“Resilience to the rescue!” the delivery man cried cheerfully, wheeling his stack of freshly printed bounce-back pamphlets through my door.
“Splendid!” I said, “You’re just in time.”
We are, of course, two weeks into the New Year as I write this, and I’ve noticed that a whole slew of bright, shiny goals are already falling by the wayside.
Whether you’re one of the millions who are beginning to lose your grip on those new possibilities, or whether you’re reading this mid-year in the hope of finding some way to deal with a setback, you’ve come just in time.
Let’s read through these resilience guidelines together.
Join the Pack
“Congratulations!” the introduction says. “You are a winner!”
Here’s how it continues:
Only the most daring humans set goals—the ones who believe in new possibilities. Anybody can stay in a rut. It takes gumption to reach for new heights.
I know. You’re not feeling like a winner, given that you think you already failed. But failing and quitting are two different things, and you wouldn’t be reading this if some part of you didn’t want to keep on keeping on.
Setbacks are just potholes in the road, not dead ends. Every winner who reaches a worthwhile goal has stumbled into a few of them along the way. Every last one. So you are in superb company.
You know what winner’s say about them? They say they make for great stories when you get to the end of the road. They give you bragging rights. Sometimes, they say, the mis-takes are the best parts of the movie.
They raise their glasses to each other and toss around truthful old clichés about resilience:
- Everything worth doing is worth doing poorly at the start.
- Practice makes perfect.
- Success is getting up when you fall.
- Where there’s a will there’s a way.
They talk about old Edison and how he discovered ten thousand ways not to make a light bulb.
So look your setback squarely in the face, see what it has to teach you and move on. A road is no less a road just because it has a few stumbling places on it.
Cut Yourself Some Slack
The only thing more humiliating than falling into a pothole is to have them find you sprawled out on the road sobbing over one. Okay, it hurt. Maybe it cost you time. Maybe you dropped a fortune in it. Maybe it temporarily muddied your hope and your pride.
Hurt is real. Be kind to yourself now. Be tolerant and loving. Say the things to yourself that your most beloved friend would say to you. Give yourself a little space for healing and a little time for your resilience to rebuild.
Soothe yourself. Relax with some good music, a long walk in a beautiful place, a heartfelt talk with an understanding friend, some prayer or meditation.
And when your strength has returned, carry on.
Take a New Tack
Once you have collected yourself, take some time to refresh the vision that inspired your goal in the first place. Think about how you will feel once you’ve succeeded. How will your life be different? How will it look? What will you hear? How will it feel? Get clear on your Why’s. Write them down.
Then look at the What’s and the How’s. What resources and strengths can you bring to your task? What’s the next best step you can take? Brainstorm a dozen ways to overcome your obstacles. Be playful and creative as you think up possible solutions. Then pick the best one and give it all you’ve got.
Remind yourself of your past successes. Picture yourself at your best. Write some affirmations to support you, or even better, write some power-packed Positive Affirmative Questions.
Think about how your confidence will have grown when you reach your goal, how much you will have grown as a human being.
Stay on Track
Forewarned is forearmed, they say. Now that you know what one kind of stumbling block looks like, you’re in a fabulous position to prevent similar ones from grabbing you again. Develop an if-then strategy:
“If I run into such and such (whatever triggered your fall) again, then I will . . .”
If I go out to dinner with friends, then I will make up my mind ahead of time to forego the breadsticks and potatoes and happily sip water with lemon while they’re eating dessert.
If I’m tempted to reach for my credit card, then I’ll picture it turning to flame and burning my future.
Let your imagination explore what other kinds of things could trip you up and plan if-then strategies for them.
Make a game of coming up with a quick list of ways you could deal with any temptation that might come along. Be playful, but earnest, in coming up with possible ways around any obstacles to your success.
Enlist the support of others who share your goals, or of friends and family who can cheer you on. Join forums or clubs, or start a master mind.
And Keep on Keeping On
You have a whole lifetime of positive experiences to draw on. And every single one of them has bolstered your ability to bounce back. Positivity does that.
I think it was Henry Ford who observed that whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right.
The truth is that you have the power to choose. And nobody and nothing can take that from you.
So choose to get over those setbacks, to get up and give it another try. It’s a great dream you have there, afterall. It deserves the very best you have to offer.
And so do you.
Probably somebody else you know needs a little boost right now, too. Why not give yourself a little karma-nudge, “Like” this article and pass it on?
Sources:
1 Cherry, Kendra, “10 Ways to Become More Resilient”
2 Wilner, Joe, “How to Shift to a More Positive Mindset”
3 Halvorson, Heidi Grant, Ph.D., Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals
Photo: stock.xchng
My pal Mike called yesterday to say “Hello” and told me to go check out the day’s 
Dr. Barbara Fredrickson talks about how we want to grab the ever-joyful Pollyannas of the world, shake them and scream, “Get real!”
