The Art Of Getting Your Sea Legs: 7 Ways To Find Solid Ground When Life Feels Really Wobbly
Baran Lotfollahi | Unsplash "Mother said there would be days like this!" The song was right: Resilience is needed now more than ever. When life as we know it changes, it's human nature to react out of fear and doubt about what will happen next.
Bouncing back, being flexible, and recovering from adversity may be the furthest things from your mind. Still, they are necessary qualities when learning how to build resilience in this time of uncertainty. The best way to face the unknown is to rely on the lessons learned from experiencing life. It takes some practice to develop the skills that build resilience.
When you’ve rebounded once or twice, those skills will become part of who you are. They will help you to cope and adjust, accept what you can’t control, and pivot, so you get stronger and better equipped to handle hardships. Some of us have lived longer than others, accumulating understanding. Consequently, we may have a few more tools in our treasure chest.
Here are 7 ways to find solid ground when life feels really wobbly:
1. Get support
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Doing this alone is much harder than it needs to be. So, ask for help. Find someone who has been through tough stuff and lives to tell about it. Their guidance will go a long way in teaching you what it takes to bounce back. Mentors become our role models.
Studies on medical students show that those who participated in a mentoring program had significantly higher levels of resilience over time. Having someone who's navigated tough times before gives you both the roadmap and the confidence that bouncing back is actually possible.
2. Turn the tables
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When you're struggling to figure things out for yourself, step back and take a break. Find someone else who needs your help — not to commiserate with you, but to shift your perspective. It will take your mind off your problems. Problem-solving for others may generate new possibilities for you.
Providing help is associated with better mental health than receiving help, research has shown. When you shift your focus to solving someone else's problem, you naturally step outside your own head and often stumble onto solutions you couldn't see when you were stuck in your own stress.
3. Hang in there
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This too shall pass. That means, no matter what, you want to be persistent even when things are difficult. Nothing is permanent — not the best of times and not the worst of times. The situation is what it is, and you are not the situation. Trust that you can handle it. Rely on your intuition to guide you. And believe in yourself that you will persevere. Building resilience takes time and effort, for sure. But it’s worth it in the end.
4. Relinquish control
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You'll need to relinquish control over the things that are beyond your power. You know which ones — the outside forces that make you feel like a victim. Instead, when you focus on the things you can control — and mostly, that's you — you're empowered to make change work for you. It's a time when you can explore new options and choose how to show up as you move through this season of change.
Research shows that people who focus on what they can control rather than what they can't have superior resilience and better mental health overall. When you stop wrestling with things outside your power and start directing your energy toward what you can actually influence, you regain the agency that stress was trying to steal from you.
5. Imagine the outcome you want
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On the heels of accepting what has happened comes believing that you’ll find a way to overcome the situation, discover alternative endings, and have the imagination to create them. It takes faith and confidence in yourself and a vision of what you want. Your resilience will continue to build as your vision gets clearer.
Research shows that being able to picture what you want for your future is linked to greater resilience. When you can clearly see where you're headed, you're building the mental strength you need to handle whatever comes your way.
6. Be reasonable and sensible
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Rome wasn’t built in a day — valuable work takes time. The key to this strategy is to leave the drama behind so that you can keep your perspective. Know what you can do and what is not wise or possible. Consider the choices. You could turn a potential catastrophe into the catalyst for meaningful change in your life — that's resilience paying off.
Resilience is negatively associated with catastrophizing because dramatic worst-case thinking makes stress worse. Resilience research defines recovery as a gradual return to functioning over time, not an overnight transformation, so permitting yourself to rebuild slowly actually speeds up the process.
7. Find the silver lining
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Remember this formula: gratitude + humor = less stress. When you feel grateful, you can't feel fear or doubt or uncertainty. And, when you laugh at yourself and your situation, you release beneficial hormones in your brain that circulate throughout your body.
So, find those silver linings within your situation, and be grateful. Then, lighten your mood and your load by laughing. Is it easy to build resilience? No. But it's simple if you're committed to becoming more resilient. It takes practice over time. With these strategies, you may find some tools for your treasure chest that will help.
Here’s a quote about resilience from Elizabeth Edwards to plant another seed: "Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it’s less good than the one you had before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you’ve lost, or you can accept it, and put together something good."
María Tomás-Keegan is a certified career and life coach for women, transition expert, and founder of Transition & Thrive with María.
