10 LIFESTYLE HACKS TO BUILD RESILIENCE

"Resilience is all about being able to overcome the unexpected. Sustainability is about survival. The goal of resilience is to survive." Jamais Cascio

We all want to be resilient because life inevitably brings challenges and difficulties. Unfortunately, we usually don't get a warning ahead of time. Life challenges just happen all at once it seems. Because we can't predict their arrival, our lifestyle has to be a resilience-enhancing one in order to be better prepared for such times. The way to live a healthy, happy life is to choose a lifestyle that strengthens our resilience on a regular basis. According to Oxford Languages, resilience is defined as “the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.” Since we know that no one is immune from periodical struggles, it is to our benefit to be emotionally and mentally strong yet flexible to be best prepared for challenging times. So then building resilience has to become our lifestyle.

Here are the best ways to live a Resilience Strengthening lifestyle:

1. Daily Spiritual Faith- Time and time again, my relationship with God proves to be the most important, empowering aspect of my life. Believing in a power higher than yourself takes the pressure off of you to do it all yourself. Develop a close relationship with God the same way you do with your friends, spend time together, share your thoughts and feelings, be a good listener, become familiar with who they really are and what they really want, laugh together, and cry together. God wants to be close with us, don’t wait for the trying times to call on Him, talk to Him daily, you’ll get to know His voice better and hear from Him more often. “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me." – Revelation 3:20

2. Healthy Friendships- Invest in healthy, enriching friendships. We are relational beings and we need each other. While God is always there for us, He works through people. Build relationships with people who share your same core values. We can be our own worst critics so even between the challenges life brings, we still need positive reinforcement. Sometimes we can also get off track and not be living a life that serves our best interest and friends can lovingly help us realize this and offer us the encouragement we need to get back on track. Friends comfort us when we hurt and pick us up when we fall. They share our burdens and celebrate our wins. God’s great love for us can be expressed through friendship, make sure you have the kind of friends who want God’s best for your life. "A true friend accepts who you are, but also helps you become who you should be." ~unknown

3. Find the Value in Your Challenges- Every challenge offers the opportunity to learn, grow and become stronger. The most incredible wisdom is never born in comfort but in adversity. Therefore, your difficulties are not drawbacks, they are opportunities for growth, wisdom, and blessings. We are only human and there are some struggles that we cannot find a good reason for, they seem unfair, wrong, and just too unfortunate to find a positive takeaway from, but those are the ones that are given to us in order for us to help others. Does the gift to help others redeem the pain of the loss? Not always to us, but God always has a greater plan that we don’t understand. “Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” —Romans 5:3-5

4. Embrace Life as It Is Rather Than How You Hoped it Would Be- This doesn’t mean that you have to remain in a toxic situation or relationship, it just means that you can accept your reality for what it is. When you accept the way things are in your life, you are less likely to be paralyzed with worry and more equipt to make a plan to move forward. You can only make a plan that puts you in a better place if you know and accept where you are coming from. Often times people end up in the best places after they’ve acknowledged the reality of where they were. The plan may require life changes, but it always requires a mindset change. Be super clear about where you are so that you know exactly how to get to where you want to be. It is also important to take a moment to mourn the loss of the vision you once anticipated. This will psychologically allow you to release that desire so that you aren’t constantly frustrated that things look differently than you had hoped. You can then start to create another vision. "The first step towards change is awareness. The second step is acceptance." ~Nathaniel Branden

5. Self-Care- Take care of yourself as you would a friend or loved one, especially during troubling times. Take the time, without the guilt, to just be. Walk outside, snuggle up in your favorite spot, play the music, and do the thing that you wish you had more time to do. As women, we often don’t think a second about going out of our way for others, but we won’t be much help to anyone if we are depleted ourselves. We can easily find ourselves living in the habit of subconsciously believing that our value comes from doing, doing for others, doing what needs to be done, and doing all the things. But we need to remember, that we are valuable simply because we were born. We are a child of God and we need to treat ourselves accordingly. Our value is intrinsic, it will never change no matter what we do or what we don’t do, our value remains the same. I often find that I am more productive, intuitive, and energetic when I have taken some time to just be still and enjoy the moment. I end up ahead, not behind. Time can be multiplied by God if we just care for what is important, the life and breath He gave us. "If you don't love yourself, nobody will. Not only that you won't be good at loving anyone else. Loving starts with the self." ~Wayne Dyer

6. Eliminate Expectations— It has been said that expectations are the thief of joy, they are premeditated resentments, and they are disappointments waiting to happen. We can look forward to something with hope but placing expectations on exact outcomes, especially from others is a risky business. How can you be disappointed if you don’t have a specific expectation? People let us down all the time, sometimes they don’t even know that we are expecting certain things from them, and sometimes they don’t care. Or the expectations may be that you are able to make something happen and if it doesn’t happen the way you envisioned it, that is ok. You learn what works and doesn’t work but sometimes unexpected surprises come and we want to be open to seeing them. Be flexible. "Blessed is he who expects nothing. For he shall never be disappointed." Alexander Pope

 7. Live in Gratitude- There’s always something to be grateful for. If you are reading this, you have a desire to overcome your situation, be grateful for your desire. You also had a few minutes to read this, be grateful for those moments to invest in yourself. I love to take walks or just go outdoors during troubling times. Nature broadens your perspective, and drenches you with the reminder that God’s love is always available to you. It shows you that your problem is just a speck in the universe and that this too shall pass. What you focus on grows, so focus on the blessings you already have. “Every problem has a gift for you in its hands.” ~Richard Bach

8. Accept Both Success and Failure- Both wins and losses are part of life. The wins wouldn’t feel so wonderful if there were no losses. Both bring energy to our lives. While the tough times are not fun, they build strength and wisdom. As they say, nothing good happens in your comfort zone. Strength and wisdom are what we have to offer to our loved ones so it is a gift for both us and others if we increase these traits. “For when I am weak, then I am strong.” `2 Corinthians 12:10

9. Feel Your Feelings and Adjust- During difficult times it is common to want to push down any painful feelings. While it may be a temporary fix, you really need to sit with your feelings at some point because you don’t want them to germinate deep inside you, they will eventually grow and sprout in ways that don’t serve you. You can work through it when you have the time to revisit that feeling and explore what is causing it and what it means to you. This is not to say that the feeling will completely go away at that point but it won’t be able to haunt you in other areas of your life. You will have identified the underlying feeling and by doing so you will be able to have compassion for what you are going through and encourage yourself going forward. Remind yourself of other times you have overcome challenging feelings and know that you can choose to allow yourself to work through this. "The best way out is always through." ~Robert Frost

10. Self-Compassion- Simply said, be nice to yourself. Treat yourself with the compassion and understanding you would offer a friend or loved one. If you fall or become overwhelmed, don’t beat yourself up, just dust yourself off and try again. No one does life perfectly, life is too messy for perfect. "You've been criticizing yourself for years. Try approving of yourself and see what happens." ~ Louise L. Hay