory or defeat.

Resilience is not necessarily an automatic trait or a characteristic that you’re born with, but it is an asset that usually needs to be consciously cultivated and encouraged. People who find it is easy to roll with the punches and then jump right back up and keep going after getting walloped or suffering a setback usually develop that ability through practice, training, and an intentional effort to boost their overall resilience.

Athletes, for example, are coached in the principle of resilience until it becomes instinctual and second-nature for them to shake off a loss, a disappointment, or an outright defeat and get right back into the game with a winning attitude and positive effort. Otherwise without that kind of quick and gutsy resilience most of our legendary champs would be forgotten because they would have gone down in defeat and obscurity.

The 2010 Super Bowl championship is a prime example, because a total underdog team – from a city that was essentially wiped out by the devastation of Hurricane Katrina – showed enormous resilience time and time again, even up until the bitter end, to grab victory while most experts predicted their easy demise. Also this year the Olympics gave hockey fans one of the finest tournaments in history, as both Canada and the USA showed unbelievable resilience. That exciting final contest tested the ability of players on both teams to demonstrate not just endurance, grit, and stamina but amazing resilience that had to be sustained all the way through the championship’s overtime period.

So although it is true that resilience is often shown in the present moment as you rise to push back against unexpected odds, the best way to nurture that kind of resilience is to do it with deliberate training and preparation. To cultivate empowering resilience, focus on maintaining a confident can-do attitude and a positive outlook. What you think often determines how you act, especially in a crisis. Avoidance of the various kinds of negative thought patterns that can undermine our resilience is sometimes all it takes to bounce back. Of course when we are stressed our bodies are more vulnerable too, because our immune systems become compromised. Eating a healthy balanced diet and getting proper exercise is a valuable component of resilience, because if we become sick or tired then that simply minimizes the chances that we will be able to confront the challenge facing us.

But as anyone who has bounced back and succeeded after being beaten down can attest, those who experience a comeback gain a tremendous amount of energy and strength from the experience. That means that each time it happens to you, your resolve gets stronger and your ability to be resilient improves, because success tends to invite more success. So keep your chin up because if you can overcome the barrier you’re facing today it will make the rest of the journey easier to handle – regardless of how bad it gets and how much resilience you have to muster.