The Mindset Junkie: Resilience

In the dictionary the definition is: ‘The ability to be happy and successful after something difficult has happened’.

Let’s face it, every single one of us are resilient. We maybe just don’t know how resilient we actually are until it’s something we really need to draw upon in life.

A mother who needs to take action to protect her kids will pick herself back up again and draw upon and feed off that resilience daily.

A father who has lost his way, to provide for his family, will find that inner resilience to keep pushing forward regardless of what has been thrown at him to make sure he can do the best for his family.

A drug addict or an alcoholic will come to a point in their lives when enough is enough, and they will find what is needed to overcome that inner battle and persevere and come out the other side.

I am sure everyone reading this can relate to or has experienced a time in their lives when you have shown up and needed to show resilience, the ability to bounce back and overcome.

It’s a natural part of life. I feel that we must condition if we are ever to grow and become the version of who we want to be.

It is a power we can and do tap into whether we realise it or not. As I write the date is November 23rd 2020 and we have been through one of the most testing years in humanity’s history.

We have experienced life this year like no other year. The whole world stopped for a long period and it still hasn’t returned to where it once was before. We are still in lockdown. Most businesses are closed and people have had no choice this year but to be resilient.

Human nature shows how we can handle almost anything, as long as we have a strong purpose and a strong spirit. Every single person this year has had to adapt and change and do what has been needed to in order to survive.

The uncertainty that surrounded so much of this year has left a heightened state of fear and anxiety for a lot of people.

And then there are people who adapt faster and are able to get creative and be resilient in the face of adversity. If you have been tested before in life you will have hopefully learned the lessons from those tests, and you carry those tests as your armour.

They psychologically prepare and protect you to navigate choppy waters faster. Why? Well, because you’ve been there before or worse. Your mind and body has been through those tests, similar to how a muscle grows and gets stronger.

You must tear those muscle fibres down first with stress and repetitive strain time and time again. We then feed it with the nourishment that’s needed - adequate rest and recovery and then we start the process all over again as soon as you hit the gym.

Getting uncomfortable is what it’s called. I have been in a whole lot of uncomfortable situations but it has helped condition me to handle a certain amount of stress and that in turn has helped me build resilience.

We never grow from staying in our comfort zones and we never build resilience for fear of trying and stepping out into life the way you want to live it.

To quote David Goggins: “You must learn to build calluses in your mind.”

Anyone who has just started training at the gym for the first time will be aware of these.

Your hands will sometimes end up in pain as the skin under your fingers adapts to something new. The soft skin tears away but after a while in comes back stronger with thicker layers attached.

These are calluses on your hands and as David Goggins says; ‘We must learn to build these in our minds, develop that resilience and condition our minds much like we do our bodies to perform how we want it to perform.

Our bodies are an instrument of the mind so if we want our body to move into action and perform better habits to lead us to our goals, we must learn to condition our minds first, build those calluses and resilience so that we are better able to handle the tests of life that come our way.

As we will always be tested, it’s simply down to us how to respond to those tests. I don’t think it is a special power that successful people have compared to anyone else, though I do think that you will show more resilience if you have a real strong desire to be or have or to fulfil something in your life.

If that is a mission of yours then you will definitely need to pull on resilience to help you push through when it all doesn’t go the way you want it to and that will happen. That’s a fact! Again it will always be how you respond to it that will determine the outcome.

Inside the Mindset Academy I regularly get everyone I mentor to focus on their wins, to tick them off to celebrate them, to recognise them.

This isn’t just for flattery or a fake high five and well done. I do this for a specific reason because it builds a winning mentality and a winning mindset. Focus on your losses you become a loser, focus on your wins you become a winner.

You see everything we feed our mind is paramount. Feed it with the right information you can create a winning mindset.

Alternatively, feed it with the opposite and the same applies. Sh*t in equals sh*t out. It can’t be any other way. So how can you learn to build more resilience now?

What I want you to do is take notes or to write down times in your life that you have shown resilience. Times when you have had to push through, when you came back stronger after something that really tested you.

The reason I want you to put this down and to remember it is so that you can remember when you have come out the other side of a testing time.

This helps us remember that we have done it before and we can do it again whenever life throws its challenges at you.

However, just like celebrating your wins can help create a winning mentality, remembering when you have been resilient in life can help you create more of the same and you can draw on that when needed.