Resilience lies in how we respond to the hardships that happen in our lives.

Instead of letting hardship weigh you down, you embrace the struggle and overcome it. People that are resilient keep plugging along even when the situation becomes practically unbearable.

They learn from these situations and rely on other people with trust and confidence. Being resilient allows you to not only cultivate positive change, but to also gain greater insight through all situations.

4 Ways to Be More Resilient

Accept Reality and Face it with Positivity

Resilient people find a way to accept reality and face it with positivity. Picture this, a year after a natural disaster, a victim might say, "Our lives have changed forever and we’ll never get our old lives back." Others might say, "It was the worst thing that’s happened to me, but we overcame it as a community and it only made us stronger."

Only you are the one capable of finding the silver lining out of a situation or not.

Embrace Challenges and Failures

In general, people would rather step back from situations that are challenging, and failure is something hard for many people to take.

You need to learn to embrace challenges and failures in order to become resilient, by changing your perspective - challenges strengthen you, failures teach you and the same goes for success.

Changing your perspective is not easy. Challenges are not easy. Failure is not easy. 

With time and life experience, embracing those moments (after the initial shock has worn off) becomes slightly easier. I'm not saying it's easy, only that wisdom comes from having gone through life's trials and knowing there is always light at the end of the tunnel. 

So, next time you’re faced with a challenge or experience a failure, try to take a moment to figure out what you can learn and how you can allow the situation change you for the better.

Focus Your Attention on What’s in Your Control

Resilient people are optimists, and optimists focus their attention on how they can make a situation better. However, pessimists, when faced with a challenge, adopt a sort of victim mentality. Rather, focus your attention on what’s in your control rather than focusing on being the victim.

This is not to say there won't be times when you are the victim of certain situations. The loss of a job due to the economy (or pandemic), being diagnosed with a illness or disease, a partner cheating, etc. It's all very normal to be hurt, depressed, and angry.

The point is not to wallow in it for long and to discover how you can come out of it, or cope with it, by discovering the parts that are within your control.

A big P.S. here - I was a self described pessimist for a very long time. It took a lot of internal work to try and change that. I am not 100% there, but much better than I was before.

Don’t be Self-Reliant, Seek Support

In the past, society taught us that all we need to get through hardships was to be self-reliant. While personal strength is a major factor, ultimately, experiencing a sense of community is what truly enables resilience.

According to studies, children that go through hardship and have at least one parent in their lives that provides them with stability and support will most likely do better than children that don’t have even one parent they can rely on.

The same goes for adults, when we have others we can count on - to listen, provide guidance, to be there in a tangible way, whether personal, professional, faith-based or other - our mindset often shifts when we know that there’s someone our there that cares in an invaluable way to lend support. 

Resilience takes time to build, so if you struggle to cope with problematic events, don’t get discouraged. Resilience is a skill that is acquired but can be learned by anyone.