How to Build Resilience: The Complete Guide

What is resilience?

The American Psychological Association defines resilience as "The process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional, and behavioral flexibility and adjustment to external and internal demands."^[1]

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How do I build resilience?

There are quite a few ways to build resilience, and we've provided a bunch of different research-backed approaches you can use:

• psychology_alt 1. Exercises for purpose Having a strong sense of purpose predicts good health and longevity.^[3] Finding meaning in life's experiences, especially when facing challenges, is a key mechanism of resilience.^[3] You can find your sense of purpose through exploring the various areas of your life.^[4] Here are some questions to help you reflect:^[4]
  1. Why are you?
  2. Why do you get up in the morning?
  3. What keeps you awake at night?
  4. When are you most alive?
  5. What does being successful mean to you?
  6. How might you apply your gifts to a pursuit that is of deep interest to you and helps others?
  7. What can you do to make a difference in one person's life, today?
  8. What is your sentence (if you summarised your purpose in 140 characters, what would it be)?
  9. If you say yes to living purposefully, what do you say no to?
  10. If you met an older version of yourself, what sage advice would they give you?
• fitness_center 2. Strength and gift activities Reflect on what your strengths are and how you can change up your settings by using them to your advantage.^[5] You can ask five of your friends, family members or close ones to tell you what your strengths are to help give you an idea.
• volunteer_activism 3. Doing acts of kindness Acts of kindness boost positive affect and build resilience.^[6] Try incorporating these into your routine:
  • Volunteer to help in a program which you are enthusiastic about.
  • Pick one person every day who you should show extra kindness to.
  • Show random acts of kindness to strangers.

References & Citations

1. American Psychological Association: Resilience Definition
2. Resilience definitions, theory, and challenges (Southwick et al., 2014)
3. Purpose in Life Predicts Better Emotional Recovery (Schaefer et al., 2013)
4. The Power of Purpose: Find Meaning, Live Longer, Better (Leider, 2015)
5. Resilience portfolios and poly-strengths (Hamby et al., 2018)
6. The Benefits of Frequent Positive Affect (Lyubomirsky et al., 2005)