How to Develop a Resilience Mindset

Feeling tossed around by the turbulent times? Maybe it’s time to develop a Resilience Mindset

“The oak fought the wind and was broken. The willow bent when it must and survived,” –The Fires of Heaven.

This quote speaks quite eloquently about the importance of resilience. Bouncing back after setbacks and being flexible in the midst of challenge are crucial skills for anyone who is working to create lasting change in the world.

But is resilience something that you’re born with, or something that has to be developed? Experts say it’s both. Some people are naturally more resilient, but resilience is definitely a skill or mindset that you can grow.

One of the key components of a resilience mindset is your sense of empowerment. Personal empowerment involves having the beliefs and authority to perform certain actions or duties. And it’s closely related to your sense of control over both yourself and your environment.

Here’s an exercise you can try to boost your sense of empowerment and resilience.

Look at the locus of control diagram and think about the system you are trying to change.
In the inside circle, list all of the things you have control over.
In the outer circle, list all of the things that are beyond your control.

For example, when I worked in community mental health and I was struggling to meet productivity expectations, I felt overwhelmed and burned out, because the number of people I was expected to see each week was so high. So, in this instance, I would have placed “meeting productivity expectations” in the “Things I can’t control” circle.

After doing some brainstorming, I realized that, instead of meeting with clients 1:1, I could see those who had similar issues in groups. Adding groups to my work week schedule increased my chances of meeting the productivity expectation.

This action helped me feel more empowered and resilient. And then I had more energy to try to change other things that didn’t seem workable about the system I was part of.

What most people find is that when they study the outer circle—the things they can’t control—they realize there are at least SOME aspects of things outside of their control that they actually have some amount of control over. At the very least, we can usually gain more control over how we respond or react to things in the outer circle.

Rallying Resilience is just one of the steps you can take to keep the spark of change within you alive. If you’d like to learn more strategies to help you persevere on your path as a changemaker, reach out to me, or join me for my masterclass.