Why do some people overcome seemingly insurmountable odds to prosper while others cave in at the slightest adversity?
It’s called resilience. But what is it? Where does it come from?
I recently came across the best article I have ever read on resilience, How Resilience Works, Improvising Your Way out of Trouble. The author, Diane Cautu, suggests resilient people possess three characteristics:
- a staunch acceptance of reality;
- the propensity to make meaning of terrible times;
- and an uncanny ability to improvise.
Her research shows that you can bounce back from hardship with just one or two of these qualities, but you will only be truly resilient with all three. In this article we will explore the 3rd building bock, “ritualized ingenuity”.
The third building block of resilience is the ability to make do with whatever is at hand or “Bricolage”. Bricolage is defined as a kind of inventiveness, an ability to improvise a solution to a problem without proper or obvious tools or materials.
The best example of Bricolage I can think of is one of my favorite TV shows, MacGyver. MacGyver’s main asset was his ability to use nothing but items like his ever-present Swiss army knife and duct tape to get out of seemingly impossible situations – all life and death. Talk about stress!
The problem is that when we are under a great deal of stress our brain wants to default to its more primitive state. Fear causes us to go into survival mode. One of the biggest results of succumbing to this fear is that we underestimate resources that are all around us. When situations in life unravel, sometimes you just have to muddle through while looking for out of the box solutions. That can be difficult to do when you are caught up in the middle of a stressful situation with no obvious solution and feel alone.
So here’s my quick tip: It’s really very simple – reach out to someone you like to be around. In environments where people are in physical contact with someone they like and trust, the brain hums. By connecting comfortably with respected colleagues, you’ll help your brain’s “executive” center, responsible for decision making, wake up and perform at its best.
And remember…
Whatever Your Goal or Dream – WE Can make it Happen
