I attended a private school until I turned thirteen. The school was on our ranch in Wyoming isolated by miles of dirt road. The only two students in the school were my brother and I.
After my seventh grade, my family moved to my Grandfather’s ranch that was only half an hour away from a small rural community named Wheatland. Attending public school after spending the first seven years in a one-room country schoolhouse with two students was a painful transition. I tried hard to fit in with the other students, but I was little more than a hillbilly in the eyes of the others. I looked and dressed differently; the clothes that work in a small schoolhouse in the middle of nowhere are not appropriate as a teenager trying to fit in with others.
The other students marginalized me but this only strengthened my resolve and forced me to become more creative and self-reliant. I became more determined with every setback and sought out other students in the school who had also become marginalized. They became my few friends, and while the bond was not strong, I began to learn the socialization skills that had been absent from my one-room schoolhouse. My world was small and my experience was limited. I was years behind my peers in understanding the social issues of my community and world.
I developed my own strategy for coping: I tried to get noticed for my achievements. It had always worked when trying to get approval from others growing up and I was determined to use that same approach on the other students. I entered and re-entered every contest and competition for which I qualified—anything that would build my confidence and gain me respect among my classmates.
Year after year I entered school speech tournaments, art shows, and 4-H demonstrations. Year after year, I failed to win anything. Perseverance, determination, and resilience prodded me forward as I fought to distinguish myself in some way. I just didn’t fit in with the others, and while I sometimes let this get me down, I knew I needed to keep a positive attitude or I’d dissolve into oblivion before my life had even started.
There were years of adversity but I did not give up. It took until my senior year until I won anything. It was a small thing at first, but once momentum started I found myself being honored with bigger things as well. That first moment of achievement, however, showed me how a strong mind helped me not only to overcome these adversities, but empowered me to come out a better person.
What is resilience, really? Resilience simply shows you the stuff of which you are made. You can be pulled and stretched in many directions but you bounce back after adversity. You may have lost a spouse, house, or job but these losses will not keep you down. You are not broken.
I needed to adapt to my new circumstances as a teenager going to a public school, but because of my resilience, I was able to overcome obstacles in my path and bounce back.
But I’ve come to believe there is more to resilience. Although I was rough on the outside as a newcomer to my school, I clung to the values that I had developed in my early years. Somewhere deep down, I started embracing the person that my experiences created me to be. I survived in my new environment because I leaned into the core character strengths that I learned while facing down a fighting bull when I was ten-years-old, running over a coiled rattlesnake while riding my bicycle, and saddling a nasty tempered pony named Socks.
My story is different from yours, but we’ve all had to be a leader and navigate through challenging times toward a better future. Those of us who are resilient know how to bounce back from adversity.
Here are some tips on cultivating resilience:
1. Tend to the relationships in your life. They can be family or friends but strong relationships with others will be the lifeline when adversity strikes.
2. Have faith. Believe in a higher power that is bigger, bolder, and better. This power source can empower you when times are tough. What you do matters in the world.
3. Identify your character strengths. Your signature strengths are the ones that will carry you through times of adversity. What are your character strengths? How have they contributed to reaching a goal? What are the shadow sides of your strengths?
4. Develop awareness. Awareness of your thoughts on events that happen in your life can provide you with a way of reacting that is more appropriate and productive. This skill allows you to control your thoughts and emotions so you can better manage them.
5. Accept what you cannot change. Spend time on changing the things you can change and not trying to change those you can’t.
6. Learn from past mistakes. Past mistakes can teach you how to create a wonderful future; not cause you to be afraid of it. Often our greatest achievements come from the emotions we experience, the lessons we learn, and the messes we make along the way.
7. Remain flexible and accept that the only certain thing in life is change. Negative thinking about changes in our life negatively affects the way we react to them. It is our thoughts that really dictate the way we feel, so choose thoughts that make you feel amazing. The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is to celebrate.
8. Learn from how you have overcome challenges in the past. If you look for meaning in what has happened in your life, you will understand that failure is not the opposite of success—it is a part of success. Failure becomes success when you learn from it (click to tweet). If you change the way you look at things, the thing you look at change. Instead of looking at what is missing and how far you still have to go, focus on what is present and how far you have come.
Resilience comes from our upbringing and our environment. It is also something you can learn to cultivate and practice to prepare for the challenges that lie ahead of you.
“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” Helen Keller
What does it mean to you to be resilient? How have you survived tough times?
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The post 8 Tips on How to Become More Resilient appeared first on Empower the Leader in You.
