If 2020 has taught us anything, and if it is something you have not considered yet, it is that nothing always goes according to plan. This year many of us have seen others, if not gone through it ourselves, losing jobs, businesses, wages, connections with others, dreams, holidays, loved ones, and much more.
A word used a lot over this time is resilience. The definition of resilience includes the ability to recover quickly from difficulty. I do not fully agree with this definition. Yes, it is an ability to recover or bounce back from difficulty or a difficult time in your life, but it does not have to be straight away or as straight forward as it sounds. Sometimes readjusting and figuring it all out is resilience.
I listened to an Instagram video by a psychologist the other day talking about millennials and how they are lacking resilience because they grew up in a time when everyone is a winner and struggle with being able to cope when things don’t go right, as it is is something that they have not learned. This, however, is not saying that only those born during this time are not resilient. I found it really interesting and it made me think more about my generation (millennials) and how we are really miles apart from the generation before and after us in different ways. I had always put it down to our generation being part of the technology age and, how it had influenced our understanding and ways of doing things. But putting our lack of resilience under the spotlight makes a lot of sense.
Now, like every generation, not every individual is the same. Culture, socio-economical background, upbringing, education, and other factors all influence how a person is. With this group in specific, there is a higher number of mental health concerns. This may be as they are more documented or when there is a lack of resilience means a win-win option is all that is thought of (win-win meaning that the only option is to win, and that you must win or succeed in everything you do). Or the mentality of wanting everything now, which has all impacted a lot more than we have ever considered and we do not know what to do about it if we find ourselves in such a situation when things do not go the way we have planned.
Resilience is a learned behaviour. I believe the reason why children are more resilient and adaptable to current situations and changes, in general, is because they are consistently learning every day what it is like to not always succeed and learning new ways to cope and move on from this. We now see mental health as more important in all ages and focus in school through school counsellors or particular curriculums, depending on where you are in the world; helping and supporting our young be more resilient. Parents are also more open and wanting more for their children’s well-being.
Ways to Build resilience
- Focus and prioritise important relationships – one thing the last few years have taught me is people will come and go, for whatever reason, from your life. Relationships should be a give and receive situation, prioritise the relationships in your life that have this, and see how it can change everything really.
- Build on your self-care and well-being – look after your mind and body, find your own way to do this, and spend time each week if not every day focusing on this.
- Learn to say ‘no’. You will be surprised how this can build your resilience
- Find a purpose or a goal you want to achieve
- Connect with like-minded people
- Focus on the positive and limit the negative
- Invest in yourself, this can be in the form of a coach, mental health professional, courses/education, or whatever you feel is necessary for you
- Put things into perspective – look at your life and situation from different angles and ways of thinking
Having a clear vision of what you want from life is extremely important. Not in the case of a job, relationship, kids, and so on. But picture yourself years from now and someone is addressing you to others, what would you want them to say about you. I know I have read it somewhere before to think about what someone would say about you to a group of people after you have died, but I didn’t want to look at it in that way. You want to be able to hear what is being said about you and work backwards from there. One thing millennials have instilled is not settling and persevering with whatever they want to achieve, which I believe is a form of resilience but the emotions side of it can get a bit mixed up.
My reason for pointing this out is because it is something we need to start building within ourselves; considering that things are not always clear-cut and may not always go the way we want. So why not consider the benefits of having another option or embracing a Plan B. Sometimes the best things happen when the first plan fails. If you have read my previous posts you would know how important I think failure is. Now although I am a millennial, there was never a case of “everyone wins” when I was growing up. I do, however, think that my life has made me more resilient. Also, in one of my other posts, I speak about being a diabetic and meeting my basketball coach years later and her complimenting my resilience and not letting diabetes control me. I did not see it that way, I saw it as I cannot change what is happening or has happened, I need to work with it not against it. I have had my rebellious teenage days where I wanted to just forget for a moment in time that I had something that would stick with me for life, but I see that as normal. Maybe this has made me resilient, and that is where the learned behaviour side has come into play.
‘What we believe becomes our reality’ is something I heard on a podcast called the Goodness Project and while starting to write this post, it really stuck with me. It somewhat conflicts with what I am talking about with having a Plan B but can complement it in another way. Yes, I believe in putting out positivity and positivity will come back to you, so believing something can influence it happening or not. Now believing you will win the lotto and never doing the lotto, it is safe to say it will never happen. But believing something will, puts ownership on it and you are more likely to succeed in it. I am not saying that we should have a Plan B for everything in our lives and believe that everything is going to fail, as this will have a negative effect and it could become a reality, but take some time to remind yourself everything is not always going to be the way we want to be. There are lots of sayings that are coming to mind from growing up, like “do not count your chickens before they hatch” or “do not put all your eggs in the one basket”. We need to be open and start thinking about other options in all aspects of our lives and really think about what we want to achieve. Once you have that, that is your Plan B. Plan B is about believing in yourself looking towards the future, and it does not have to end there. The beauty of life nowadays is that it is always changing and you never know what the future has to hold. I still remember saying a year before I moved to Dubai that I could never see myself living here especially as a single person. Well 5 years on, it has been one of the best chances I took, especially as a single person, as it meant I actually thought about me and for anyone who knew me before will vouch to say how much I have grown in this time.
So take a chance, you never know where or what your Plan B may take you!!!
