Mental Resilience is a buzz word now. But Mental Resilience is not a recent phenomenon. The history of Mental Resilience is as old as the human history itself.
And why just the humans? Nature in itself is highly resilient.
The applicability of Mental Resilience in the world of business is my signature subject.
But I have seen that since you don’t live a life compartmentalized into professional and personal areas, everything gets mixed up in your mind.
So, Mental Resilience is all the more needed because disturbances in your professional life spill over to your personal life, and vice versa.
But what exactly is Mental Resilience?
Simple Explanations of Mental Resilience
1) Mental Resilience is developing mental tenacity to be able to bounce back from just about anything and everything that may happen to you in your life.
2) Mental Resilience is a process of attaining a state of mental equilibrium. Attaining such a state where nothing disturbs the equilibrium of your mind – your peace and calmness, should be an extraordinary achievement, right? Yes, it is.
3) Mental Resilience is about developing and strengthening your mental environment is such a manner that the betterment reached is manifested in all of your activities, all of the time. Sounds phenomenal? Yes, it is.
4) Mental Resilience is the starting point of resilience because everything always starts in the mind.
In fact, all of the things that we as humans attempt to attain can be directly attributed to our Mental resilience. All of our achievements and disappointments, irrespective of the field of pursuit, are because of our Mental Resilience.
Instances of Mental Imbalance as Experienced in Real Life by Everyone
Do you even realize how many times you lose your mental balance during the course of an ordinary day?
Here are some simple instances of losing mental balance –
- Flaring into a rage at seemingly small things.
- Passing snide remarks behind someone else’s back because you had no courage to tell them something.
- Giving silent treatment to someone deliberately as you wish to punish them.
- Feeling guilty even when you know you haven’t done anything wrong.
- Feeling insecure although you know your capabilities.
- And, many more such instances where the mental calmness is disturbed.
Just try telling someone that they have lost their mental balance when they do the above, and you are in for deeper troubles. 🙂
But this is exactly what happens when someone chooses to behave in a manner, which is not correct. Now there can be huge debates on what is “correct” and “incorrect” behavior, and there usually are.
Still, don’t we all just “know” what is correct from incorrect behavior, no matter what we say outwardly, either to others or even to ourselves?
If Mental Resilience is the state of equilibrium, then any deviations are states of mental imbalance.
Some Important TouchPoints for Mental Resilience
1) I remember a conversation I had with one of my wonderful mentors, where he quietly said, “Resilience is a verb”. I understood what he meant.
You can never really attain Mental Resilience as it is a process of constant action, thus a verb or action word.
And, I thanked him from the bottom of my heart for this awareness.
2) Many people think that Mental Resilience is a subject of philosophical interest and has no implications in the “real life.”
If you have ever done any of the following you should be perish the thought that Mental resilience a philosophical subject –
- Snapped at a vulnerable subordinate when you knew it was your mistake, and not theirs.
- Wanted to punch your boss in the nose. Instead, had a fight with your spouse or reprimanded your kids unnecessarily.
- Blamed someone blatantly for your own faults.
- Felt guilty about something that someone else blamed you for in order to save their skin, even though you knew you were not at fault.
- Felt crushed against the circumstances and decided to settle down with less than you deserved.
- Decided that working towards dreams of a great future are nothing but a waste of time.
And several such everyday incidents, which makes resilience a necessity, not a luxury.
3) Mental Resilience is needed by both the victims and the victors. It works both ways as you can see from the above examples.
4) Business world is an urban jungle. Anyone can easily feel lost in it.
Many situations arise in this urban jungle like – loneliness of a financially well-off but unsatisfied existence, which can be suffocating. Having a million dreams but no financial resources can be a smothering situation. Recurring failures in all attempted endeavours can be extremely frustrating. Countless great ideas but no recognition can be killing.
All these and many more can be tackled efficiently only with Mental Resilience.
5) You have the power of choice in your hands. You can learn to develop Mental Resilience and change your situations completely. Or, you can just keep debating and stay where you are. The choice is yours
Conclusion
Mental Resilience is an ongoing process of making changes in your own mind so that your world starts changing.
Most people don’t believe this to be possible. To them, I say that there is only one thing all the greats of the world are in complete agreement about. And that is, “Your thinking defines your world”.
So when you make your thinking mentally resilient, you start seeing results of the same nature in your world.
Keep following this space for more on Mental Resilience.
