We often think of our resilience as whether we are ‘coping’ or ‘not coping’ with the stress and anxiety of our life. We get really good at coping. Coping is our default behaviour. Coping is how we survive.

We have all kinds of coping strategies, such as a drink after work to relax, calling friends to moan about our manager, crying, shouting, shopping, buying lottery tickets, watching TV, going to the gym, scrolling through Instagram, listening to music and so on. 

Some of these coping strategies are about releasing emotion, some are about numbing ourselves and turning off our thoughts, and some are about distracting ourselves to give us time away from the stress.

Some coping strategies are healthier and more effective than others. But they are all our default behaviour – they are what we resort to without much thought. They get us through the stress, but they are often unproductive, rarely resolve or reduce the stress, and often leave us in the same place we were before we started the coping behaviour.

This is where resilience comes in. Resilience is about thriving, instead of just surviving our daily stress. 

Resilience is about crafting our self-awareness, thoughts, skills, habits, nutrition, exercise, social support network and mindset to allow us to do more than just ‘cope’. It’s about proactively changing ourselves to step beyond our default coping mechanisms. 

Resilience is about making plans and changes to our life to deal with stressors before they arrive. 

Resilience is about upskilling ourselves to give ourselves more confidence in our ability to cope with whatever stressful circumstances come our way.

Resilience is about changing our daily habits to give us more time and less stress without having to apply too much willpower or thought.

Resilience is about changing our mindset to become more optimistic, to look for opportunities and welcome change rather than living in fear of it.

Resilience is about building our self-awareness so that we understand what is happening for us, what emotions we are feeling and what we need, and living with more gratitude in the moment.

Resilience is about challenging our thinking, to look out for those unhelpful mental traps that corner us into looking at the world as black and white, trying to predict the future, assuming things, getting sucked into the drama, seeing danger everywhere, and viewing people as threats.

Resilience is about creating a social support network of people around us that we can call on for advice, support or just a chat.

Resilience is about changing our nutrition to give our body what it needs to thrive and to stabilise our moods and energy levels, as well as avoiding disease and ill-health. 

Resilience is about building in exercise to ensure that we have the mobility, strength, fitness and agility to cope with whatever life throws at us and live without constant pain or discomfort.

Each of us has areas where we are stronger than others in terms of resilience. I’m especially good at the exercise and have done a lot of work on removing mental traps. I’m less good at using my social network for support because I don’t want people to think of me as ‘weak’ for needing help (which consciously I know is nonsense, but it is deeply embedded). I’m not the best at planning either – I tend to live in the moment. 

I have done a LOT of work moving from being out of touch with my feelings to a state of relatively strong self-awareness. That’s made a huge difference for me – I no longer automatically repress my feelings and pretend that I don’t feel things as so many men have learned to do. 

Which areas are you strong in? Where might you benefit from some exploration and skills improvement?