RESILIENCE IS LIKE A MUSCLE:

After its broken down it comes back stronger.

I used to (and still do sometimes) take setbacks and learnings too deeply; I hold grudges, avoid certain situations, and recoil until things graze over. That’s like working out a muscle once and then not using it again for months!! Talk about flabby muscles!

The amazing thing about the human brain and body is its ability to be resilient through a wide and deep range of experiences.

Working out the resilience muscle in your brain allows you to experience difficult encounters and bounce back with a new outlook, sharper point of view, enhanced skill, and more superhuman powers than you had prior.

Intentionally placing yourself in challenging situations enables you to build your resilience muscle at an accelerated rate.

For example, I am an UNNATURAL public speaker to say the least. I decided I was not thrilled when I found this out in college after some rather poor performances; so a little later in life, I mustered up the courage to join a local Toastmasters and improve group to figure out this mess. If I was going to be successful in business, I figured speaking words at least somewhat fluidly out of my mouth in front of more than 2 or 3 people might be important at some point.

Sure enough, I failed early but failed fast. The pain of the learning was tough, but giving context to the environment I was in allowed me to look at these experiences as a laboratory. The more I saw these opportunities as experiments, the easier it got. Building the muscle was then natural, as these groups I was in bought me time and grace to learn how to apply these new muscles to the real world.

Resilience is learning and learning fast. Allow the resilience pain to hurt, because you know that pain is like a muscle after working it out – its sore as hell but when you go back to the gym the next time you are that much closer to hitting your new max.