Building Resilience: How to Develop Your Inner Strength

What do you do when you are faced with difficulties and setbacks?

If you experience a great deal of negative self-talk, tend to get stuck with the past and cannot move forward, see failure as permanent, demonstrate inflexible thinking, you need to find and develop your inner strength and start building resilience if you want to live a more fulfilling life. 

Resilience is defined as the ability to bounce back from setbacks; this perseverance and diligence in the face of difficulties is often described as the difference between unsuccessful and successful people.

“Persistence and resilience only come from having been given the change to work through difficult problems.” —Gever Tulley

First of all, if we look at the characteristics of resilient people, we notice that they are flexible and adaptable and willing to do whatever it takes to overcome obstacles and get what they want. 

Generally, they know how to cope with difficulties, barriers, limited resources. They bounce back from adversity and disappointment, seeing setbacks as temporary and failures as isolated and short term. Furthermore, they know the only thing under control is their mind.

Here below, please find some development tips that can help you to develop mental strength and build resilience:

• Maintain a healthy life. Think, eat, drink, sleep, breathe well and exercise. You cannot be resilient if you do not take good care of yourself (not getting enough sleep, drinking/smoking, poor eating habits...). 
• Stop worrying about situations you cannot control. Do a reality check and ask yourself what is the best move you can make in the actual circumstances (for sure, it is not to fail to see a choice, expecting perfection, resisting change, focusing on failure, being self-critical…).
• Challenge the negative self-talk. Avoid distorted thoughts. Dispute your beliefs and ask yourself if there is any evidence behind your self-doubts. Avoid to overgeneralize and stay away from destructive self-harming labels. Avoid making assumptions and rules about how others should act. Be real. Stay hard.
• See difficulties and setbacks as temporary, isolated, short term and specific to the circumstances. Not as permanent or applicable to all situations.
• Develop a more positive and constructive inner dialogue. Acknowledge your emotions. Listen to them and use them as a valuable source of information. Be aware of your own emotions and those of others, in the moment, and develop the ability to use that information to manage yourself and manage our relationships. This is Social and Emotional Intelligence!
• Read biographies of resilient people and learn from them.
• Seek support from others in your life. Encircle yourself with helpful people. You do not have to go alone. Find a Social and Emotional Intelligence Certified Coach.

Discover your strengths and development opportunities to improve your social and emotional intelligence! START HERE!