If you’ve had these 9 experiences in life, you’re more resilient than you realize
When I say “resilient”, what do you imagine?
Strength. Power. Confidence.
While these all fit the bill in a way, their true meaning might be different from what you have in mind.
Strength and power, for example, aren’t about the inability to break – they’re the result of breaking so many times over that you’re sturdier as a consequence.
Sounds strange?
Well, that’s because it is.
When you break a plate and glue it back together, it’s not going to be better than before.
When you challenge a human and watch them fail, the moment they pick themselves back up is also the moment they are stronger than ever before.
Thus the beauty of antifragility.
If you’ve had these 9 experiences in life, you’re more resilient than you realize.
1) You’ve challenged yourself to do something new
Sounds so simple, right?
Yet it’s incredibly effective. And that’s because it’s actually very simple for humans to stay in their comfort zone, doing the same thing day in and day out.
If you never try anything new, you won’t grow, sure, but you also won’t fail. And some people love the feeling of safety this provides.
Unfortunately, never daring to discover new horizons of who you could be means that your potential never gets to bloom.
What’s more, you might crumble under the weight of every single obstacle that comes your way because you’re not used to conquering challenges.
That’s why forcing yourself to get outside your comfort zone and do something new is an amazing resilience booster.
2) You’ve grown up in a tumultuous household
Growing up surrounded by mayhem was not easy for me, let me tell you.
But if there’s one thing it’s taught me, it’s got to be resilience.
While it’d be wonderful if all of us got to grow up in calm and loving homes, even the worst of situations can usually give rise to at least one advantage – and in your case, that’s your ability to withstand pressure and navigate chaotic situations.
When your childhood is tumultuous, you’re automatically more resilient as an adult because you’ve had a great deal of experience getting to know yourself and learning how to cope in tough situations.
3) You’ve ended a toxic relationship
A few years ago, I ended a toxic friendship that meant the world to me. I knew it was the right thing to do, but that didn’t make it any easier.
Soon after we parted ways, I began to thrive. My life improved a great deal, and what’s more, I felt more confident than ever before.
Not only could I now live life without a toxic relationship weighing me down and disrupting my peace of mind, but I also gained a lot of confidence knowing I’d managed to cut my friend off.
Years later, I now know that you can survive the end of any relationship. No, scratch that.
You don’t just survive – you flourish.
4) You’ve gone through heartbreak
Let’s be honest with each other.
Heartbreak hurts like hell. When you fall in love, it’s essentially like getting addicted to a drug in the form of one single person, and as the relationship progresses, you begin to build your life around them.
The moment it’s over, it’s not just one person who’s disappeared from your life. It’s your idea of your entire future with them.
It’s a big life shift to get used to. So big, in fact, that your brain might not even believe it for the first few days.
And when the shock finally hits you… you just want to claw your heart out of your chest because it hurts so damn much.
Been there, done that. I went through the biggest breakup of my life this year, and now that it’s been almost half a year, I definitely feel I’ve grown in resilience.
What doesn’t kill you truly does make you stronger.
5) You’ve survived a financial crisis
Not having money sucks. I say that as someone who couldn’t afford a cup of coffee in my first year of university. At one point, I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to pay rent on time.
When you’re going through a financial crisis, it’s all you can think about. Every day, all your worries are overshadowed by the dollar sign.
I wouldn’t wish it on anybody.
But once the crisis blows over and your life improves, your money struggles from the past can actually help you weather all sorts of challenging situations.
Why?
Because if you survived a severe financial crisis, you can survive any inconvenience that comes your way now. It all seems small in comparison, and what’s more, you know now just how self-sufficient and resourceful you can be.
6) You’ve solo traveled
Speaking of self-sufficiency and resourcefulness, is there a better way to learn these skills than to travel to a foreign country completely on your own?
Didn’t think so.
It’s not just the fact that you don’t speak the language and don’t know anyone. It’s also that you’re left to your own devices.
If you don’t find your accommodation on the map, too bad. If you get lost, too bad. If you accidentally get on the wrong train… yep, you guessed it. Too bad.
Every time you struggle, it’s completely up to you to get yourself through the situation in one piece.
And once you do, you feel on top of the world. Suddenly, planet Earth doesn’t seem like such a scary place. And suddenly… you feel stronger.
7) You’ve refused to succumb to peer pressure
Peer pressure is incredibly powerful.
The more people disagree with us, the more likely we are to doubt ourselves.
In fact, there were even experiments that proved this theory to be true. In one of them, a room of participants was asked to describe the length of the line they saw in front of them. All participants except one were cons – they had all agreed beforehand that they would lie.
As it turned out, the moment the whole room lied about what they saw, the one participant who wasn’t in on it started doubting themselves.
They’d rather doubt their own perception of reality than a room full of other people. That’s how immensely powerful peer pressure can be.
If you’ve ever refused to succumb to peer pressure, you’re therefore much more resilient than you realize.
8) You’ve faced a major life change
You may think that moving house or starting university is no big deal. So many people do it, after all.
But the fact that it’s common doesn’t make it any less extraordinary.
Just think about it. You’ve had to turn your entire life around in one snap of your fingers. You’ve had to leave a part of yourself in the past, never to be seen again.
That’s no small feat.
Plus, it means that you can now adapt to all the changes that are to come more easily because you’ve already experienced a similar situation before.
9) You’ve decided not to give up on yourself
Be it an exam you had to study really hard for, a job you wanted with all your heart, or a skill you struggled to master, you refused to give up when things got tough.
And the truth is that not everyone would be as strong. I mean, people give up on themselves all the time. The moment stuff gets hard, they start reconsidering their options, trying to figure out how to make their lives a little bit easier.
But not you. You are resilient precisely because you’ve experienced moments when you almost gave up but didn’t. No. You pushed through, only to come out the other side as a stronger and smarter version of yourself.
Believe it or not, resilience doesn’t mean that you’re unable to break.
It means that you break piece by piece, time and time again, but when push comes to shove, you stitch yourself back together and fight for yourself.
And that’s something to be proud of.
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