What are Practical Steps to Increasing Resilience?

With the global COVID pandemic as a backdrop it is safe to say people are generally more stressed than before. As a result, mental health is a relevant, salient subject at the forefront of our current situation. It is important to consider practical steps for increasing resilience.

People have experienced isolation, uncertainty, anxiety and loss. On top of that difficult changes in the home and work environment have made things a lot more complicated. Again, we need to pay attention to resilience.

Resilience is the ability to bounce back to reach goals when faced with setbacks, challenges, and adversity. Although people have inborn resilient qualities, research suggests this trait is malleable. This means we can all become more resilient!

To build resilience, it is helpful to know what resilience looks like. The following is a diagram outlining some of the common characteristics of resilient people. This serves merely as a point of reference, so don’t get down on youself if you feel short in some of these areas.

Practical Steps to Increasing Resilience

There are many interventions and techniques for enhancing resilience. However, it is important to note that what works for one person may not work for someone else as we all have different situations and psychological make-ups.

In general psychological interventions aim to do three main things:

1. Increase Resources

You can:

• Improve your communication skills
• Learn new skills
• Connect with others; build strong relationships
• Be willing to ask for help and offer help to others
• Learn to effectively set goals
• Develop a more optimistic mindset – this mainly means learning to explain things in a way that supports your personal development. Optimism enhancement exercises include practicing to be thankful and visualization

2. Decrease Risk Factors

This focuses mainly on decreasing stressors and sharpening one’s acumen for adapting to problems.

You can:

• Plan how to avoid or deal with potential obstacles that may arise in the future. When you are in a stressful situation it is sometimes difficult to come up with a good solution. However, if you have already considered certain scenarios, you will have an easier time responding effectively should a similar situation arise
• Train stress management skills
• Develop healthy coping mechanisms
• Improve problem solving skills
• Practicing self-compassion
• Do something to relax and take care of yourself – this is not selfish
• Learn to regulate your emotions better

3. Increase Resilience by Adopting a Healthy Perception of Influence 

This refers to the extent to which you feel capable of dealing with challenges.

You can:

• Identify your strengths, develop them and find ways to use them more
• Enhance your self-efficacy beliefs. Doing things like reflecting on past achievements is helpful
• Increase your self-awareness. What are your beliefs, core values, motivations, thoughts, behaviors and emotions?
• Adjust counterproductive thoughts or beliefs

I hope this is helpful and wish you much success in building your resilience.