What actually is resilience?
» A ship is safe in port, but that's not what it's built for. «
Seneca
Resilience describes your inner resilience. In other words, various skills, characteristics and resources that can help you to cope with difficult situations, stress and crises without damaging your mental health. Resilience therefore helps you to steer your ship safely through even the strongest storm without breaking. Strengthening your resilience is therefore an important building block for your mental well-being. The 7 pillars of resilience model can help you with this.
Can I learn resilience?
Scientific research has shown that resilience is not an immutable personality trait that is simply given to you at birth. Although there is a certain genetic predisposition to resilience, it is very much shaped by the way we grow up, are brought up and what we experience. It is also now clear that the various factors of resilience can be trained even in adulthood. It is therefore worth looking at the 7 pillars of resilience in order to be able to survive future crises, challenges and stressful times.
The 7 pillars of resilience model
The definition of the 7 pillars of resilience comes from psychologist Ursula Nuber. It is now very popular with many resilience trainers throughout Canada and there are already different variants of the associated resilience factors. The aim of the pillar model is to identify the seven resources, strengths and skills that help you become more resilient to life's storms:
1. Pillar: Optimism
2. Pillar: Acceptance
3. Pillar: Solution orientation
4.
Pillar: Leaving the role of victim
5. Pillar: Taking responsibility
6. Pillar:
Network orientation
7. Pillar: Planning for the future
Broken down: The 7 pillars of resilience
Below, we will introduce you to each of the 7 pillars of resilience and show you suitable exercises to strengthen the resilience factors. Are you ready? Let's get going!
Pillar 1 of resilience: Optimism
When we humans are in difficult situations, we often tend to focus on the negative aspects. This can rob us of a lot of strength to tackle and change things. The resilience factor optimism is about believing that every crisis is temporary and can be overcome. It does not mean sugarcoating everything or ignoring problems. Optimism is therefore also linked to our own expectation of self-efficacy - in other words, the belief that we can influence things ourselves. Optimism gives you the self-motivation to stick to your goals and develop solutions despite adverse circumstances.
Exercise: To strengthen your optimism, it can be helpful to practice gratitude. Even small moments of gratitude can have a big impact. You can make yourself aware of how much you have already achieved in your life or in the last week and actively focus on the positive. You can find various gratitude exercises for every day in our blog article on the topic of gratitude.
Pillar 2 of resilience: Acceptance
Acceptance is closely linked to realistic optimism. Acceptance is about accepting a situation as it is. It is about learning to accept what is beyond our control. Some things we cannot or cannot yet change and that is okay. When we accept the things that can't be changed, we have more energy to focus on the things that are within our control and that we can change. This includes accepting that positive and negative emotions are part of life. You can't have one without the other. Practicing acceptance can create calm and serenity. This is why it is an important pillar of resilience.
Self-acceptance is a special form of acceptance. This involves accepting yourself as you are - with all your supposed faults and flaws.
Exercise: Closely linked to the ability to accept is mindfulness - staying in the here and now and "simply" observing things as they are, without judging them. A few minutes of simple meditation can help you to practise this. Try it out right away with this short breathing meditation.
Pillar 3 of resilience: solution orientation
In stressful times or during a crisis, our thoughts are often focused on the negative. We actually want to "get away from the problem", but we mainly think about the problem and ways to avoid it. We often remain in what is known as a "problem trance", i.e. a state in which our thoughts only revolve around the crisis. In contrast, we can hardly imagine or visualize a solution. This is where solution-oriented thinking comes into play as a resilience factor. This means that we tend to direct our thoughts "towards the solution". So, how can the problem be solved? You can also use your creativity here. Solution-oriented thinking may be unfamiliar at first, but it can help you to get obstacles out of the way.
Exercise: You can tackle problems that fall into the "solvable" category with a 6-step plan. You can find out exactly how to do this in our blog article "Reducing stress" or, with support, in our free online therapy course for stress and burnout.
Pillar 4 of resilience: leaving the role of victim
We sometimes tend to see ourselves as a "victim of circumstances". For example, we see an event or a person as the "perpetrator", while we experience ourselves as the "victim" of the situation. But who can save us here? If we see ourselves as the victim of the circumstances, we rob ourselves of our self-efficacy - in other words, the feeling that we can change something ourselves. To get out of the 'victim role', it is important that you keep reminding yourself of your own skills and abilities. You have already mastered difficult situations in the past and you also have the skills to do so again in the future.
Exercise: Think about all the challenges you have overcome in recent years. Write down exactly what they were, what skills you learned, what helped you in particular and who supported you. You'll be surprised what a difference it can make to look at your past on a piece of paper.
Pillar 5 of resilience: taking responsibility
The "taking responsibility" pillar is closely linked to the fourth pillar of resilience. This is about not always blaming other people or circumstances for current stress or crises. And this does not mean that you are always to blame for certain things happening to you. But you can accept that things have happened and then decide how you want to deal with them and move on from here. It is a fundamental realization to understand that you are responsible for your own life. No one can take this responsibility away from you.
But that's also the beauty - you can't control what storms you face, but you can control how you want to deal with the storms that come your way. Do you want to wait for someone to come and save you? Or do you want to start taking your life into your own hands and take responsibility?
Exercise: In order to shape your own life and live the way you want to, it is important that you know your own inner values. You can find out how to identify these and integrate them more into your life in our article: Inner values
6th pillar of resilience: network orientation
Like a safety net under a trapeze, we all need a social safety net that can catch us when we fall. This refers to our friendships and family, who support us when we face challenges, are there for us when we need comfort and can give us a sense of security. The feeling of belonging and connectedness is a basic human need and therefore also an important factor in resilience.
Exercise:The quality of our relationships - whether friendships, family or couple relationships - improves considerably when we show appreciation and gratitude. Think about how you can express them more in your relationships. This doesn't have to mean that you regularly give big gifts. Sometimes a small message like: "Thank you for always being there for me" is enough.
Pillar 7 of resilience: planning for the future
Part of the future can be planned, the other part can only be faced. The ability to plan for the future involves learning to set realistic goals that correspond to your abilities and inner values. At the same time, it is important to be flexible and adaptable in the face of changing circumstances. This also includes learning from past setbacks in order to prepare for future challenges.
Exercise: If you set yourself goals for the future, the SMART rule can help you to formulate them in such a way that you can easily put them into practice. Goals should be specific, measurable, attractive to you, realistic and time-bound. It is also important that your goals should be based on your values so that they really fulfill you in the long term.
Immediate help for too much stress
By acquiring more resilience or strengthening our existing resilience, we are able to react more flexibly to stress factors and change the way we deal with stress, problems and crises. Sometimes, however, stress can get out of hand and we may already be showing signs of burnout. Then it may be time to seek professional help.
There are free online therapy course for stress and burnout that will help you learn strategies for coping with stress and improve your resilience step by step. Set sail and steer your ship safely through the next storm! We will support you!