Resilience

"We are living in a world where we no longer bend, we break. When we spill, we splatter. When we crack, we shatter." Neil Pasricha

We pretty much have it all these days. And having it all means we don't know how to handle failures, how to overcome challenges. This is a time when we need to learn to be more resilient.

Resilience is the ability to get back up when something knocks you down. It's about not giving up despite the rising challenges. It's like the theory of evolution, only the strongest and fittest survive.

When you're faced with a challenging situation, you have the choice to either let it break you or make you more flexible and stronger. When you choose to be more flexible, you are able to take on any challenges that come your way with ease.

And it isn't only external challenges that we have to overcome, but also internal. Our mind is great at bringing up challenges such as negative self talk (just pay attention and you will hear it!) but we need to learn to be more resilient in order to fight back.

Neil Pasricha shares some great tools on becoming more resilient in his book "You are awesome". He shares nine research-backed secrets on how we can move from change-resistant to change-ready, thin-skinned to thick-skinned and anxious to awesome. 

My personal favorite tool that Neil mentions is adding a "yet" to any sentence that we begin with "I can't", I'm not", or "I don't".

So for example:

I'm not good at drawing... yet.

I can't do this marathon...yet

I don't take care of myself... yet.

By adding a "yet" to these sentences, you're leaving your options open. It might be something you might not know how to do, or a goal that you haven't accomplished, but by adding a yet, it opens the possibility that it can happen. You have the choice to decide.

"Resilience is being able to see that tiny little sliver of light between the door and the frame just after you hear the latch click."