The Resilient Space

‘Building resilience’ has become a buzz phrase over the past few years. The topic has attracted a range of thought leaders, psychologists, and scientists, each with their own unique approach and methods addressing what it takes to build mental toughness. It is a topic that I am incredibly passionate about. I have witnessed many people (myself included) battle the peaks and troughs of what life throws at us from one moment to the next. One particularly vivid time for me was when I was coming into senior school exams.

I was feeling really overwhelmed. The pressure to perform was inducing a gamut of emotions, from panic and fear to pure dread. It made it incredibly hard to focus and remember the subject material before hitting the exam. My parents took me to visit the local GP. The diagnosis was anxiety. The 1980s solution from the GP was to blow into a brown paper bag whenever feeling overwhelmed, as if it was the solution to everything.

Since that time, via a lot of trial, error, and research, I have developed 3 core principles for what it takes to build resilience.

Principle 1: Acceptance

We all struggle, and we will all experience feelings of anxiety, tension, or nervousness from time to time. Learning to accept that this is just a part of what it means to be human is key. Acceptance is simply learning that we don’t need to always fight or fix these states.

Principle 2: Space

Put simply, if we don’t create the space to honestly feel an emotion or experience, we just increase their intensity. Conversely, where we do create the space to check in our experiences, to really lean in and feel whatever we need to feel, we give those emotions and feelings the space to shift and move on.

Principle 3: Progression

This is the notion that in building resilience we should always practice on the little things that might prepare us for the next challenge. Getting better at managing the daily frustrations and events that come our way can help us to build muscle for the bigger things when they inevitably arrive.

Try these things when the smaller stuff happens and see how you go.