Resilience for Life
How together as a Community we can get through these Challenging Times of a Global Health and Economic Crisis.
By Nadja Conaghan
Photo by Biegun Wschodni on Unsplash
COVID-19. Public health crisis. Economic crisis. Losing loved ones. Social distancing. Isolation. Working from home. Unpaid leave. Unemployment. Bankruptcy. Angst. Uncertainty. The end of days…
Currently, we all are facing very difficult times on a personal and global level. We hear and read about sad and devastating stories on daily basis, and occasionally receive bad and upsetting news ourselves. The world is in shock and facing a global crisis that we can only overcome as a community starting with the actions of the individual.
Being a psychologist and passionate Resilience Consultant for organizations, my professional connections and personal friends have reached out to me over the last few days to ask how to be resilient in such times. You have probably heard that resilience in these challenging times is more important than ever. I firmly believe that it can help us as individuals and as community to overcome these difficult times, move forward and even thrive.
However, what I have noticed is that nowadays the term resilience is being overused, without people really understanding what “resilience” means and what opportunities it can bring. This might be because we use the term resilience in so many different contexts – in the context of medicine, psychology, work and economy, information security and technology, ecological systems, communities and societies. As a consequence, we have forgotten what the core meaning of resilience is, especially when it comes to personal resilience.
Personal Resilience - a Misunderstood Concept.
When you ask people what resilience is, you get different answers. Most are very similar to what the Oxford English dictionary[1] describes as “the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties” or as “toughness”; or as the ability to ”bounce back”.
There have been different attempts to define what resilience is – by scientists, practitioners and consultants. Even in research (in the same discipline), scientists often cannot agree on one definition. The definition that I use, when explaining to my clients or friends what resilience is, comes from the American Psychological Association (APA).[2]
I use this definition because it enable us to think of resilience as a process that we can manipulate and adjust according to our needs. Resilience is not so much a trait; but rather a dynamic process to deal with and overcome challenges and adversity. The good news is that even though your personal resilience has an epigenetic setpoint, you can enhance it through life experiences, personal behaviors and mindset.
Resilience is a…
... Process which involves skills and habits that you can learn.
... Process that you can learn. All you need to do is to understand, trust in and follow the process.
... Processes that gives you a guide on how to respond to adversity and stress. It is like an emergency or business continuity plan that you execute in acute crisis.
... Process that is dynamic and flexible. That means, you create a toolkit with various strategies that you use in your process. You pick the most appropriate tool(s) or strategy according to your needs.
... Process that gets better, the more you practise and fine-tune the plan with its tools and strategies. The more confidence you build in the process, the better and quicker you will be able to "bounce back".
The other great news is that resilience is a transferable. Once you developed your personal resilience process, you will be able to use it for different scenarios and in all areas of life. Often when I work with corporate clients helping them to develop coping and resilience strategies and tools, they often report that this did not only positively changed their performance at work and greatly enhanced their well-being, but it also had positive impacts on other areas of their lives; e.g. better relationships with their partner, families and friends.
How Does COVID-19 Enables Us to Become More Resilient?
I acknowledge the devastating effects that COVID-19 has had so far - on a personal and global level. However, just like any other disaster, it can be looked at as another experience to learn from and making us stronger. Based on that, these events give us opportunity to...
... become more resilient as individuals - emotionally, mentally and physically.
... become more resilient as teams, communities and even as society.
... demonstrate self-compassion and self-care.
... demonstrate compassion and support.
... build real connections with people and strengthen relationships.
... share experiences and thoughts with one another, which creates opportunities, solutions and team work ("communal spirit").
… practise gratitude and focus on what it is really important in life, which will help us to maintain optimism and a positive outlook.
… role-model resilience and be strong for the ones we care about to inspire and lead others.
... pause, get clarity, take responsibility, act and move forward.
… find efficiencies and new ways of doing things. The current challenges force us to have a critical look at what is not working and develop creative and innovative solutions.
Let's all stand up united and use these challenges as opportunities to learn and grow as individuals and societies and become resilient for life.