What’s in it for me? Develop your inner strengths.
In life, you can’t always trust the outside world, other people, or even your own body. But when all else fails, you can still count on your mental resources. That’s where resilience comes in. It includes strengths like determination, confidence, and compassion, which give you the ability to get through hard times, beat stress, and follow your heart in pursuit of opportunities.
Resilience is at the root of mental well-being – it’s the main building block of happiness and inner peace. What’s more, everything you need to grow it is already within you. Developing resilience comes down to unlocking the powers of your own mind and, by doing so, changing your brain for the better.
Luckily, developing resilience involves simple practices and easy techniques that you can incorporate into your daily life. And along with discovering the psychological mechanisms that resilience is based on, you’ll be able to help yourself – no matter what life throws at you.
In these blinks you’ll learn
what a piece of cake can teach you about motivation;
how learning to walk influences your confidence as you grow up; and
why zebras are good role models for mindfulness.
The path to well-being begins with self-compassion.
Imagine you’re climbing a steep mountain on a chilly October afternoon. The snow is turning to ice, it’s getting dark, and soon you won’t be able to see where you’re going. A wrong step could lead to injury – or worse. You’re getting exhausted, frozen, and terrified. What do you do?
Well, the first step to ensuring survival is to accept the situation. Denying or fighting the danger could be deadly. But if you acknowledge the reality – and your feelings – you can free up the mental space to think about solutions.
That’s what saved the author when he found himself in this predicament. He made the decision to stay up on the mountain, wrapped in a blanket until first light, and lived to tell the tale. If he’d panicked and made a wrong move, the story might have ended up being very different.
But acceptance is not just something for emergencies. You can make it part of your entire life. It starts with compassion for yourself.
The key message here is: The path to well-being begins with self-compassion.
Compassion is a combination of warm concern for feelings and a desire to relieve suffering. We can feel it both for others and for ourselves.
Most of us have no problem feeling compassion for other people, but we struggle to feel it for ourselves. Have no fear, however – it’s something we can develop by following a few basic principles.
To start learning the art of self-compassion, you need to create repeat experiences of it. You can do this through a simple sequence of mental exercises. First, bring past experiences of compassion to the front of your mind. Second, focus on and feel them as fully as you can. For example, you can start by remembering a time when you were helping someone else – perhaps supporting a sick relative. Think about what it felt like and what kinds of feelings were going through your mind. That’s what compassion feels like. Now, apply this same attitude to yourself. Get a sense of what it feels like to be your own friend, and stay committed to it.
Self-compassion doesn’t just make you feel better in the moment; research shows that the more self-compassion you feel, the more resilient you become over time. That’s because it lowers your tendency to criticize yourself and, instead, helps you build up self-esteem. It can even help you become more ambitious and successful in both your personal and professional lives.
Mindfulness will help you stay calm in times of stress.
Ever watched a nature documentary? If so, the following might be a familiar scene. A herd of zebras is peacefully grazing on a lush grassland somewhere in Africa. They’re alert, keeping an eye out for predators, but also relaxed and content. There’s no hint of tension. All of a sudden, a lion shows up. Panic erupts, the herd bursts into activity, and animals run in all directions. Then it ends as quickly as it started, and the herd shifts back to a state of calm but watchful rest.
In a nutshell, that’s the blueprint for all of our lives. Sometimes we’re quietly responsive to our environment; at others, we must urgently react.
But while zebras are good at regaining composure even after a stressful event like a lion attack, most humans often need some help remaining in the calm responsive zone.
That’s where mindfulness comes in.
The key message here is: Mindfulness will help you stay calm in times of stress.
Mindfulness means staying in the present moment – and being aware of it – instead of getting distracted. It’s easy enough to do for a moment or two, especially when things are going well. The challenge is to stay mindful under stress, like in the middle of an argument. Those are the times when we need it most. This is because staying mindful helps us limit the impact of harmful experiences while allowing us to get the most out of enjoyable ones.
Mindfulness boils down to regulating your attention and avoiding judgment. Instead, just observe whatever is happening in your mind at that moment. The more you do it, the more natural it will feel. It’s like a muscle you can exercise.
To get started, you can try noticing the times when you feel at ease – and allow yourself to simply be. You could be looking out of the window watching the world go by, or reflecting on your day before you drift off to sleep. That sense of calm focus, without trying to change anything in your awareness, is what mindfulness feels like.
The more mindful you are, the more you’ll be able to conserve your resources, recharge, and refuel. By doing so, you’ll avoid getting into a flurry of stress at every minor incident, as if it were a lion attack. At the same time, if something that needs a more urgent reaction happens, you’ll be ready – and it won’t hit you so hard.
To deal with life’s challenges, you need a good amount of grit.
When renowned psychiatrist Viktor Frankl was struggling to survive the horrors of living in a Nazi concentration camp, he observed something that left a deep mark. Eventually, he wrote a book about it, titled Man’s Search for Meaning. What he observed was that certain people had the ability to remain generous and help others despite their own immense suffering. This often took the form of comforting their fellow prisoners or giving away their own meager rations. He called it “the last of human freedoms” – the power to choose our response, no matter the situation.
If it’s possible to exercise this power in the most terrible of human circumstances, it’s possible in everyday life. It boils down to exercising agency – the beginning of true grit.
The key message here is: To deal with life’s challenges, you need a good amount of grit.
Grit is about being tough and resourceful, and one of its key ingredients is a sense of agency. It’s the feeling that you can make things happen in the world, instead of helplessly going with the flow.
Agency means feeling like a cause instead of an effect. It doesn’t have to be anything huge. It comes into play any time you choose to wear a red sweater instead of a blue one, or when you disagree with someone else’s opinion. It’s your ability to be active rather than passive, to take initiative and to determine the direction of your life.
The opposite of agency is helplessness – the feeling that you’re powerless in the face of challenges, big or small. Sadly, it’s something too many of us have adopted on our way through life. This is called learned helplessness, and it stems from negative experiences like being bullied as a child or having an unreceptive partner. With a sense of helplessness comes hopelessness and pessimism, and it can even lead to depression.
Fortunately, helplessness can be unlearned and your sense of agency strengthened.
To do this, start deliberately looking for experiences in your life where you can make a choice or influence what happens. Make sure to focus on the sense of yourself as an active agent in the situation. It helps even more if the experience feels like a push. For example, it could be deciding to do one extra repetition of a tough exercise at the gym, or assertively restating your point in a meeting when you’re not heard.
Gratitude helps you get the most out of positive emotions.
Think about the last time you felt thankful. Maybe you were appreciating a tasty dinner that a friend cooked for you. Or perhaps it was a more abstract feeling of gratitude, like looking up at the clear sky on a beautiful day. No matter the occasion, it felt good, right?
We often get so stressed and exhausted trying to make sure we’ll feel good in the future that we forget about all the ways we feel good already. But if you take a few moments to think about it, you’ll probably find plenty of things in your life that you’re thankful for.
The key message here is: Gratitude helps you get the most out of positive emotions.
Thankfulness doesn’t just feel great; it also brings a lot of benefits along with it. Researchers have found that it increases optimism and happiness while lessening anxiety and depression. And it doesn’t end there. Gratitude also leads to stronger relationships, less loneliness, and better sleep. Along with these benefits comes – you guessed it – greater resilience.
With gratitude being so rewarding, how can you generate more of it in your daily life?
One powerful way to foster thankfulness is to make it a regular part of your day. For example, you could write a reminder for yourself to give thanks and put it on your desk. You could also keep a journal of everything you’re grateful for, or write a letter to a person you really appreciate.
Another way to increase gratitude is to make as much time as possible for activities that bring you pleasure. It might not always be easy, especially if you’re going through a stressful time – be it relationship troubles or physical illness. Many people also have internal inhibitions that stop them from feeling pleasure. These can make pleasure feel like an unnecessary indulgence, or even create a sense of shame.
But embracing pleasure doesn’t mean you need to deny the dark side of life. In fact, by accepting that pain and suffering are natural aspects of human existence, you’ll find it easier to make room for more pleasure in your life. Try noticing the little pleasures. These might be the sound of music that you like, the taste of your favorite cake, or even the feeling of a soft, cozy pillow.
The more difficult your life, the more important it is to experience and internalize those pleasurable feelings – they’re your inner resources that give you energy to keep going.
You can grow your confidence to become more resilient.
Have you ever seen toddlers learning how to walk? If so, you might have noticed that the most eager ones get the right kind of encouragement from their parents. While making sure their children don’t get hurt, they also give them the freedom to explore – and just enough help that they feel capable and happy.
By the time children turn two, they’ve collected countless experiences that shape how they interact with other people in their lives – as well as with the world around them. These experiences inevitably affect their sense of confidence.
The key message here is: You can grow your confidence to become more resilient.
The most important aspects of our childhoods that contribute to our burgeoning sense of confidence are a sense of stability and security. That’s what our caregivers hand to us when they’re warm, available, and reliable. Sadly, if your parents were distant or weren’t there for you when you needed them, you’re more likely to grow up with a sense of insecurity – and become less resilient.
The lessons learned in childhood can stay with you for life unless you make a conscious effort to change. Fortunately, there are tried and true ways that you can learn to be more confident and secure.
For starters, look for experiences in your present life that make you feel cared for. Any form of caring counts – and it doesn’t even have to come from a person. It could stem from a pet or a spiritual being. The point is to accept that you are experiencing the feeling of being cared for. By focusing on how this feels on a regular basis, you’ll get used to feeling like someone worth caring about – and your inner core of confidence will grow.
Still, even if you were blessed with a caring family as a child, no one can avoid the ups and downs of life. Luckily, what you can learn is how to properly respond to negative life events. This is particularly important, as many of us don’t just suffer from the initial pain of an event – we then add a second layer of unhelpful reactions into the mix. These reactions often create much more unnecessary suffering than the initial upset itself.
So, when you find yourself adding fuel to the fire, make an effort to be mindful of your feelings. When you hear that critical voice in your head, try to make a conscious choice to doubt what it says. That way, you’ll grow stronger in your self-belief.
You’ll be more resilient if you keep calm.
If you’re an animal in the wild, there are generally two kinds of mistakes that you can make. First, you might convince yourself that there’s a tiger lurking in the bushes when there isn’t one. Not the most pleasant feeling in the world! You might get needlessly scared, but no harm done.
The other mistake animals can make is to believe there’s no one in the bushes – exactly when the tiger is about to pounce. This kind of mistake is often much more costly.
It’s no surprise that our minds have evolved to keep making the first, harmless kind of mistake – just so that we can avoid the deadly one. In other words, we have a tendency to overestimate threats while also underrating our ability to handle them. The result? A lot of anxiety that serves no useful function and drains us of the energy we need to face real problems.
The key message here is: You’ll be more resilient if you keep calm.
A powerful weapon against anxiety is getting to know how it works. By doing so, you can then hack the process to your advantage. It all comes down to one complex mechanism: the autonomic nervous system. It’s our body’s control center and is responsible for fight-or-flight reactions. It has two branches; you can think about them like the brake and gas pedals of a car.
Let’s look at the brake first. This is the parasympathetic nervous system. It slows down your heart rate and makes you feel relaxed. When it’s at work you feel at peace, and your body recharges.
The other kind of nervous system – the sympathetic one, or the gas pedal – gets us ready for action. When activated, it speeds up your heart and sends stress hormones coursing through your blood. As your body revs up, so does your mind. As a consequence, your thoughts can become more intense or even anxious.
These two branches work together like a seesaw: when one goes up, the other comes down. In other words, the more relaxed we get, the more we dampen sympathetic activity – and the resulting stress.
So, to reduce anxiety and increase relaxation, you’ll need to learn how to harness the power of your body and its two nervous systems. One easy technique you can use is the simple act of breathing. The parasympathetic nervous system – your brake pedal – controls exhaling, while the sympathetic one – or gas pedal – is in charge of inhaling.
Magically, something as simple as slowing down your breath can help you relax and stop anxiety in its tracks. In practice, this might involve you inhaling for three seconds and then exhaling slowly for six.
Motivation is about desiring well.
Imagine you’re having dinner at a friend’s place. After stuffing yourself with an amazing meal, you polish off two desserts. Then, your friend brings out a third one, gives you a taste, and asks if you like it. Of course, it’s delicious, and part of you is tempted to ignore the fact that you’re far too full to have another bite. In other words, you may like the dessert, but at that specific moment, you don’t want it.
This example goes to show that liking something and wanting it are very different things. Sure, liking can bring you a lot of pleasure. But when it becomes an insistent want, that’s when our sense of motivation can lead us astray – and eat away at our resilience.
After all, if you ate that third dessert, you’d probably regret it.
The key message here is: Motivation is about desiring well.
Resilience is much more than just coping with life’s challenges and dealing with stress. It’s also what gives you the motivation to go after new and exciting opportunities. But motivation can sometimes come into conflict with how you manage your desires.
This is where desiring well comes in. By desiring well, you can make sure you’re in charge of where your motivation leads you. This will help you differentiate between things you like and things you want.
What is it, though, that gives liking and wanting such different powers over us?
Well, wanting is usually based on a gap that you’re trying to fill. It comes with a sense of pressure. You feel an urge to pursue the object – even a compulsion. It’s no longer just about savoring a delicious dessert; it’s desperately wanting every last piece of the cake, and more.
In contrast, liking without wanting is much more pleasant and satisfying. It enables you to appreciate the things you like more fully. There is no fear that the pleasant experience will end, and no attempt to hold on to it – just the joy of the experience itself.
Of course, we’re only human, and it’s natural to want things. The problem is when our wanting starts to control us. The point is not to stop wanting altogether, but to change your relationship to it.
One way to help yourself shift the balance to liking is to reflect on the costs and rewards of wanting. For example, you might notice that getting what you want is not always as satisfying as you imagined it to be. You buy that new sweater, and sure, it looks great – but now what?
The gratification in situations of wanting is often fleeting, and the costs can be high. Just think about the way addiction can ruin relationships, or even lives.
We need to follow our dreams.
What kind of life did you imagine for yourself as a child? Perhaps you wanted to be an astronaut, or maybe a movie star. And what are you doing now? Chances are, as you grew up, you let go of many of your dreams. These days, you might even think of them as silly. It’s all too easy to talk yourself out of dreaming and, instead, settle for less.
But if you ignore or dismiss your dreams, you could be missing out on a much more fulfilling life.
The key message here is: We need to follow our dreams.
There are many things in life that get in the way of our dreams.
For one, we’re naturally influenced by other people’s opinions. Think about how the people throughout your life – whether parents, teachers, or friends – have affected your dreams. Did they encourage you, or did they hold you back? If they were dismissive or doubtful, you’ll probably find those attitudes still lingering within you.
We also refrain from following our dreams because of various fears of what might happen if they fail. For example, you might be afraid of getting into an intimate relationship because you’re afraid of rejection. In this way, we let our fears build invisible fences that end up limiting our ability to fulfill our dreams.
Such fears are often rooted in our childhood, when everything seemed much bigger and scarier than it really was and our resources for coping were limited. To start overcoming your fears, choose something you really want – maybe something you’ve been putting off for a long time – and ask yourself: “What have I been avoiding?” As you dig deeper, you’ll probably come across some very uncomfortable experiences.
For example, you might find yourself holding back on taking initiative at work. This probably stems from the fear that your colleagues will judge you. In this case, ask yourself about the actual risks and benefits of following your dream. How likely is it that the events will turn out as badly as you fear? How much satisfaction would you get from doing it anyway, despite the risks? Often, you’ll find that you overestimate the risks and underestimate your ability to deal with even the worst-case scenario.
With your fears under control, your mind is free to think about the concrete steps you could take toward what’s truly important to you.
Final summary
The key message in these blinks:
Resilience is about making use of your own strengths and resources. It’s your secure inner core that you can build on by creating positive experiences and incorporating them into your daily life. You can develop your mind’s powers to learn how to deal with adversity, stay calm under pressure, and grow the confidence required to follow your dreams.
Actionable advice:
Mark your progress.
To grow your motivation, look for signs of progress while you pursue a goal. Note your victories and achievements, no matter how small. The more experiences of success you build up, the more your brain will feel rewarded. For example, if your email inbox has 50 messages you need to answer, try to feel a sense of accomplishment as you tackle each one. That way, the whole task won’t feel so overwhelming, and you can stay in the fulfilling state of healthy passion.
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What to read next: Buddha’s Brain, by Rick Hanson
Now that you’re feeling more resilient, you might be wondering how to use the powers of your mind not just to deal with challenges, but to become a more positive and loving person. And you might be curious about what mindfulness can do for you, other than just keeping you calm.
In Buddha’s Brain, Rick Hanson provides practical guidance on how to harness your brain’s potential and gain control over your thoughts and feelings. So if you’re ready for more happiness, wisdom, and peace in your life, head on over to our blinks to Buddha’s Brain.
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