Resilience

“The only constant is change” - Heraclitus

In an ever-changing world, with access to limitless news and media outlets (both credible and not), and increasing pressures from work and social culture - born largely from the expectation of instant gratification, immediate feedback made possible by technological advancements of the past few decades, it is hardly surprising that the number of people coming forward with characteristics associated with anxiety and depression is growing every year - like a big fat moss-covered rolling stone. Yes, we must find our coping strategies - for me it is lifting heavy stuff at the gym with my trainer, or chilling beside our best friends’ pool on a Saturday afternoon - but what I argue is that resilience is more important than coping.

What is resilience?

Resilience is the ability to keep going when things go wrong - when you hit a setback. It is the ability to bounce back after a challenge; a serious injury, a grand final loss, the death of a loved one. It is so important to build your resilience so that you are better able to get through hard times.

How can I build it?

You might think of resilience as a personality trait - that some people are born with it and are naturally better at dealing with challenging situations. However the good news is that resilience is a skill — a skill that can be developed, behaviours that can be learned and actions that can be taught in anyone. Life is constantly changing, and many of these events will be outside of our control. What we can control, however, are our behaviours and actions in response to these events. A lot of people talk about the importance of resilience, but few actually offer ways of actually building resilience. In my mindset coaching sessions, I have a number of tangible resilience building exercises that help my clients consciously develop the important skill - you are never too young nor too old to do these exercises.

Living in Brisbane, we are often reminded that we are Queenslanders - that we are resilient. Queensland has faced a number of devastating floods, damaging winds, horrific droughts, hail stones as big as cricket balls, and the destruction left by bushfires in the not so distant past. Queenslanders are absolutely resilient, we have overcome all of these disastrous events, bound together as a community and rebuilt the state again and again, and again, and again… But do you ever feel like you’re running out of resilience? That you’re suffering from resilience fatigue? Throw in a global pandemic and the inability to see your family and see how we go. Drawing upon the resilience that we have purely from surviving past trauma isn’t a sustainable fuel source, so we need to find a viable source going forward - implementing process and laying the foundation for further building our resilience.

Tapping into a sustainable fuel source

One way to be more resilient in the face of stress is to connect solidly to your personal values. Past research reports that the process of ‘privately clarifying, publicly articulating and consciously acting on’ core values is a strong way to stay strong during times of adversity, and emerge stronger than before. A study in 2005 concluded that reflecting on personal values buffered physiological and psychological stress responses during a laboratory stress challenge. Participants who completed a value-affirmations task prior to undergoing a stress test had significantly lower cortisol response to stress than a control group.

Connecting to personal values is one way of calling upon resilience to actively deal with life-changing events. Values provide a reason to keep going when we are faced with challenging situations that threaten our values. For example, a single father is made redundant. He is motivated to bounce back and find a new job so that he is able to provide the opportunities and resources for his two children to thrive. Driven by his values of ‘love’, ‘care’ and ‘family’, he finds the strength to actively deal with the stressful situation - and continue living in alignment with these values.

Try this…

Simply put, we can manage our stress by getting in touch with our personal values. Get creative with how you get to the bottom of what you really value - use photographs, magazine cuttings, drawings, or anything else you feel is a creative expression of important values, and create a vision board. This is not a board of things you’d like to accomplish or obtain, but general values that are important in your life. Hard copy or digital - save a copy and put it somewhere you will look regularly to continue to reinforce your values so that they are clear in your head next time you feel like you need to draw upon some motivation for resilience.

Connect with me

Get in touch if you’d like to organise a resilience building workshop at your club, workplace or school.

Do you have another way of building resilience that you would like to share? Send me an email at kirsty@scoutco.com.au or connect with me on Instagram @kirst_scoutco.

Be kind to each other - Kirst

Kirsty McCall

Sports Therapist & Mindset Coach

Email: kirsty@scoutco.com.au Insta: kirst_scoutco