Resiliency
What is resiliency? It is the ability to bounce back and recover from difficulties. This is extremely important. Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Coast Guard members must have this every day. The amount of strain and stress placed on a military member every day is tremendous, and I’m not just talking about when deployed or at war. It takes a lot out of a military member to get on a plane or bus and deploy and do his or her day-to-day task. Military members are and always will be some of the most resilient people you will ever meet.
What Has the Military Done?
The military has spent countless hours and money to help improve resiliency in its service members. I know the Army has devoted specific classes to resiliency. They have even assigned each company a Master Resiliency Trainer to provide annual resiliency training for each soldier.
How to Be Resilient
This is not something you’re just born with; it is something you choose. Resiliency is knowing that you are the only one that has the power and the responsibility to pick yourself up! You cannot and should not always depend on another person to see you through the tough times. Resiliency means you experience, you feel, you hurt. You even fail, but you keep going. Resilient people immediately look at a problem, find a solution, and learn from it.
The Circle
These are the ways you build on your strengths and abilities to become more resilient.
- Be optimistic: have a positive attitude no matter the hurt or pain. Your attitude should focus on action and “Can Do.” Have control of your emotions and your responses to any circumstances.
- Good social support: don’t surround yourself with negativity.
- Good sense of humor: find a way to laugh through frustrations.
- Confidence: you must believe in yourself. Have great confidence and high self-esteem.
- Be flexible and creative: adapt to any condition.
- Be a problem solver: always find a solution or a way to turn the bad into good, the negative into positive.
There will be failures at times in your life and adversity to overcome. How you approach it will dictate your ability to overcome it. It’s not about you; it’s about your attitude!
Words of Resilience
Scars remind us where we have been. They do not have to dictate where we are going. Failure hurts, but sometimes it instructs. Life does not get easier or more forgiving; you get stronger and more resilient. Resilience is not what happens to you; it is how you react to, respond to, and recover from what happens to you that makes you more resilient. You are not defined by what happened to you. You are defined by what you choose to become. If you fall down 5 times, get up 6 times. Never give up! Tough times don’t last; tough people do.
