What do we mean by resilience, and why is it important? The Verywell Mind defines resilience as “the ability to cope with and recover from setbacks (Cherry, 2023). People with higher levels of resiliency are able to adapt to times of distress that require mental, emotional, and behavioral flexibility and can benefit from many areas, such as having effective problem-solving skills, stronger emotional regulation skills, a strengths-based mindset, etc. As we master the power of resilience we can notice a shift in our physical, mental, emotional, and social aspects of our lives. How could we make this shift happen? Fortunately, there are various ways to accomplish this based on our own needs. To start off, taking a self-care assessment can help provide us with a visual of what parts of our lives we might want/need to add more care into. Feel free to use any self-care assessment tools available as there are many that can be found online. Here is an example of a self-care assessment that divides self-care activities into separate domains of our lives: https://www.ttuhsc.edu/centers-institutes/counseling/documents/selfcare.pdf .
A possible challenge that may come up is the confrontational aspect to our self-defeating habits, because what we don’t rank high on essentially means that we are doing the opposite, right? While confrontation can be difficult, you have gained more self-awareness in the process. The good news is that with this provided assessment there are many opportunities for growth. It is hopeful that you may also recognize a shift in your self-esteem, or even self-efficacy throughout your journey. While self-esteem is about how we feel about ourselves, self-efficacy is defined as our own perceived ability to satisfy our goals. When we feel great about ourselves we become mentally strong! Let’s review the difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. In order to have strong self-efficacy, we need to be aware of how our thoughts influence our feelings about ourselves. Having a growth/resilient mindset means that we choose to adopt a perspective that helps us get through our challenges by still focusing on the opportunities in front of us! While some people view resiliency as the ability to bounce back, this stronger sense of self-efficacy could be viewed as our ability to bounce forward in times of distress.Â
If you would like to learn more about resilience and other aspects of Positive Psychology, feel free to check out our 10-week Positive Psychology group!
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