Find Thunderous Resilience: How to Bounce Back With Passion When Life Throws You Lemons

This last week my oldest daughter Grace was at softball practice. They were preparing for the first game of the season the following day and practicing sliding into a base. Up to then, her team had been practicing how to slide on smooth and slippery strips of cardboard boxes, laid out on the grass. This day, however, they moved to the dirt for the first time. When it was my daughter’s turn to go, she slid into the plate, and broke her tibia bone in her lower leg. Confused, frustrated and in a great deal of pain, she asked me why something like this should happen to her.

It’s a straightforward question, but even for a father, a straightforward answer to this seemingly simple question isn’t always easy. At that moment, volumes of books came to mind around how to answer this question. But I was left tongue-tied in not knowing exactly what to say in a way that a nine-year-old could understand, even through the tears rolling down her sweet, innocent face. 

Why do these things happen to us? 

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3 Crucial Keys Resounding Resilience

The reality is that challenges and obstacles are an inevitable part of life.

I’m sure at some point you, too, have wondered why you that had to go through a difficult situation, and not somebody else. Maybe you also had a sports injury? Or lost or passed over for a job? Maybe you have been in a car accident, or suffered through your parents' divorce. 

Here are three powerful and enlightening keys to help ensure you bounce back with resounding resilience:

1. Keep An Open Mind

You are probably familiar with Carol Dweck and her research into those who truly believe their skills and abilities are not finite, but that they can be improved and further developed through various tactics like hard work, training and good habits and those who don't. Those who do are said to have a growth mindset and her research shows that these individuals tend to achieve more than those who are more fixed in their mindset, and believe their talents are little more than innate gifts.

In her book, Mindset: Changing the Way You Think to Fulfill Your Potential, Dweck postulates that this is because those with a growth mindset tend to worry less about what others think, and put more energy into learning. 

Expanding her research, she found that companies with a growth mindset at their core were far more empowered and committed to new ideas than those that were comparatively more fixed in their overall mindset, who resorted more to cheating and deception between and among employees.

The takeaway for you is to remember that in order for you to have control over your thinking, you will have to be persistent over the long haul, and actively engage in keeping an open mind.

Open to what exactly? 

Objectivity and new perspectives. 

2. Objectivity: Only You Get to Decide 

The challenge in applying labels to events is that we can potentially trap ourselves in a box of emotions that we have learned to deal with that particular kinds of event. The passing of a loved one, for instance, often elicits feelings of loss and sadness.

Remember that we are in complete control of our thoughts. And because we are also in control of the consequences that follow our thoughts, both good and bad. In other words, we have capability as humans to influence our personal life experience.

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In fact, your entire life right now is the result of your past thinking and resulting consequences. 

Personally, I think that's amazing! 

Psychologists just call it agency.  

Either way, understand that you are empowered to the ability to choose the life you want to live, and how you want to live it. You get to choose if your attitude! Why that is so important is that when someone is looking to heal from a tragic event they are the one who gets to decide how they are going to respond to and rebound. 

That means you can choose to dwell on what Harold says are unanswerable questions like “Why did this happen to me?", or "What did I do to deserve this?”. Or you could choose a more empowered approach and focus.

Whether you believe in the phenomenon of life to be pure chance, or whether you believe that there is already a set plan or destiny you, one thing does remain true for both: You will always have control of your thoughts and emotions.

Nothing can ultimately change life's challenges and hardships from happening. But, I'm here to tell you that you, and only you, give meaning to them when they do happen.

Ryan Holiday says in his book The Obstacle is the Way, that, "How you choose to perceive your challenges and hardships is ultimately what is most important." What matters most he says, "is not what these obstacles are, but how we choose to see them and react to them.”

In other words, we can’t control events, but we can control what we do, think and feel after them. 

You, and only you give them meaning. Only you get to decide how it is you want to label the experience as:

• Good
• Bad 
• Neutral
• Right
• Wrong 
• Indifferent

In a recent forum, therapist Blair Abbas said that when we learn to accept events as natural conditions of life, we can then go through the tough times more easily, without feeling victimized. It’s not personal, he said. Everyone suffers, even celebrities, even spiritual leaders. 

That's another reason why surrounding yourself with the right people to regularly sharpen your axe is so critical to your success over the long run! 

Understanding and adhering to such a powerful and transformational principle can serve you well in life, and that's why I always remind my kids of it, whenever the opportunity presents itself. As Kushner points out, "We can redeem these tragedies from senselessness by imposing meaning on them."

See, when we have given an emotion to an event, we label it from our experiences, from our personal biases and filters such that we alter what was once an importable event. So by adding our feelings to the event our opinion of it now becomes our reality. 

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One very useful tool that I have found to work beautifully when it comes to practicing objectivity with my own clients is to help them to identify only that which has happened. In other words, simply remove the emotion from the situation so you can step away from it and just see it for what it is. Nothing more, nothing less. Give no power to how you might want to feel about it - whether it is good, bad, positive and negative.  Just let it be an event.

As an exercise, take out a sheet of paper and simply write down the challenge for what it is.

Nothing more, nothing less. Just what happened.  

3. Find the Opportunity: Intentionally Move Towards Understanding and Growth 

The first two keys in finding resounding resilience from a difficult challenge involve keeping and open mind (objectivity) and removing the emotion (perspective) by stepping back and assess your obstacles and challenges without letting your emotions cloud your perspective.

Congratulations, doing that is difficult in and of itself!

But to truly grow from the experience, and avoid the real potential pitfalls of bitterness and regret that can stem from such an experience, we must move forward in life and next start to consider what benefits might be presented as a result. 

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Find Purpose in Recognizing the Possible Benefits of Your Situation

Go back to the piece of paper you pulled out earlier where I had you write down your particular challenge or obstacle. 

Write out what those benefits might be. 

In working through this exercise, I have found that often the benefits are motivating and therapeutic, and as a result, find joy and peace along with new-found sense of purpose. 

Here are some additional questions that you might consider:

• Now that this has happened to me, what am I going to do about it?
• In mentoring your teenager, or in having an argument with your spouse, how could I learn patience as a result of this circumstance?
• In a challenging situation at work or with your parents you might ask, “What can this situation teach me about the need for compassion or understanding of different ideals?”
• In reflection ask, "How could this challenge motivate me to express gratefulness for things I’ve previously taken for granted in my spouse, boss, or children?
• And, "Where else in my life can I develop more compassion for others because of this experience?

Of course, these are more personal questions. Yet, as human beings, we have to share our experiences with others if we are to truly heal and move forward and attain our goals in life with resounding resilience. 

In that spirit, also consider how your experience can help others and make the world a better place. 

So what's next? 

Get moving.

As Ryan Holiday writes, "The first step to hitting a home run is taking the bat off your shoulder and giving it a swing. You’ve got to start in order to get anywhere."