Characteristics Resilient Person – Are You?

Characteristics Resilient Person – Are You

There are numerous characteristics that can help people achieve what they want in life.  One of the most important ones is resiliency.  In this article we will look at the characteristics resilient person possesses and how this trait helps them achieve goals.  Don’t get me wrong, there are many traits that are helpful in life.  In my opinion being resilient is one of the strongest.  So let’s see what characteristics resilient person has – right after we look at a definition.

Resilience Definition

According to Merriam Webster the definition of resilience is “the capability of a strained body to recover it’s size and shape after

deformation caused especially by compressive stress.  An ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change”.

Let’s take this to a little more personal level and translate it to people.

Why is it that some people are able to bounce back quicker and better to adversity?  When tragic events occur or roadblocks arise a person with resiliency is able to work through it faster.  Some people tend to get “stuck” in certain areas of their life and seem unable to move on.

This is where psychologists talk about the resilience characteristic some people seem to have more than others.

More Resiliency

When faced with a disaster, tragedy, health issue, relationship troubles, hardships at work or something else a resilient person works through it.  They figure out a way to move past the obstacle.  A person with good resilience is able to bounce back sooner.  They are able to move forward and usually with less stress.  It’s not like resilient people don’t feel stress over these obstacles, they just manage it better.

It’s not always easy to point to one or two things that makes up resilience.  It can come from a wide variety of factors.  In whatever fashion the characteristics resilient person possesses helps them keep moving forward.  They don’t linger too long in the crap that reared it’s head in their life.  The obstacle or problem doesn’t define them for long.

Characteristics Resilient Person Possesses

Here are some traits that resilient people tend to exhibit.

Control of their lives – Resilient people tend to feel in control of their own lives.  They don’t blame other people or situations for things that happen in their life.  Of course things such as getting fired happen to them, they just accept responsibility for changing the situation.  It’s that whole concept of being in control of your response to things that happen in your life.

Social connections – People with resiliency usually have great social support.  They have friends and family who will be there for them when needed.  Many times they have identified mentors they reach out to as well.

Problem solving skills – As you might imagine strong problem solving skills are traits of a resilient person.  When they are faced with obstacles and challenges they figure it out.  They will find a way through the problem or around it.  Resilient people tend to be able to come up with new ways to look at a situation.

More Characteristics Resilient Person Possesses

A survivor, not a victim – Resilient people see themselves as survivors.  They don’t fall into the victim mentality.  They feel they have impact over their own lives.  People who view themselves as victims feel like things happen to them.  That they have very little control over how they can react to a situation.  This is where resilient people don’t just view themselves as an observer in their own lives.

They accept – Most things in this world we can’t control.  Resilient people know this and don’t dwell on things outside of their control.  If there aren’t any further career options at their company they accept that.  They will then either continue rocking the job they have or look for a different one outside of their current company.  They don’t piss and moan about it.

Self aware – Self awareness is a great trait to have in general.  Knowing what you are capable of and how you feel about things is a strong tool to have.  Knowing yourself leads to self confidence which is another thing resilient people have.

How Resiliency Helps in Life

If you think about resiliency it’s easy to see how this trait will help you life.  We all have hardships as we navigate our lives.  It doesn’t matter who you are, bad things happen.  People we love pass away.  We get fired from jobs.  Our company gets acquired by another company and we get downsized.  Our spouse files for divorce.  Kids grow to teens and test our patience.  Every single person has stress.

When you or I possess the trait of resiliency it helps us navigate tough times.  We are able to understand we can’t control situations but we can control ourselves.  This allows us to not fall into victim mentality and know we can do something about our situation.  We can figure stuff out, do something different.  Move on from bad situations and proactively do things to improve your spot and situation.

We put stress in a manageable context.  We move away from bad situations and seek out better ones.  Toxic people aren’t allowed to hang around in our lives.  Taking care of ourselves becomes a priority.  If we don’t like a situation we problem solve and figure a way out of it.  We soldier on.

How to Improve Your Resiliency

The cool thing is we can build and strengthen our resiliency trait.  Here’s some ways to beef up your resiliency.

Accept change – The only thing constant is change.  Ever heard that?  It’s true.  Understand that change is inevitable and embrace it.  Make the best out of it.

Cultivate optimism – Having an optimistic view of things helps fuel your resiliency.  If you see things in a pessimistic light you are cultivating a victim mentality.  This doesn’t help you as you build your resiliency.

Continually improve – Self improvement is always a good thing.  When you are always looking for ways to improve yourself a natural by product is an increase in your resilience.  It helps to build your self confidence which is a boon to resiliency.

Develop your problem solving skills – One of the big traits of a resilient person is the ability to problem solve.  This way they are able to figure out new ways to make a bad situation better.  Work on improving your problem solving skills to improve resiliency.

Take action – This goes back to the victim mentality.  Resilient people take action to solve their problems.  They don’t wallow in pity and go about thinking “woe is me”.  They actively look for ways to improve things and take action to do it.

Take care of yourself – Taking care of yourself will benefit you in many ways, including building your resilience.  When you treat your body the right way by giving it enough sleep and feeding it good food, you fuel the machine to do the resilient work.

Build your network – As we saw earlier resilient people have a strong social network.  They’ve paid attention to relationships and have strong ones.  Strong social networks are essential in this world.  Go build yours and find a mentor or two if possible.

Resources

Here’s a few resources that can assist you as you contemplate characteristics resilient person possesses.  If you want to build your resilience give one or two of these a try for assistance.

Resilience:  Hard-Won Wisdom For Living A Better Life – by Eric Greitens

The Resiliency Workbook:  Bounce Back Stronger, Smarter, & With Real Self-Esteem – by Nan Henderson

The Resilience Factor:  7 Keys To Finding Your Inner Strength and Overcoming Life’s Hurtles – by Karen Reivich

Resilient:  How to Grow and Unshakable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness – by Rick Hanson, Ph.D

Conclusion

We’ve reviewed characteristics resilient person possesses.  We’ve also taken a look at how resiliency helps us in life.  Finally we can also see that it’s possible to develop more resiliency.  No matter how sunny a life it looks like someone has, there’s always some rain to balance it out.  We all deal with stress and tough times, it’s the way life works.  We can better prepare for life’s tougher times by developing our level of resiliency which will help us immensely.

Here’s to bouncing back better than ever.

Mat A.