Dealing well with problems and strokes of fate, remaining steadfast in crises and keeping a cool head even in the most challenging situations – all of this depends on your own resilience. Here you can find out how resilience develops and how you can actively promote it.
Have you already dealt with the topic of resilience? The term originally comes from the Latin word “resilire”, which means something like jumping back or rebounding. The promotion of resilience – one’s own mental resilience – is very popular nowadays, after all, a high level of resilience testifies to mental strength and can make it considerably easier to deal with life crises and strokes of fate. But what characterizes this? How does the significant ability come about? And can you specifically train your own resilience?
What characterizes resilient people?
In order to be able to classify how pronounced one’s own resilience is, the World Health Organization (WHO) has defined intrinsic abilities that promote a high level of resilience. Skills such as problem solving, critical thinking, effective communication, decision-making skills, creative thinking, interpersonal relationship skills, self-awareness, empathy, and coping with stress and emotions are characteristic of people with strong resilience. Acceptance, optimism, solution orientation and self-regulation as well as the proactive assumption of responsibility also characterize resilient people.
People with low resilience, on the other hand, often suffer from sleep disorders, mood swings, hopelessness and pessimism and often react to difficulties with isolation or outbursts of anger.
How is resilience created?
In order to be able to promote one’s own resilience in a targeted manner, it is first necessary to analyze how resilience arises in the first place. How can it be that the inner resilience of different people is very different? Circumstances that seem overwhelming to some people may be a welcome challenge to others.
A much-cited long-term study by the US psychologist Emmy Werner, which is considered the starting point for resilience research, begins in childhood and analyzes the careers of 700 Hawaiian children born in 1955 over three decades Example with starvation, neglect and abuse – on. While two thirds of the children suffered from the consequences of childhood in the form of behavioral problems, alcohol abuse or criminal activities into adulthood, the remaining third suffered no consequential damage from their childhood. They developed into respected members of society, studied and worked. Werner called her “vulnerable but invincible” – resilient.
caregivers and a sustainable social environment
But what made these children different from the other two-thirds? The central finding of the study: Every resilient person observed in the long-term study had at least one person in their life who was always by their side and made them feel valuable. Further follow-up studies confirm the result: Reliable caregivers in childhood and a stable social network in later life are crucial for the psychological resilience of the individual.
Can resilience be inherited?
Many scientists are convinced that resilience arises from a complex interplay of many factors, with hereditary predisposition playing a role as well as imprints in childhood and later in life. The neuroscientist Raffael Kalisch, co-founder of the German Resilience Center in Mainz, defines three hereditary factors that influence a person’s resilience:
- Intelligence: People find creative ways out of crisis situations
- Optimism: People have faith that everything will turn out well
- Extraversion: People find it easy to approach their fellow human beings and form social bonds
Science is currently researching specific genes that can play a role in the development of resilience. However, the study situation is not yet mature enough to be able to draw a definitive conclusion.
The seven pillars of resilience in psychology
In addition to social components in childhood and the scientific approach of the three hereditary factors, psychology defines seven personality traits that influence the development of resilience. The following characteristics therefore have a beneficial effect on one’s own resilience:
- Self-consciousness: Resilient people trust in their strengths, are reflective and work on qualities that they don’t like. A high level of self-confidence helps them to proceed purposefully and to find new solutions.
- Action control: Individuals with strong action control act deliberately and deliberately, can control impulsive responses to stimuli, and forgo immediate gratification—thus postponing immediate gratification in favor of a higher goal.
- Emotional stability and emotional maturity: Being able to perceive, reflect and control emotions and feelings is an important basis for resilience. For example, stressful situations and pressure can be viewed less as a burden and more as a challenge.
- Realism: Resilient people think long-term and set realistic goals. They can deal constructively with negative life events such as the death of a close family member because they perceive, accept and deal with the pain.
- Optimism: An optimistic attitude helps resilient people to accept negative situations and still see the future positively. This keeps them both from victimhood and from blaming themselves solely for something.
- sociability: Resilient people are characterized by a high level of communicative competence, can easily put themselves in the position of their fellow human beings, interpret their behavior and thus promote the building of relationships in a targeted manner. They are also willing to actively seek help in crisis situations.
- Analysis strength: Those who are resilient can research the causes of crises and strokes of fate, analyze them and draw conclusions for their own further behavior. In this way, they quickly find alternative solutions and let go of old, counterproductive thought patterns.
Learning Resilience – 10 ways to promote resilience
Psychology and science now assume that resilience can be actively promoted. Because resilience is a style of evaluating and dealing with circumstances and situations, you too can learn resilience and unlearn harmful associations, beliefs and behaviors. This does not happen from one day to the next, but rather represents a process. Raffael Kalisch describes this process in his book “The resilient human being. How we experience and overcome crises.” on a par with psychotherapy: Learning resilience is a long-term process that you have to get involved in and that you have to want. Certain exercises and behaviors that are used regularly reprogram us in the long term. With the “Road to Resilience” program, the American Psychological Association (APA), for example, defines ten activities that can help to actively strengthen one’s own resilience:
- Active relationship building
- View crises as temporary and surmountable
- Accept change as part of life
- Goal-oriented action
- Act proactively
- Actively seek opportunities for self-discovery
- Promoting a positive self-image, for example through mindfulness exercises
- Keep the overview
- An optimistic attitude towards life
- Active self-care
It is important here to continuously work on one’s own attitude and behaviour, as this is the only way to resolve old beliefs and replace them with new, constructive thoughts and manners. Five everyday exercises can help you to reflect on and change your thoughts and actions, to strengthen relationships with other people and with yourself, and thus to actively strengthen personality, self-confidence and your own character.
- Write diary: By regularly putting your thoughts and feelings on paper, you process negative experiences, reflect on your mood and thus strengthen your own resilience. You will recognize how you deal with different (crisis) situations, your personal strengths and weaknesses and can thus develop helpful strategies for future challenges.
- take breaks: Breaks are important to let your thoughts go and to recover body and mind from the constant input of the fast-paced everyday life. Plan regular breaks into your day so that you can constantly gain strength and tackle tasks and to-dos with renewed vigour. Especially during breaks, new ideas and solutions to current challenges arise.
- Maintain relationships: The importance of reference persons and a stable social network has already been explained. The feeling of being valuable and having people in your life who stand by you through ups and downs is the basic requirement for resilience.
- Accept defeats: Ultimately, life is like a roller coaster ride – a constant up and down. There is no plan in the world that beats the fact that we cannot control everything in our lives. Accordingly, you should accept defeat and, above all, see it as an opportunity to grow and learn.
- Working solution-oriented: Do you feel overwhelmed and have the feeling that the work is overwhelming you? Focus on possible solutions and goals, not on the causes of the problems. In addition, always tackle a sub-problem and work through the mountain of tasks piece by piece.
Conclusion on resilience
In conclusion, it remains to be said that strokes of fate and problems in life can hardly be avoided – they shape, can change character and personality, even throw you completely off track. By surrendering to suffering, becoming defensive and trying to suppress painful feelings, you will find your way back to “normality” more slowly, and you will also be vulnerable to future problems. However, the stronger you meet challenges, the faster you will find your way back to your old form.
Resilient people give circumstances or strokes of fate a different meaning, even meaning. Every crisis in your life is an opportunity for you to grow and learn. Accept them and solve your problems in a goal-oriented and responsible manner. This gives you strength and self-confidence – the cornerstones of resilience.
Sources: dr Christian Stock “Resilience – With mindfulness to more inner strength”; Raffael Kalisch “The resilient person: How we experience and overcome crises”; , ,
Source: Stern
