Many times our culture focuses on only two outcomes, winning and losing. We are taught from the time we were children that these two outcomes define a moment, a day, a year or even a life time. Many of us are still lamenting over a moment when we lost or failed and it still carries the sting of failure as if it happened yesterday. That moment does not serve to inspire us. It makes us insecure, shrink and to get caught in a shame storm. It is time to put that moment in its right place, as a learning experience when we took a chance to be brave. Let’s create opportunities for new moments that offer growth and the strength to weather the ups and downs of daring. No one who is successful did so without falling. They all experienced the lab of life.
Resilience means to persevere and be diligent in the face of setbacks. It is a word that carries so much weight because it takes a piece of your heart to do it. It requires that you push past the stories you made up about the incident and them. It requires that you continue to see the little beam of light at the end of a very long tunnel. But the beautiful thing is that resilience is your key to moving forward. It is another way of seeing and feeling hope. Hope has no limits and can create opportunities where none existed before. Resilience leads to hope, hope leads to faith and faith leads to things we thought were impossible. How do you move to resilient?
- Get clear on what you want to achieve and describe it in such detail that you can smell, hear and see it. You can almost taste it. Make it real and create the desire to want it so bad that temporary setbacks and hurdles will not stop you.
- Surround yourself with inspirational people who have the spirit you want. They live the ‘resilient’ way you want to live. Learn what they know, do what they do.
- Music – there is nothing like a great song to inspire you to keep going. Find one that becomes your mantra for ‘rising up’!
- Challenge the thinking that is keeping you stuck. Don’t beat yourself up. Reflect, understand and do the work to move forward.
- Challenge the stories you have held, sort through for the truth and make a plan to go at it again this time wiser and even more inspired.
It is not easy to move to resilient, but rewarding when you get up after a fall and take even the smallest step. Marry resilience with courage and it is a winning combination that can take you anywhere! Pretty soon, you will not fear the fall and you will definitely not tolerate the floor.
