What Is Resilience?

Transcript

[Presenter] When things are tough, do you struggle to make it through? If so, you're not alone.

It's common to respond to stressful and difficult situations by simply burying your head in the sand and ignoring things. But we all know this only makes things worse. Life will always give us knocks. Resilience is the ability to cope when it does.

But, I know what you're thinking... you're either resilient or you're not. Well, that's not exactly true. Resilience isn't something you're born with. It's a skill that you can learn.

In this video, we'll take a closer look at what resilience is and how you can develop it.

"The Three Elements of Resilience"

Psychologist Suzanne Kobasa identified what she calls the "Three Elements of Resilience." These are what resilient people believe and embody. It's how they approach life, and what keeps them grounded when the going gets tough.

The three elements are challenge, commitment, and personal control. Let's explore each of these in more detail.

Challenge

Resilient people perceive difficult things as challenges.

They don't crumble or give up when faced with trouble. Failures are seen as life lessons and setbacks aren't a reflection of their self-worth – they're simply a problem that needs solving.

So if you want to be resilient, try to reframe that difficult situation as a challenge to take on.

Commitment

Resilient people display a strong sense of commitment in life.

They put energy into their work, their friends, their family, and their beliefs and hobbies. They have good reasons to get out of bed in the morning and get stuck into their day.

So, commit! It might be scary, but putting down strong roots and giving yourself over to something will give you that extra pep to get stuff done.

Personal control

Finally, resilient people focus on what's within their personal control. They don't fret about events they can't influence or dwell on abstract fears and anxieties. This frees them up to focus on what they do have control over.

So, work on letting go of the things you can't control. Worrying about it won't help anyway.

"The Three Ps of Resilience"

According to psychologist Martin Seligman, the way we explain setbacks to ourselves also affects how resilient we are.

Seligman calls this our "explanatory style." In other words, whether we approach things optimistically or pessimistically. And it's also made up of three elements.

These are the "Three Ps of Resilience": permanence, pervasiveness, and personalization.

Permanence

The first explanatory style is permanence.

People who are optimistic and resilient see bad events as temporary rather than permanent.

Say your boss is unhappy with a piece of work. A non-resilient person might fall into the trap of thinking, "My boss thinks I'm terrible!" But a more optimistic, resilient person will reframe it as feedback. They might think, "My boss didn't like that piece of work. I'll make sure to improve on things going forward."

Pervasiveness

Next is pervasiveness. Resilient people limit the impact of setbacks.

If something goes wrong, it's easy for it to spread into other areas of your life. Maybe you go home in a terrible mood thinking, "I'm no good at anything." But is that really true?

Things will go wrong at some point. That's just life. The trick is to contain the fallout, maintain perspective, and don't let setbacks take over everything else.

Personalization

The final element is personalization. When a mistake does occur, do you tend to always blame yourself, or are you able to take a more objective, well-rounded view?

While it's important to take responsibility for our mistakes, people who lack resiliency tend to be pessimistic: they always think the fault must lie with them, which can lead to low self-esteem and depression.

So remember to consider all of the reasons why something failed, or why a mistake happened. It could be down to circumstance. Perhaps you needed more training or additional resources.

Let's recap.

Resilience is the ability to "bounce back" when things go wrong. Use Kobasa's Three Elements of Resilience (challenge, commitment, and personal control) to reframe problems as challenges, commit to the things you believe in, and focus on the things you can control.

Our resilience also depends on how we explain setbacks to ourselves. Seligman's Three Ps can help you to take a more optimistic approach. To do this, avoid seeing problems as permanent, don't allow them to pervade other areas of your life, and don't take them personally.

It takes time to become resilient – it won't happen overnight. But understanding what resilience is is a big step in the right direction.