Resilience – A way not a solution

The 'way' in the title of this lesson refers to the idea that resilience is a way of being, rather than a bullet-pointed list of things to do. While behaviour is important, it is by no means the only contributor to a good level of resilience.

Personal resilience is underpinned by your attitudes and habits. Developing and maintaining resilience requires some changes to behaviour, but more importantly, it relies on a shift in one's outlook and attitude.

We are all resilient to some degree, and it fluctuates; we are more or less resilient depending on circumstance, state of health, demand and a range of other variables. The skills of resilience are learnable, but it’s not like learning to swim or to ride a bike (once learned never forgotten); it’s more like learning to keep yourself on an even keel (with constant turns at the helm and trimming of sails).

To continue the metaphor, if you have to cross a stretch of treacherous water, and you had a sailing boat but only limited experience on water, which would be the more useful question: “How do I get to the other side?” or, “How do I sail this boat?” Rather than the question “How can I get to a point where I’m more resilient?”, a better one would be “What steps should I take to develop my resilience?”. 

This lesson explains more, and it covers suggestions for developing greater flexibility of outlook.