Hello and welcome.
And today's word is resilience.
So when life knocks you down,
How quickly do you get back up?
Resilience is your ability to bounce back from challenges,
Adapt to adversity and keep moving forward.
And imagine how much stronger you'd feel if you saw every setback as an opportunity for growth,
Almost like bouncing down on a trampoline.
How far further can we now pounce?
And when it comes to living your best life,
There may be many areas where we stretch outside of our comfort zone,
Where we may stumble or trip.
And resilience will be really important for us to find a playful approach to bouncing back.
Resilient people don't allow setbacks to define them.
Instead,
They really learn from failures,
Adjusting their approach and persisting until they achieve success.
And when we do things,
When we make progress in small steps,
It's not very difficult to move back onto track if things don't work out as we might have liked.
When we focus very much on all or nothing thinking and we take huge strides and massive action,
When we realise something's not working for us,
Coming back can be much harder.
So people who are resilient tend to value that idea of small,
Consistent steps in the right direction and we can see their why.
And developing resilience therefore really does empower us to embrace change and manage stress effectively and efficiently so that we can really enjoy this adventure called life.
Now,
Oprah Winfrey is a nice example of overcoming obstacles in life and demonstrating resilience.
She overcame extreme poverty,
Childhood abuse,
And numerous career setbacks.
And she rose to become one of the most influential figures in media.
And her resilience really allowed her to turn personal struggles into lessons of empowerment for millions of people around the world.
And she's done an incredible job in that line.
And J.
K.
Rowling,
Who before achieving success with Harry Potter,
Faced numerous rejections from publishers.
She endured financial struggles as a single mother.
Her perseverance ultimately led to a literary empire that has inspired generations.
A study from the American Psychological Association found that resilience actually reduces the risk of depression and anxiety by fostering mental toughness and adaptability.
And the word adaptability I think is really important there.
And neuroscientific research from the National Institute of Mental Health suggests that resilience can be developed through mindfulness and cognitive reframing,
Which really helps reshape thought patterns in response to stress.
And I think that's a really nice one to realize.
This is not just personality.
Many things that we put down to personality are actually skill sets that can be learned.
So I'm going to share three ideas today.
And the first one is to play around with reframing challenges as opportunities for growth.
And perhaps you want to start doing that by looking back on episodes in your life that were perhaps painful or difficult or challenging.
And really sit down and decide that you will find something that was positive in those situations.
And do it with friends as well.
Have a friend around.
Discuss both of your challenges in life and how if you really had to reframe them as something magically positive,
How good could you get at doing this?
Have some fun with that.
Number two,
Develop a strong support system to help navigate setbacks.
Start thinking about what you need in your first aid kit,
Your emotional first aid kit,
That if you have a setback in life,
What are you going to do to get back on track?
And in fact,
Remembering past events in your life where you have actually gone through adversity or difficulty can be a great reminder when you face difficulty again.
It can really help you to look at that list and go,
I managed it then and I'll manage it again.
And number three,
I invite you to cultivate a positive mindset by practicing gratitude daily.
A gratitude,
I'm told over and over,
And I can only verify from my own life the same,
That gratitude is a magical life changer.
Because eventually with practice and practice's power,
Remember,
We go into a mindset where we are looking for what we have and love in our life rather than focusing on lack.
And this in itself can really make us highly resilient and really very,
Very powerful.
We're going to end with a quote today by Nelson Mandela,
Do not judge me by my success,
Judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.
