Understanding resilience

While resilience is linked to confidence, it refers more to our ability to overcome setbacks and challenges. For instance, when faced with a series of competing and tight deadlines how do you manage that? Or, if you don’t quite get the mark you’d hoped for in an exam? The more resilient you are, the easier it is to bounce back.

While it might seem like resilience comes naturally for some people, more often than not, it’s borne from consistent effort and strategy. You can start doing a lot of these today.

Develop a growth mindset

A growth mindset simply refers to the willingness to learn from past mistakes and take them as a learning opportunity rather than something to dwell on. Inherently, you’ll find challenges easier to overcome if you constantly view them as a positive rather than a negative.

You can begin building this by asking yourself questions like ‘What can I learn from this?’ or ‘How can I do better next time?’ when faced with an issue. This leads to a productive way of tackling failure.

Build strong relationships

Resilience is not something that solely comes from within; those around you play a big part in making sure you feel ready to overcome adversity. This could be friends, family, or mentors. The old saying ‘a problem shared is a problem halved’ has stuck around for a reason; if you’re struggling, try chatting to someone about the challenge you’re facing. Even if they can’t help with a solution, you’ll most likely feel better afterwards regardless.

Focus on health and wellbeing

Your physical health will play a big role in how resilient you feel. Things like a balanced diet, regular exercise, and adequate sleep are proven to lead to a more positive outlook. Make sure to prioritise these where you can, as you’ll reap the benefits later on.

When faced with adversity, something as simple as a walk can also alleviate stress levels and help you look at things with a clearer mind. If you can access nature, this is proven to reduce cortisol levels, the hormone responsible for stress.

Learn problem-solving skills

If you’re comfortable with problem-solving, you’ll be less phased by your problems. It sounds simple, and in many ways it is. Developing these skills takes time, though, and sometimes requires a shift in mindset.

Learning to break down a setback or challenge into smaller parts will help you with this. If you’ve failed at something, look at what happened methodically to see chances for improvement. Or, if you’re worried about an upcoming obstacle, address it step-by-step rather than looking at the whole. Looking at things in this way will help you build resilience.

Set realistic goals

Don’t make things harder on yourself by setting unrealistic goals and being disappointed when you miss them. Deciding to write an entire essay in an afternoon is probably unrealistic, and you’ll make yourself feel worse if you fail. Instead, consider what you can feasibly achieve in that time and stick to it.

Likewise, when you do succeed in these smaller goals, be sure to celebrate them. Don’t move immediately onto the next task, but take a moment to enjoy a job well done. Take note of it, and add it to a mental bank of your successes; being able to refer back to this in times of adversity will build your resilience.

Practice self-compassion

One of the most important parts of being resilient is not being overly critical of yourself. If you constantly beat yourself up when things go wrong then it’s not surprising that you’d struggle to build resilience.

When it comes to failure, it’s particularly important to remember that everyone experiences it: judging yourself too harshly is not productive. It’s critical in these cases to view them as a chance to learn because that’s exactly what they are. If you do a little better next time, then it was part of the learning process.

Start building resilience now

The process of building resilience takes time and is rarely something that comes overnight. However, it plays a key role in your studies and making sure that you succeed. By beginning to employ these strategies now you’ll notice improvement over time, both inside the classroom and outside of it.