resilience: an act of springing back: rebound, recoil, elasticity; capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation, especially when the strain is caused by compressive stresses; the ability to achieve good outcomes after significant hardships
Things are really getting tough on the streets. Like many of you, two of my friends have lost their jobs.
The current economy shows that resilience has become a needed commodity.
We now know resilience is not about doing it alone, but about growing with the help of others. Like networking, resilience is about building relationships that make it possible to navigate the work world for the insight, support, help and optimism of others. Access those networks for more than just a job!
Intriguingly, studies in resilience have come up with two curious conclusions. Resilience does not necessarily increase with age.
So your older relatives and colleagues may not have much in the way of resilience to give you the smarts you're looking for. Gray heads may be neither resilient nor wise. In extensive German research at the famous Max Planck Institute, no evidence was found in four different studies that resilience or wisdom necessarily increase with age. I used to think that as my hair turned gray and fell out, people would know it's a sign of great wisdom. Once again, BIG MISTAKE.
A second study in the States found that you can vaccinate yourself with resilience at an early age. There are three steps for vaccination:
- View a crisis as a problem to be addressed, and a puzzle to be solved. So, get in the problem solving mode, keep adding to your fact base, and work at potential resolutions.
- Work with actions you can control. Once you've identified issues out of your control, set them aside.
- Go to relationships that grow you, not those that merely empathize with you.
Now that's encouraging! And that's the kind of smarts needed today.