7 Ways to Build Resilience in Times of Adversity,  Steve Obiakor

At every point in our lives, we are all fighting a war. It could be financial, social, health, emotional or spiritual war. This is the world we live in, but we must keep our heads above the waters of time.

Resilience is simply the ability to navigate through tough times. Tough times, they say don’t last but tough people do. Resilience is a psychological ability to mentally and emotionally cope with crises and emerge at the end with your status as it was   before the crises began. The world experiences crises at different times; it could be as a result of natural disaster, social unrest or an outbreak of a disease. There are also individual crises arising from individual experiences such as business failure, poverty, marital/relationship challenges, inability to meet up with personal goals and aspirations, loss of a loved one etc. In this article, I will be sharing with you, seven ways you can build resilience and navigate through tough times especially in this era of health crisis which has disrupted the entire process of existence globally.

1. Be Realistic: The first thing that happens to us when faced with crisis is to assume it’s not happening; to live in denial. The mind automatically sets itself to this position. There is this feeling of being immune to the effects of the crisis. This mindset receives a boost from the mentality of it’s not my portion which our people are used to in this part of the world. This mindset stalls the exigency of accepting reality and setting up mechanisms for survival. To build resilience and navigate through crisis as quickly as possible, one must learn to accept reality immediately the crisis sets in. one must also understand that failure is part of a success journey, when we fail, after doing our best, we must learn to embrace the situation and move on as quickly as possible. This position does not negate the concept of thinking before acting; we must think before acting but you cannot even think if you believe that nothing is happening or nothing has happened. The situation will take a serious toll on us if we continue to assume that it’s not happening. A stich in time saves nine, someone who has health issues for instance would quickly seek medical attention early and probably save his/her life than someone who believes ‘It’s not happening” It is better to believe that yes, something is happening, I will do my best about it and leave the rest to God.

2. Change your Plans: As we all can see, this year has been seriously disrupted. But we still have people who are banking on their earlier plans and are still waiting for the pandemic to be over so we can continue our normal lives. The truth is that nothing remains the same after a serious disruption such as this. Accept the situation, change your plans and change your direction if possible. If we maintain a mindset of returning to our original plans before the crisis, we might experience crisis after the crisis. After this Covid-19 crisis, a lot of people will face a new crisis they never envisaged. To mitigate this, we must adjust our plans and expectations. In times of crises, nothing remains the same, we must adjust our finances, adjust our movements and stand down some plans that are not essential; look around and get involved in the new normal; start a new business no matter how small. This will help us develop a mindset that a new beginning is coming and helps us also build resilience to withstand the pangs of the crisis in question. Do not allow things to happen by accident, be intentional.

3. Share and Talk it out: Not too many people are quick to share their crises’ experiences with others. It is however, important to note that nobody survives alone. Two good heads they say, are better than one. You, however, need to be sure you’re sharing with someone who is not going to compound your situation or someone who is not going to use your failures to measure their own successes. Even if this happens, you still need to move on; that’s resilience. Sharing your experiences has a way of easing the burden of crises experiences and building your strength and resilience over it. Talking it out will sometimes prove to you that you’re not alone in the boat and it’ll reveal to you some measures taken by others who are experiencing the same crisis and how they came out of it.

4. Deal with Smaller Things First: When you are faced with a mountain of crisis, start building resilience by removing smaller stones. You will feel stronger when you discover that you have eliminated some challenges irrespective of how small they are. You will be further convinced that you are going somewhere. Remember that resilience is a thing of the mind; once you are convinced that you are going somewhere, the strength to move on is reinvigorated. Don’t just sit and lament over everything; sieve the challenges and take out smaller ones. Sometimes, when we take care of little things, the bigger ones would take care of themselves. Surely, moving a mountain starts by removing smaller stones.

5. Live Healthy: You need to be healthy in mind and body if you must build resilience to withstand crisis. You cannot afford to be ill especially when the crisis is not an issue of health. Select your diets properly even when it’s scarce. You’d agree with me that good food is not as expensive as junks just as looking good is not as expensive as following fashion trends. Sometimes you notice that when things are normal, many of us are too busy to take care of ourselves; we don’t remember to eat and we don’t exercise. This must not happen in times of dealing with crisis if we must build resilience and emerge successfully at the end.

6. Be Positive: Nobody succeeds if they believe they won’t. Being positive here is not the same as believing in miracles while doing nothing. It is also not the same as setting unrealistic goals. Being positive is having a set of beliefs that something good would happen eventually after something negative has happened. Positive attitude builds the resilient spirit needed to navigate through troubled waters. You need to move with a group of minds that exude positive energy and not a set of individuals who always complain about everything all the time, those who brood on crisis, glorify it and give it a room in their lives. This does not help anyone build resilience. Sometimes, some people are still brooding and crying over crisis without even knowing that the crisis is over.

Nothing lasts forever, in good times, we prepare for bad times and in bad times we hope for good times.