How many challenges does it take to throw you off your game? Are you immediately in a bad mood when you wake up on a Monday morning? Or are you OK until the guy cuts you off in traffic? Or can you make it to the point of the meeting where someone says something really offensive? Or are you in a good mood until lunchtime when they give you the wrong order and throw you off your whole schedule?

The number of challenges that you can take in stride is a measure of your resilience. When you’re highly resilient, you’re more able to rally, rebound, and respond to challenges without losing your peace of mind for the rest of the day.

Some people are more naturally resilient than others as a result of their own biology and personal experiences. But each of us can build our resilience through strategies such as:

• Getting more sleep and taking care of ourselves.
• Clearing out the clutter at home and the office.
• Focusing on the positive aspects of our lives (e.g., being thankful for the air conditioning in the office on an extremely hot day.)
• Learning to assertively say “no” to some requests.
• Letting go of pent-up anger, grudges, and conflicts.
• Being gentle with ourselves.

Dr. Martin Seligman is currently working with the U.S. Army to build service members’ resilience, which will hopefully help lower the incidence of PTSD. We too can build our resilience. 

“All of us get knocked down, but it’s resiliency that really matters. All of us do well when things are going well, but the thing that distinguishes athletes is the ability to do well in times of great stress, urgency and pressure.” – Roger Staubach