Resilience is the psychological resistance to crises and problems and the ability to cope with them instead of breaking down because of them.
The crucial question now is:
Why are there people who "go under" when faced with even minor problems, while others stand their ground and succeed despite unimaginable adversity?
What is it that makes people so different when it comes to problem solving and coping?
The essential characteristics for high resilience are:
Acceptance The resilient person accepts facts and circumstances, including the emotional problems associated with them, such as anger, sadness, dejection, etc.
Self-responsibility Resilient people do not seek to blame others as a reason for their own misery. Rather, they look within themselves for faults and shortcomings and accept responsibility for their lives and actions.
Self-confidence These people do not see themselves as victims of circumstances, but are convinced that they can improve their situation and have the influence to do so. These people do not wait for the solution to come to them (which is rather rare), but look for the solution themselves.
Optimism A resilient person is not a pessimist. He knows that not everything always goes according to his wish and that there can be very difficult times. But where there are shadows, he sees more the light, without which there would be no shadow. Therefore, he thinks positively and believes in the positive.
Solution orientation Self-awareness is a necessary condition to be psychologically able to look for solutions by oneself. A person who does not have such self-confidence will be more inclined to give up and wait for solutions to be offered to him. A resilient person analyzes his situation and adapts to the new circumstances. He is willing and able to change. And he is capable of learning, since the analyses bring new insights that would have to be put into practice.
Strength of analysis Solution orientation without the ability to analyze would degenerate into a "guessing game". Those who cannot analyze, who cannot assess their situation by means of analysis, will not produce solutions. Or produce solutions that have little to do with the current situation. This does not necessarily have to be a disadvantage. For those who want to start from scratch and have burned all bridges to the past behind them, need ideas and concepts that are forward-looking. Here the analysis of the past plays only a subordinate role. But here, too, the ability to analyze can help to better assess the new situation and the new life in advance.
Sociability and social network Resilient people are social beings, actually a typical characteristic for human beings. This includes being a social being, accepting help from others at times, and not seeing this as a weakness and feeling bad about it. Friendships, contacts, a functioning family, etc. are "institutions of resilience" that help to cope better emotionally in bad times.
Self-motivation Resilient people have a high level of self-motivation, which protects them from demotivation in hard times.
Creativity Being creative doesn't necessarily make you resilient. But the ability to be creative helps resilient people find solutions and alternatives.
These things are not God-given gifts or ingrained in our genetics. At least, there is no evidence of genetic connections.
Rather, resilience with its necessary ingredients seems to be a matter of learning. One must learn or develop these skills in order to lead a more fulfilling life. The social environment is also important here: The more of my contacts cultivate a pessimistic attitude toward life and the future, the more likely I am to be influenced by it.
If nothing else, you don't want to lose these contacts. And so you adapt to the mentality of the pessimists. But whether these people can or will help me in a hopeless situation is then questionable. In order to recognize this, the ability to analyze is then required. And to change this, the person concerned must be solution-oriented and sociable.
Creativity, however, has the potential to visualize and manifest solutions for one's own life in advance.
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