Build your own resilience

Have you noticed the garden flowers and weeds that seem to withstand changes in weather, temperature and all manner of insect enemies?

As someone quite new to gardening, it seems as if nature provides in-built resilience and hardiness.?It's tempting to buy-in to this idea of innate resilience.?Does that mean that we have to tough it out constantly, relying on oneself alone?

While a degree of innate resilience is fortunate, it's also a developable strength, something certainly worth nurturing.?I like the idea that there are strategies that can help us be and become more resilient personally through timely reflection (noting our own stressors) and planned actions.?This self-care can be immensely valuable and yet it still pre-supposes that we can make it through by sheer determination and go it alone.

This article in the Harvard Business Review focuses on research into relational sources of resilience, the way our connections with one another can be both resilience-building and multi-faceted.?For instance, these connections can encourage us to ‘push back and self-advocate’ when necessary, or help us find some humour in a situation, or remind us about the purpose of what we are doing, helping us see the best way forward.?Of course, the best connections (whoever they are) can make such a difference when we are facing the expected or unexpected.?This article uncovers the intricate value of how these connections can fuel our own resilience and add to our own resilience quotient.?A really good read and a reminder that we need not go it alone.

The Secret to Building Resilience (hbr.org)