7 Essential Resilience Skills

What are the best skills to develop in order to improve resilience? Is it possible to change the way we react to negative circumstances?

You can develop certain skills to help you maintain enthusiasm while moving from one opportunity to another.

Download the free eBook: Resilience: 7 Skills You Need to Walk Through Life with Strength

Here are seven essential resilience skills:

Skill 1: Understand Resilience

In order to strengthen resilience, it’s important to understand the concept in depth. Resilience is the ability to move forward by growing through every part of life’s process. Struggling is a natural part of living. What matters is how we react to struggle.

It’s easy to let difficulty keep us down. It isn’t easy to stay afloat when the waters are rocky, and it’s okay to feel that struggle. Resilience is associated with toughness. Part of being tough means admitting to difficulty and working through it instead of ignoring it.

Skill 2: Develop Your Emotion Regulation Skills

There isn’t very much that we have direct control over in our lives. For example, we cannot control other people, the weather, and traffic. Though it may seem difficult, we can control our reactions to the many things we have no control over.

If you feel like you have no control over your reactions and emotions, have no fear. There are specific things you can begin doing that will improve your ability to mindfully walk through your feelings in a productive way.

Having the ability to regulate emotions means responding to all levels of emotional situations in a way that helps you rather than hurts you. The development of this skill will will lead to more resilience by providing a way to feel emotions without letting them control your behavior.

The inability to regulate emotions leads to insecure relationships and shame because it doesn’t directly address the core emotions. Working on emotion regulation will help you identify emotions and react to situations in a reasonable way. It will help you address what is causing your suffering without engulfing you in negativity.

Skill 3: Take Responsibility

As mentioned, there isn’t much in this world that you have the power to control. Understanding that fact will provide freedom from a lot of stress.

Just as we have the power to control our reactions to situations, we also have the power to control the next action we take.

If you’re able to take a step back and look at a situation objectively, you’ll be able to use the information you gain to inform your next steps. It takes humility to look at a situation and see what you could do differently.

Every situation is an opportunity to learn more about yourself. If you can look at yourself while taking a step back to understand with compassion, you’ll be able to make wise, well-informed decisions in the future.

Skill 4: Build Community

Times of stress can lead to isolation. Having a support system in place builds resilience by providing structure and encouragement. People who are in your community can help with problem-solving and taking next steps.

A community is strong catalyst for a meaningful life. Having others to share our highs and lows with gives a stronger sense of purpose and acceptance. When we’re going through difficult times, it’s of the utmost importance to hold on to a community.

Other people can serve as guideposts, cheerleaders, and supporters when we let them in. Building a community is a vulnerable thing to do because you have to reveal parts of yourself that show you might not be perfect.

It might feel scary at first, and then it will feel freeing and relieving

Skill 5: Strengthen Your Relationship with Yourself

It’s difficult to be resilient if you’re giving into critical self-talk and beating yourself up. Though it can be difficult, it is possible to squelch negative self-talk. This will in turn change your behavior and perspective.

Skill 6: Exercise

Physical exercise is an excellent source of motivation, energy, and confidence. It’s a wonderful outlet for anxiety, stress, depression, and other sources of distress. Find ways to exercise that work for you and are fun.

Skill 7: Challenge Yourself

You can strengthen your resilience muscle by giving yourself challenges to overcome. This will improve your confidence and increase your belief in your own strength.

The only way to get better is through continuous practice. You can achieve goals and make progress. You don’t have to be the best. The most important thing is that you gain enjoyment.

Seeing yourself get better at a new hobby is rewarding and motivating. So, set yourself up for success by setting goals and overcoming small challenges.

These seven skills will help you stand tall through the processes of life. To ensure your understanding of each of these skills and how you can apply them to your life, download the free eBook: Resilience: 7 Skills You Need to Walk Through Life with Strength.

If you’d like support cultivating resilience, book a free 20-minute consultation and let’s talk about how coaching can help.