Resilience

From the desk of Carol C. . .

You’ve got to accentuate the positive.  Eliminate the negative.  And latch on to the affirmative.  Don’t mess with Mister In-Between  by Johnny Mercer

Excitement and apprehension fill the air at the beginning of every school year.  They both come from a sense of renewal that the year brings.  There’s excitement about new students and familiar faces, and there’s apprehension about giving up summer’s freedom and the school system’s expectations.  For the most part it’s a happy time for educators and students.  However, we all know down the road there will be quite a bit of stress related to our jobs and our home lives.  While we can’t avoid the inevitable, we can better prepare ourselves for it.  How?  By increasing our resilience.

Simply put resilience is the ability to bounce back from significant sources of stress.  The good news is all of us can build up our resilience by modifying our behaviors and actions.  According to the American Psychological Association these are some of the ways to increase our ability to handle the difficult times in our lives.

Make connections:  This is the same advice we give to new teachers.  “Get to know the people around you.”  Our peers, administrators, and others can help us deal with the struggles we face.  When you find people you trust you have found sources of strength for the hard times.

Accentuate the positive:  Focus on the good things in our lives.  Try visualizing the positive way a situation could resolve itself.  Keep fear at bay.

Believe in yourself:  Telling ourselves we have the ability to solve problems and face adversity successfully increases our resilience.  If we have the confidence to confront uncomfortable or even devastating situations, we are more likely to overcome whatever is standing in our way.

Accept that “bad things happen to good people”:  There are times we cannot change what has happened, but we can change how we interpret it and respond to it.

We all would benefit from increasing our toughness, our ability to recover from stressful situations and diminishing our tendency to avoid difficult times.  Starting now to build our resilience makes us much more likely to “bounce back” from our next setback or challenge.