What Resilience Is (and isn’t)

Resilience is often defined as the process of adapting and overcoming adversity, obstacles or significant sources of stress. This may include family and relationship troubles, health issues or workplace and financial strain. While people often refer to resilience as “bouncing back” from difficult experiences, being resilient is not as simple as being down one moment and up the next. It’s more like running a marathon with hurdles to jump through. In this sense, resilience is more than just “mental toughness” and perseverance. It involves a variety of skills, behaviours and actions that anyone can learn and strengthen.

Why It’s Important

In addition to everyday stressors, there are times when we may also be faced with unpredictable life events or significant hardship that can lead us to feel overwhelmed and defeated. Resilience is important because it gives us the mechanisms to cope, overcome and even thrive in these difficult times.

Think about the last time you were faced with a challenge. How much easier would it have been if you had a supportive network to turn to? If you could have accessed the professional resources or advice that you needed? If you were in the right environment to succeed? Research suggests that building your resilience capacity involves a combination of activating internal qualities and accessing external resources to positively deal with stress and setbacks. Put simply, resilient people draw from both their strengths and support systems to face challenges and work through problems.

Resilience isn’t a single skill or trait that one either possesses or doesn’t. It is a combination of skills and resources that can be learned and strengthened. There are many factors that can promote resilience and wellbeing. Physical activity, nutrition, sleep hygiene, financial fitness, building meaningful relationships and engaging in mental health supports all help improve and strengthen resiliency.

Where to Learn More

Discover more about building your resilience capacity by exploring ResilientME, a brand new self-guided microlearning program that focuses on 6 areas: mental fitness, physical fitness, nutrition, financial fitness, sleep and social connections. This free tool incorporates highly effective strategies designed to increase your capacity for resilience.

More Resources:

Resilience Research Centre

Building Your Resilience | American Psychological Association

What is Resilience and Why is It Important to Bounce Back? | PositivePsychology.com