2 Signs That You're Resilient |
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Individuals who view stress as manageable or meaningful tend to cope more effectively.
The ability to reflect on one's thoughts, emotions, and behavior is a core component of adaptive functioning.
For most people, resilience manifests as small, repeated, and somewhat boring actions.
Resilience is often misconstrued as a kind of mental toughness or emotional immunity. But research shows that, in reality, it’s a lot more flexible than most of us give credit for. We typically picture someone resilient as someone who’s completely unshaken by stress and always calm under pressure—someone who’s emotionally steady no matter what life throws at them.
Not only is this depiction of resilience incomplete, but it’s also very misleading. We’re led to believe that resilience is a means for avoiding distress, when, really, it’s about how we respond to it. In fact, two of the most reliable signs of resilience look like the opposite of what we typically envision.
1. Resilient People Keep Showing Up, Even When They Don’t Want to
Perhaps the most common misconception about resilience is that it protects you from overwhelm. This couldn’t be further from the case; nothing in life can render you completely immune from stress, not even resilience. What resilience does, instead, is modify your relationship to it.
Psychologists define resilience as the ability to adapt successfully in the face of adversity, trauma, or significant stress. An important part of this definition is that, oftentimes, feeling anxious, tired, or emotionally stretched is an important part of resilience.
In a renowned 2009 longitudinal study, researchers mapped New Yorkers’ resilience trajectories following the September 11, 2001,........