How to Build Resilience for a Midlife Reboot

You know that you need to build resilience in order to tackle everyday life. When you reach midlife it’s a necessity!   For some, it comes easy for others it’s more of a challenge.  Whether things easily roll off your back or find difficulty getting up after being knocked down you need an ally. Learn how to build resilience for a midlife reboot and live the second half of your life with grit, grace, and vibrancy!

 

The Ring of Life

“You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!”- Rocky Balboa

In the ring of life, everyone gets knocked down. Yet, the manner in which people get up can vary widely. Some get up quickly. Some stay down for a short period of time. Others take nearly the full count before they are able to get to their feet. The main difference between those reactions is resilience.

Fortunately, resilience is not an all-or-nothing skill. You can develop resilience and continually build upon it. It certainly is no coincidence that resilience is a common trait of high achievers.

What Is Resilience?

Resilience is defined in Webster’s dictionary as “an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.” It’s our ability to “get hit and keep moving forward.”

Another way to view resilience is to think about what happens when a shape has been deformed. How quickly is it able to regain its original shape? The speed and ability with which the shape regains its original form is resilience.

Resilience may be something that you lack. If so, now is the perfect time to reinvent yourself by building resilience with these simple steps.

Rely on Past Success

 One of the best ways to building resilience is to remember your past successes. As with any type of training, you need to do this daily in order to see good results.

Each night spend 10 min reviewing your top 3 wins from the day. These wins can be big things, like finishing a large, multi-step project. They can also be more mundane things, like cleaning, or getting to an appointment on time.  Celebration is a big factor in feeling successful, Author BJ Fogg tells us that celebration will be one of the most important things we do for ourselves on a daily basis.

I love this quote from his book

“Celebration will one day be ranked alongside mindfulness and gratitude as daily practices that contribute most to our overall happiness and well-being. If you learn just one thing from my entire book, I hope it’s this: Celebrate your tiny successes. This one small shift in your life can have a massive impact even when you feel there is no way up or out of your situation. Celebration can be your lifeline.”

The important point is that you must remember the successful things you have accomplished every day. This builds resilience by giving you a reservoir of positive experiences to lean on when you do get knocked down. Having a large pile of positive past wins will help you get your feet back under you quickly when the rug has been pulled out from under you.

Reframe Your Failures

 Nelson Mandela is quoted as saying, “I never lose, I only learn.” This is a perfect example of reframing failure. Failure is just feedback on how to be successful using a different method. When you understand this, as Mr. Mandela says, you learn.

Reframing what failure is allows you to bounce back quickly to your original shape. It allows you to quickly get up on your feet again. You have learned something from this experience and can move forward again.

Pull the Parachute of Your Support System

Your support system is there to do just that… support. This is the time to lean on your support system. Your friends, family, or mentors are able to help pick you up or lend a hand when you are down. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. It’s not a sign of weakness. It’s an opportunity to exercise resilience.

Anchor Yourself in the Harbor of Core Values 

Core values are the fundamental beliefs you hold. They make up the bedrock that is immovable while the water rushes around you. In the moments when you need to find your feet, you need to place them on the foundation of core values.

Having the energy to bounce back better is the key to building resilience for the long haul, it starts with how you wake up in the morning, that core habit of hitting the snooze button may have you feeling more tired! Check out this recent post!

Building resilience is something that you can grow and develop. You can increase your ability to keep moving forward, to keep fighting. You might not achieve every goal you make, but when the final bell rings, you will still be standing.

Schedule a Coffee Chat with Suzanne and learn how she can help you build a successful life and business.

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