Becoming Resilient Despite Adversity

by Cornelius D. Jones

Those that experience victories in life developed endurance to overcome adversity. Having the stamina to stand through any storm that life brings your way, along with the tenacity to triumph even in moments of great turbulence is what defines you. The truth is you must be unshakeable even in moments of uncertainty. Adversity may slow us down, but it certainly shouldn’t be allowed to stop us. Learn to treat it like a yield sign, instead of a stop sign. Trials will occur in life, but endurance requires you to never stop trying. What the resilient do is refrain from blaming themselves for being slowed down. They game plan, hit the reset button, and figure out a way to bounce back. In the language of psychology, they externalize blame as they internalize success; they take responsibility for what goes right in their lives.
At the heart of resilience is a belief in oneself, yet also a belief in something larger than oneself. Resilient people do not let adversity define them. They find resilience by moving towards a goal beyond themselves, transcending pain and grief by perceiving bad times as temporary.
 
5 Ways to Move Past Adversity

1. Change your mindset
In case you are unaware it starts with your thoughts; they frame the triumphs or tragedies of your life. Getting past adversity requires a change in your belief about challenges and setbacks. It is not what happens to you, but how you respond to it that is important here. My mindset is that setbacks are my setup for my major comeback. Think positive, expect positive things to happen for you, instead of expecting negative things to happen to you. Whatever we tell our mind will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. You must realize that difficulty is not designed to derail you, but to develop you. True change starts in the mind so maintain a positive mindset.

2. Eliminate excuses
Excuses are the greatest a waste of oxygen because they keep us from telling the truth to others and ourselves. If you don’t achieve your dreams, it will be because you made the decision to be detained by excuses. Adversity is often a great excuse for people to stand by as life moves by them. Excuses will always box you in and become the barrier that prevents you from getting to where you are meant to be. We can’t overcome adversity when we focus on the excuse instead of the action plan. You conquer excuses by having the courage to step out and do what seems impossible. Over the years, I have learned to find strength in the word impossible considering that I discovered that it spells "I’m possible."

3. Rely on your faith
Fear is the opposite of faith and prevents us from trusting that things will work in our favor. You can either live in faith or live in fear; however, faith and fear cannot coexist. The funny thing is that it takes more energy to live a life full of fear than it does to live it full of faith. Look at it like this…fear will always attempt to immobilize you, while faith is designed to energize you. If you must rely on anything it may as well be your faith. When your desire to overcome becomes greater than your fear, you’ll overcome adversity more naturally.
 
4. Invest in you
One of the greatest investments that I’ve ever made was in myself. Just like everyone else, I have had my fair share of trials and tribulations. I used those tribulations as an opportunity to grow and change. Growth and change are the evidence of life, anything that isn’t growing is dying. Find ways to grow daily by working towards self-improvement. This means to invest in yourself, so you can change for the better. Use your adversity as momentum to move forward instead of allowing it to hold you back. Invest in your own personal development because in the end, you will always get a greater return on yourself. We all face adversity in some way, life requires that we do. It serves as a part of the test that adds to our powerful testimony. When we focus on developing into a stronger wiser person, both we and those around us benefit more.

5. Use each success as energy
With every success, we are strengthened and empowered for greater victories. Each of us must remember that we cannot allow ourselves to become enslaved by disappointments. We must realize that every adversity is being engineered for our destiny. Small successes are a source of energy that feeds the wind of faith so that we can push forward. What causes one individual to succeed and another not, is how the two responds to adversity. Some people allow adversity to be our fuel while others allow it to become their kryptonite. We can either become a success at overcoming or succeed at failing, both are always determined by where we place our energy. 
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