10 ways to boost your personal resilience and better cope with stress

Personal resilience – or individual resilience – is arguably the most important resource for managing stress, coping through challenging times and successfully adapting to difficult or fluctuating life experiences.

Everyone reacts to life’s setbacks in different ways. Some people quickly recover and move on with their lives; others get bogged down by anxiety, depression and fear of the future. For example, redundancy can be viewed as opportunity for a fresh start or it can leave you with sleepless nights worrying about finding a new job or paying the bills.

Personal resilience is a skill that can be learned and sustained in both your personal and professional lives. The British Army, for instance, provides Mental Resilience Training to help soldiers recognize and regulate the signs of stress and to help them prepare for difficult events and circumstances.

But how do you build personal resilience in your everyday life? It requires a mix of behaviors, thoughts and actions that promote personal wellbeing and mental health. You also need to develop coping strategies to help manage stress and to think more positively about life’s challenges. And it helps if you can enlist the personal strengths and support of family, friends and colleagues.

Here are 10 suggestions for helping you to improve your personal resilience:

1. Seek support
   Making connections with people who can provide social support – and listen to you – can help strengthen resilience. Accept help and support from family, friends, colleagues and mentors.
2. See setbacks as temporary
   Avoid seeing crises as insurmountable and maintain a long-term view toward the future. You can’t change the fact that highly stressful events happen, but you can change how you interpret and respond to these events. Try looking beyond the present to how future circumstances may be a little better. Note any subtle ways in which you might already feel somewhat better as you deal with difficult situations.
3. Embrace change
   Accept that change (and the need to adapt to it) is part of day-to-day life. Certain goals may no longer be attainable because of adverse situations. Accepting circumstances that cannot be changed can help you focus on circumstances that you can change.
4. Set realistic goals
   Focus on small steps and realistic goals that can be accomplished regularly. This can help you to move toward your goals. Instead of focusing on tasks that seem unachievable, ask yourself, “What’s one thing I know I can accomplish today that will help me move in the direction I want to go?”

5. Take action
   Take decisive action rather than wishing problems away. Don’t let your problems cripple you to the point of inertia or inaction. Take any action that moves you forward even if it is only a small step.
6. Be flexible
   Begin by learning how to compromise with your colleagues. The sooner you learn that your way isn’t the only way, the sooner you will see how to move through a stressful crisis. It may be inflexible thinking that got you into that stressful situation in the first place.
7. Look for opportunities for self-discovery
   People often learn about themselves as a result of their struggle with loss. Many people who have experienced tragedies and hardship have reported better relationships, greater sense of strength, increased sense of self-worth, a more developed spirituality and heightened appreciation for life.
8. Nurture an attitude of gratitude
   Nurture a positive view of yourself that allows you to trust your instincts. Before going to bed at night make a mental list of everything you should be grateful for. Gratitude is one of the basic underpinnings of contentment and stress resilience.
9. Maintain perspective
   Even when facing very difficult events, try to consider the stressful situation in a broader context and keep a long-term perspective. Avoid blowing the event out of proportion.
10. Take care of yourself
    Pay attention to your own needs and feelings. Engage in activities that you enjoy and find time to relax and exercise regularly. Taking care of yourself helps to keep your mind and body primed to deal with situations that require resilience. These activities not only help you relax after a stressful day, but they also help make you more resistant to stress in the future.

Ultimately, resilience is often about accepting stressful situations as ‘opportunities’ for you to build your own character and grow as a person. Stress also exercises your problem-solving ability. Seeing stress as an opportunity, and then learning how to cope and manage it, will allow you to appreciate life more, enjoy challenges and overcome obstacles that only temporarily block your way.