Managing Adversity: How To Increase Resilience

Life is full of ups and downs, and most individuals will face adversity sometimes. Resilience, or being able to manage and move through challenges in life, is a skill, and it can be sharpened over time. Increasing resilience can allow an individual to move on more quickly after a negative or difficult life event and empower them to grow as a result. In other words, being resilient enables you to learn from adversity rather than having adversity control you. Here, we’ll explore a few key techniques for building resilience.

What is resilience?

Broadly speaking, resilience is a person’s ability to withstand or rebound from a stressful or challenging event, from a bad day at work to a breakup to a serious illness. The American Psychological Association defines it as the ability to adapt to such experiences, “especially through mental, emotional, and behavioral flexibility and adjustment to external and internal demands.” Resilient individuals can learn from the adversity in their lives and make changes as they go to minimize the impact of negative events. 

While resilient people may be likelier to have a positive or optimistic mindset, this doesn’t mean that they avoid all negative emotions. They may still experience challenging thoughts and feelings, but resilience means they’ve found the strategies and the strength to cope with them in healthy ways. Also note that even resilient people don’t overcome adversity effortlessly; it takes support and targeted strategies and may still be difficult, even with lots of practice.      

Factors that influence resilience

If you’re looking to become more resilient in your own life, it can help to know what can contribute to this valuable skill. Many factors may influence how resilient a person is, including the following:

• Experience. Having lots of experience with adversity won’t necessarily make you more resilient on its own, but going through some challenges in life is generally the only way to build this skill.
• Self-esteem. Having a strong sense of self-esteem often positively impacts resilience. A person with healthy self-esteem may have an easier time maintaining a positive self-image while facing adversity because they can trust in their abilities to help them get through it.
• Adaptability. This trait can help an individual make changes on the fly and respond to events quickly instead of being stopped in their tracks by a challenging situation. 
• Optimism. Staying positive can help a person believe that they’ll make it through a challenging time, which can be the emotional lift they need to keep going.
• A strong support network. Developing healthy relationships with friends, family members, neighbors, and others can help you foster resilience, too. When life’s challenges become difficult to manage, having someone to talk to or who can take something off your plate may help you push forward. 
• Coping skills. Resilience isn’t just a simple character trait; it’s also a toolbox of strategies that can help you get yourself through tough times. Coping skills like practicing self-care, reducing stress, and maintaining cognitive flexibility can have a positive impact on resilience. 
• Having clear goals. Having clear and realistic goals may help an individual stay on track and avoid unhealthy coping responses when facing adversity. Both long-term and short-term goals can help you put negative life events in perspective and keep you moving toward your target. 

Note that while some of these qualities may come to certain individuals more naturally, they’re generally skills that anyone can learn or improve. 

Strategies to help increase resilience

Again, resilience is a skill that can be learned with time, patience, and practice. You can work on developing the following strategies over time to help yourself be more prepared when life throws a challenge your way. 

Develop a growth mindset

Individuals who lack resilience may have a fixed mindset, which means they tend to think of challenges or events as out of their control and their own abilities as set in stone. This way of thinking can make it challenging to find solutions and may make it seem like the adversity a person is facing is permanent and insurmountable. 

A growth mindset, on the other hand, is a way of thinking in which individuals believe they are capable of learning and growing in order to overcome obstacles in life and achieve long-term goals. Individuals with a growth mindset may also have a higher level of resilience because they can look at a challenge as an opportunity rather than an obstacle. 

Increase emotional intelligence and emotional regulation

Becoming more mindful of your emotions and how you react to different situations is typically a key factor in developing resilience. While letting yourself experience and process your emotions can be an important part of maintaining mental health, it can help to understand that how you’re feeling at a particular moment is not always an accurate representation of a situation. Mindfulness strategies such as deep breathing or meditation can help you slow down your thought processes in order to find calm and make decisions based on logic rather than reacting impulsively to your emotions. 

Practice using coping skills

Examples of coping skills that may help you be more resilient can include things like mindfulness, deep breathing, and reflective journaling. Cognitive reframing can also be helpful. It refers to the practice of stepping back from a situation and aiming to think about it differently. For example, when facing rejection on your way to achieving a goal, you might think about it as a temporary setback that offers tools you can use in the future rather than an indictment of your character or a sign that you'll never make it.

Define a sense of purpose

Having a purpose gives you something to focus on while experiencing adversity. Similarly, having a goal can guide you in decision-making during tough times. Rather than reacting to a situation based solely on emotions, you may consider how your choices will impact your end goal and your ability to achieve it. 

You don’t have to face adversity alone

Connect with a licensed therapist

Work with a mental health professional

Developing effective coping strategies can be challenging, especially on your own. By working with a mental health professional like a licensed therapist, you can get support in all aspects of resilience. They can help you find effective coping techniques that work for you, teach you how to practice strategies like cognitive reframing, and support you in maintaining perspective when facing adversity.

If you’re interested in seeking the support of a therapist, you can choose between online and in-person therapy in most cases. Online therapy can be especially convenient for those who don’t want to spend time commuting to a therapist’s physical office to receive care. With a platform like BetterHelp, you can get matched with a licensed provider with whom you can meet virtually from the comfort of home. Research suggests that online therapy can be as effective as in-person therapy for building the coping strategies needed for resilience.