How to Immediately Know You Lack Resilience when Facing Adversity
Resilience is a muscle. So, just like any other muscle, you don’t know how weak it is until you must lift something heavy. In the case of resilience, it might not always be clear that you’re being weak.
However, the longer you wait to identify that you are lacking in resilience when facing adversity, the worse off you will be and the harder it will be to bounce back. Therefore, it’s smart to have an indicator to serve as the proverbial canary in the coal mine.
In his book Resilient: How to Grow an Unshakable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness, Psychologist and New York Times best-selling author Rick Hanson, Ph.D. writes:
Resilience is more than managing stress and pain and recovering from loss and trauma. People who are resilient are also able to pursue opportunities in the face of challenges. They are able to start doing things that are beneficial, to stop doing things that are harmful, and to keep on going day after day without getting too stressed about it.
That last sentence of Hanson is the indicator you must watch out for. In the moment you are facing adversity, you must have self-awareness of your behavior. Specifically, what behaviors you must start, stop, and keep going.
If you don’t reflect and act on your behavior in this way, then you won’t be resilient in the face of adversity. It’s that simple.