RESILIENCE

The Rose that Grew from the Concrete

Tupac Shakur

The poem represents the ways that someone can become something great coming from a place that’s not recognized as great. In this poem he uses a rose, something that’s recognized as beautiful, even with its imperfections.

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. – American inventor, Thomas Edison

According to legend, Thomas Edison made thousands of prototypes of the incandescent light bulb before he finally got it right. And, since the prolific inventor was awarded more than 1,000 patents, it’s easy to imagine him failing on a daily basis in his lab at Menlo Park. In spite of struggling with “failure” throughout his entire working life, Edison never let it get the best of him. All of these “failures,” which are reported to be in the tens of thousands, simply showed him how not to invent something. His resilience gave the world some of the most amazing inventions of the early 20th century, such as the phonograph, the telegraph, and the motion picture. It’s hard to imagine what our world would be like if Edison had given up after his first few failures. His inspiring story forces us to look at our own lives.

Do we have the resilience that we need to overcome our challenges? Or do we let our failures derail our dreams? And what could we accomplish if we had the strength not to give up?

What is resilience, why is it so important, and how do you know if you’re resilient enough?

Resilience is typically defined as the capacity to recover from difficult life events. It’s your ability to withstand adversity and bounce back and grow despite life’s setbacks.

Character is forged in the fire!

At some point in our lives we all face challenges, adversity, problems,
failure and hardships. Hard times will be there for days and weeks and months and may be years. It becomes so difficult for us to believe that these hard times will ever pass and the way out of it becomes hard to visualise. The challenges in life are what makes us stronger and a better person to handle the next round of challenges. If everything was within our reach then no one would have strive for improvement.

“When things are bad, we take comfort in the thought that they could always be worse. When they are, we find hope in the thought that things are so bad, they have to get better.” Malcom S. Forbes

Difficult and hard times are life lessons, at the end of which you come out strong, determined , capable and a much better person. Best lessons are what we experience!

The strongest steel is forged from the hottest fire, the more heat it faces the stronger it gets!

To each and every problem there is always a solution. The problem itself asks you, “What do you want from me now?” and before giving up and losing hope always remember this simple fact “THIS TOO SHALL PASS”

It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: “And this, too, shall pass away.”

If you start asking yourself “Why Me” you will eventually build up an idea that may be this life is what you deserve and you will be wasting your time which you could have spend on moving forward and trying to figure out a way through. Always keep in mind that adversity and hardships causes some people to break and some to break records, so focus on breaking records.

“The world breaks everyone, and afterwards, some are strong at the broken places.” Ernest Hemingway

No matter how big the situation is, its always something that you can handle. Never think of your problems as monsters that can not overcome.

Never exaggerate the challenge ahead of you. Our imaginations have a habit of amplifying situations. If you want to free yourself of the pain don’t reply it again and again in your mind. Often when we look at ourselves in the mirror, we wonder “How did I make it through that?”

“Even the darkest night is followed by sun rise.”

The Importance of Resilience

• Resilience is our ability to adapt and bounce back when things don’t go as planned. Resilient people don’t give up or dwell on past failures; they acknowledge the situation, learn from their mistakes, and then move on.
• Resilient people view a difficulty as a challenge, not as a paralyzing event. They look at their failures and mistakes as lessons to be learned from, and as opportunities for growth. They don’t view them as a negative reflection on their abilities or self-worth.
• Resilient people are committed to their life purpose and their goals, and they have a compelling reason to get out of bed in the morning. Commitment isn’t just restricted to their career, they commit to their relationships, their friendships and the causes they care about.

• Resilient people spend their time and energy focusing on situations and events that they have control over. They focus there energy where they can have the most impact. Those who spend time worrying about uncontrollable events can often feel lost, helpless, and powerless to take action.
• Resilient people don’t let setbacks or bad events affect other unrelated areas of their lives. For instance, they would say “I’m not very good at this” rather than “I’m no good at anything.”
• People who have resilience don’t blame themselves when bad things happen. Instead, they see the situation for what it is.
• Resilient people have a positive image of the future. That is, they maintain a positive outlook, and have a clear vision for their lives.
• Resilient people have solid goals, and a desire to achieve those goals.
• Resilient people are empathetic and compassionate, however, they don’t waste time worrying what others think of them, they are not people pleasers. They don’t bow to peer pressure.
• Resilient people never think of themselves as victims, they focus their time and energy on changing the things that they have control over.

How we view adversity and stress strongly affects how we succeed, and this is one of the most significant reasons that having a resilient mindset is so important.
The fact is that we’re going to fail from time to time: it’s an inevitable part of living that we make mistakes and occasionally fall flat on our faces.

Basil Reynolds

Coaching Consultant

Finding the Music Inside