Last evening over dinner, psychologist Dr. Julia Hawgood suggested a one word explanation for the difference between those that are able to recover from a misfortune like losing a job or a project set back and those that are doomed to live in the past and carry that loss with them for an extended period of time – "resiliency".
Resilient people mourn their losses, do their post-mortems and move on. They are much more interested in how to make the future better than they are in how to rationalize the past. They are more optimistic. They are more fun to be around and easier to follow.
Less resilient people spend more of their time thinking about the bad things that happened to them in the past. They spend more time talking about those bad things. They are more pessimistic about the future because they fear a repeat of bad events. They are less fun to be around and harder to follow because they're looking backwards, not forwards.
“Between stimulus and response there is a space; in that space lies our power to choose our response and in our response lies our growth and freedom.”- Victor Frankl
"It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up." – Vince Lombardi
"Don't lose your confidence if you slip. Be grateful for a pleasant trip. And pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again." – Dorothy Fields
Whether you choose to follow a psychologist, football coach or song writer, know that bad things are going to happen to you. How you deal with those bad things, how resilient you are, will make a meaningful difference to how others feel about you and how you feel about yourself. Get over it and get on with it.
