How to Build Resilience and Grow through Hard Times
What is Resilience?
Resilience involves coping well with challenging situations. People show resilience when they find ways to recover from setbacks. When they adapt to whatever challenges come up and keep going even through hard times.
Beyond just getting by, being resilient means finding ways to grow through adversity.
Being resilient doesn’t mean that we're free from negative emotions like anger, jealousy, frustration, disappointment, or grief. It doesn't mean that we don't struggle sometimes. Or that we never have days when we feel like giving up.
The key to resilience is doing what we can to process our emotions. To reflect and regroup. And to keep on trying.
Why Does Resilience Matter?
Stressful and traumatic experiences can negatively affect our mental health. This includes one-time events like being fired, losing a loved one, witnessing a violent incident, or getting in a car accident. Stressors can also include ongoing, everyday challenges like struggling to pay your bills or dealing with family conflict.
Research suggests that living with long-term stress can make us more prone to anxiety, depression, substance use issues, and chronic pain.
But resilience seems to act like a kind of buffer, protecting people’s well-being despite the challenges they face. Resilience allows people to bounce back from adversity, with more strength and courage than ever before.
Can We Become More Resilient?
Many different factors play a role in resilience. Our early life experiences, general personality, social relationships, spiritual beliefs, sense of safety in our community, and the resources available to us (including financial resources) all play into how we cope.
In the past, resilience was often talked about as a trait. As a characteristic that people either had or not.
It's much more helpful to approach resilience as something that we do. As something that we can practice whenever we’re faced with difficulties. In that case, resilience is a skill that we can build and nurture over time.
How to Build Resilience
Here are 7 ways to promote resilience in your life.
1. Acknowledge your emotions: The good, the bad, and the ugly
It’s okay to feel hurt, angry, jealous, or guilty sometimes. We all do. It’s part of being human.
You don’t have to hide or deny your negative feelings to practice resilience.
In fact, it’s important to acknowledge all your different emotions. Sometimes people worry that if they admit to feelings they don’t like, they’ll get stuck there. But the more we can own up to difficult emotions, the more prepared we’ll be to work through them.
Try to notice and name your feelings as they come up. Pay attention to how those feelings affect your body. For example, with anger, you might notice that your muscles are tensing up, your heart is racing, and that you’re feeling restless.
As you do this, remember to give yourself a break. You’re not a bad person for feeling jealous or resentful sometimes. These feelings are part of life. It’s how we handle them that counts.
2. Practice positive coping strategies
We can develop resilience by finding helpful ways to cope with our emotions. Being able to handle upsetting feelings is a skill that we can build over time.
Brainstorm a list of things that help you get through tough situations. Keep this list with you on your phone or a piece of paper. When we’re already feeling overwhelmed, it can be tricky to think of what to do in the moment. Help yourself out by doing the hard work ahead of time and having your list ready when you need it.
Some common positive coping strategies include: Practicing deep breathing, talking to someone you trust, moving your body, spending time outdoors, helping someone else out, watching funny videos, listening to relaxing music, or getting your thoughts down on paper.
3. Focus on what’s in your control
It’s easy to spend a lot of time and energy thinking about the things that we wish were different. But if these situations are outside our control, we’re often left feeling frustrated.
When dealing with challenges, try shifting your focus to something that’s in your control.
Let's say that you’re dealing with stress at work, including a difficult manager. While you can’t control what your boss says or does (as tempting as that might be sometimes), you can decide how to respond.
Identify one action that you can take now, even if it’s something small.
To continue with the work example, this action could include:
Using a positive coping strategy at the end of the day to help you manage stress
Starting a record of your interactions with your boss, in case you need it down the line
Reading an article or book about handling work issues
Reflecting on whether you can set some more boundaries to protect your well-being (e.g., not responding to emails after a certain time)
Looking at job postings or updating your resume
Reaching out to someone in your network to chat about potential opportunities
While you might not be able to transform your situation right away, focusing on what you can control helps you move in the right direction.
4. Practice gratitude
Another way to develop resilience is to practice gratitude. Gratitude has tons of psychological benefits, including boosting our mood and increasing our optimism for the future.
Gratitude also reminds us of the resources we have available, like the friends and family members who can lend us a helping hand.
Try to reflect on a few things that you’re thankful for each day, such as the people in your life, the things you enjoy doing, or some positive experiences you’ve had in the past.
Be on the lookout, though: Sometimes guilt can sneak in when we’re trying to practice gratitude! The goal here isn't to shame ourselves for struggling, just because we have things to be thankful for. We can feel sad and frustrated, as well as grateful. We don’t have to deny either side of our experiences.
But when we’re going through tough times, the negatives are often obvious to us. Sometimes, they’re all we can see. Looking for positives gives us a more balanced view of our situation and reminds us of the resources we have for dealing with setbacks.
5. Look for learning opportunities
Resilience involves not just surviving challenges but growing through them. If you’re dealing with a stressful situation, try to find even one small opportunity for learning. For instance, facing adversity can help us to practice flexibility, increase our self-awareness, and prioritize what really matters to us.
If we can’t change the situation we’re faced with, perhaps the best we can do is find little ways to learn and move forward.
There are some situations where the learning opportunities will never make up for the losses. And times when we’re just not ready to look for the “silver lining.” And that’s okay. Be kind to yourself and stick to some of the other steps mentioned here, like acknowledging your feelings and practicing self-care.
6. Embrace your strengths
Many people have trouble acknowledging their strengths. We’re often way more comfortable naming our flaws than our skills. But these are important resources that we can use to work through obstacles.
Take a moment to reflect on your unique strengths and abilities. Think back on a time that you handled a challenge well. What did you do? How did you deal with the situation? What skills did you use to get through?
Perhaps it was your compassion, intelligence, humour, creativity, or positive energy. Maybe it was your persistence, your ability to get along with others, or your patience.
Next, think about the situation that you’re dealing with now. How can you put your strengths to good use?
7. Nurture your social networks
Social relationships are key to resilience. The people in our life can provide valuable emotional support, giving us an outlet for our worries and cheering us on. Perhaps they can also offer practical support, like a ride to work when our car breaks down.
In addition to receiving support, we can strengthen our relationships and communities by helping others. By creating environments where people feel safe and supported, we’re fostering resilience in others as well as ourselves.
So reach out to the people in your life. There are so many different ways to connect these days. Try messaging an old friend, forwarding a joke or meme, sending a voice note, scheduling a phone chat, or dropping a card in the mail.
Conclusion
Doing resilience means adapting to setbacks and finding learning opportunities where we can.
Resilience is something that we can practice in small ways in our everyday lives. We can foster our skills for doing resilience, so that we’re more prepared to handle challenges when they come up.
Practicing resilience may not be easy, but it is worthwhile.
Life doesn’t happen in a straight line; there are ups and downs and detours along the way. Hopefully we can learn something from those detours. Or at least bring back some interesting souvenirs.
About Marnie Rogers-de Jong
I’m a Registered Doctoral Psychologist, located in Saskatoon Saskatchewan. I offer face-to-face counselling in Saskatoon as well as online therapy across the province.
Read more about my counselling services. Or click the button below to book your free 20-minute phone call.