There are many things you can do to build resilience. Together all these things will help you to become a more resilient person in the longer term. Putting time and energy into building resilience now will help you to get through the ups and downs of life as you grow up into adulthood.
The more resilient you are, the more able you are to deal with difficulties that come your way. Even if you are experiencing difficulties now, you can still work towards becoming more resilient, now and in the future.
“Bounce Back!” is an acronym for some of the foundational principles of resilience, specifically:
B – Bad times don’t last, and things get better.
O – Other people can only help if you share with them.
U – Unhelpful thinking only makes you feel worse.
N – Nobody is perfect – not you, not your friends, not your family, not anybody!
C – Concentrate on the good things in life, no matter how small.
E – Everybody suffers, everybody feels pain and experiences setbacks; they are a normal part of life.
B – Blame fairly – negative events are often a combination of things you did, things others did, and plain bad luck.
A – Accept what you can’t change and try to change what you can.
C – Catastrophising makes things worse – don’t fall prey to believing in the worst interpretation.
K – Keep things in perspective. Even the worst moment is but one moment in life.
Source: Professor Helen McGrath’s Bounce Back! program.
Consider more:
- What do you already do that helps you to be resilient?
- What else could you try doing to help develop your ability to be resilient.