Resilient People
Resilient people don't avoid life's hard knocks; they bounce back, survive and flourish. My personal image of resilience is a large blow-up figure weighted at the bottom. It pops back up when you knock it over. Why are some people resilient? There may be a genetic component. Yet we know that it can be learned and that people can become more resilient as a result of counseling and therapy. It seems likely that resilience is based on past experience of mastery, of positive outcomes from transitions and from reinterpreting past events. Resilient people seem to externalize blame and internalize success. The belief in one's resilience seems to allow people to take risks--most successful people have had some failures. It seems to be related to confidence, self-efficacy, flexibility and optimism. Resiliency is in demand in today's stressful, rapidly changing world, perhaps more than ever before.