May is Mental Health Awareness month. I hope everyone is safe and following your local heath agencies Social distancing and safe at home. Now is the time to start building a path to plan to get through this. Resilience is the ability that individuals and entities call on to help deal with stressful circumstances and situations. The ability to cope with challenges and setbacks, then rebound to the previous or better state. Resilience is an ability, and not an in born trait, everyone has the ability to develop and use it. Resilience is like a journey, a path way to self-improvement success and happiness out of life’s experiences. You fall down and get back up, clean off the hurt and learn from it. You fail at on a test, you evaluate what happened and prepare for the next test. It is a process that is learned over time.
There are “Five Leading Indicators of Resilience” (1), knowing and understanding these indicators is a good start toward building a path using your Resilience. Five Leading Indicators of Resilience are self-care, active problem-solving, positive outlook, meaning and purpose, and social support. That when nurtured by “enhancing these aspects of one’s life will increase personal resilience and, in turn, bolster the capacity to handle challenges”.
Self-care – One of the most important part of handling unexpected stressful challenges, is to take care of yourself. Your personal health, be it physical, emotional or mental need to be maintained. It is something that only you can do for yourself and take control. By addressing any known issues you have, you are potentially avoiding future problems.
Active problem-solving – Develop a plan to address what the challenge may be. Keeping you mind focused on dealing with the issue will help take you attention off the challenge and work toward a resolution. Start a plan and set obtainable goals, breaking the plan into manageable parts. Achieving a number of smaller goals will help build your confidence to move toward the final goal.
Positive outlook – Being positive is important to allow your thoughts and emotions to settle down. It allows you to destress, you can’t think clearly when you are stressed. Stress comes from how you react to a given situation or uncontrollable event. Reduce the stress by take a deep breath count to ten and take control of your emotions and thoughtfully consider your best response! Doing that will give you a since of purposes and drive toward bouncing back.
Meaning and purpose-Everyone needs a purpose, a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Weather it being going to work or school, having a social group activity or a hobby to focus on. Once you have digested the circumstances or source of distress, which can take time in a drawn out event which we are all facing, Step back and develop your next action is acting with a purpose. The best action is acting in a meaningful way.
Social support – Social interactions and meaningful connected relationships are essential to building you support network and personal resilience. Drawing on your support connections like family members, co-workers, member of clubs or groups you belong to. If you are is school or college you have teachers and class mates. Being able to talk to people you trust and know you personally. They help you gain a different perspective of the situation.
Five Factors of Resilience, where to start. Each of us has the ability to develop proper perspective utilizing these five steps. We are experiencing an event that will have last repercussions. Putting this event in a positive perspective and reacting logically. While many things may be out of control. You can only control how you respond. Now is the time to start building a path to being Resilient in life. Apply the Five Factors of Resilience.
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(1)Department of State’s Center of Excellence in Foreign Affairs Resilience (CEFAR) at the
Making Life Resilient 
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