Resilience Threats

Full of broken thoughts

Identify and question negative beliefs related to personalisation, pervasiveness, and permanence. Practice labelling them when you catch yourself in these thinking patterns. Challenge the thoughts. Thoughts are not always reliable narrators.

Turn and face the strange

Practice perspective-taking. Remind yourself that challenges as temporary. Draw a boundary around the issue. This helps defend against beliefs that problems are permanent and widespread. 

Please forgive me

Encourage kindness towards yourself during setbacks. Don’t engage in unnecessary self-blame. It is pointless and harmful for your health.

Don't let yourself go, cause everybody cries 

Recognise that everyone experiences difficulties. Yes, it’s maybe more comfortable to cry in the back seat of a Rolls Royce, but we all have our own battles. Remembering this can help us feel less alone.

Scream to a sigh

Develop skills to effectively handle negative emotions. Identify which negative emotions are problematic for you, and use self-help strategies. 

Take a look around, look up way to the sky 

Practice mindfulness to stay present and avoid spiraling into negative thought patterns. Focusing on the breath is a quick way to do this. If this is too tricky, try 54321. Look for 5 things around you, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you smell and 1 you can taste or 1 big breath.

Dreaming of bigger things

Break down larger challenges into smaller, manageable steps. Think short-term, medium and long-term. Give yourself the best chance of success. Although the adversity may be significant, taking one small step is better than none. Even turning around the face the problem is amove in the right direction. 

Went the distance, now I'm not gonna stop 

On that note, think of the rule of 1%, or the Japanese philosophy of Kaizen, which focuses on continuous improvement. Celebrate wins, no matter how seemingly small to help build your confidence and resilience over time. Sometimes the win is stopping things from getting worse.

Just remember what your old pal said 

Foster, maintain and reinforce connections with others to create a support network for the good and the not so good. There can be a tendency to withdrawal into our shell when under fire, keep in touch with others.

Reach out

You don’t have to always face things alone. If you had a leaky roof, you would get a roofer out to fix it, no? At the least, you’d maybe ask a pal for a len of a bucket to catch the leaks.

Let's all celebrate and have a good time  

Keep a gratitude journal to keep in mind the positive aspects of life. Write it in your notes app on your phone or in your journal. Then you have something you can look back on when needed. The act of writing ‘concretises’ it - it reinforces it and transforms it from thought to form.

I adapt to the unknown

You think if you are under the three pees of personalization, perversiveness and permanence, you won’t be feeling great. It can be harder to identify your skills and strengths, so online questionnaires like the VIA strengths questionnaire can be insightful. Find more great questionnaires and resources at the home of Positive Psychology, Authentic Happiness.