Some Takeaways from my Conversation with Eva:
- Embrace the Suck
- Look at the situation as a problem to solve to help get out of any ‘self pity’ space
- Find support groups
- Find people who have been in your shoes
- Determination and mind set are super important AND IN YOUR CONTROL!
- Set small goals to make successive progress: get little ‘wins’ – they add up
- Keep trying
- Find the ‘Silver Lining’
Scroll down below to get more details on how YOU can build YOUR own grit and resilience!
Eva’s Story
Eva had recently returned from Peru, where she trekked to Machu Picchu. My sister Terry and I met Eva in Cusco for a cup of coffee prior to our own hike, having been introduced by Mitzy, a mutual friend.
Just a couple of weeks later, now back home in the States, and while out on a delightful bike ride in the countryside with friends, Eva’s bike got a flat tire. She encouraged her friends to go ahead while she walked the bike back to town, a couple of miles away.
Shortly thereafter, three pitt bulls raced from their yard and attacked her.
Eva tried to use her bike as a barrier, but the dogs were too determined and they mauled her. Fortunately, two cars eventually came down the quiet country road and the drivers used the machine to push away the dogs. One then drove Eva to the hospital. She was then airlifted to the Columbus trauma hospital where doctors managed to save one leg, but had to ampute the other, in addition to tending to her other massive wounds.
Eva spent over a month in the hospital as doctors worked tirelessly to put her wounded body bacak together again, as much as possible.
A couple of months of surgeries went by and after Eva’s amputation had healed, she was fitted for her prosthetic leg (which she named “Helga”), which of course, was horribly painful and traumatic to get used to.
Since meeting Eva, we became Facebook friends, so I was able to follow along as she rebuilt her life and learned to live without a leg. Her story is inspirational and shows true grit, so I wanted to share it with you.
Eva’s Facebook profile is public, so if you’d like to learn more about her story, you can visit her page HERE.
The inspirational movie she recommended is Full Circle.
My companion show, the Adventure Travel Show podcast, has a popular episode on Building Resilience and Grit. This podcast series teaches you the skills you need for adventure travel.
You can listen to it HERE:
In less than a year after losing her leg from a vicious dog mauling, Eva was hiking and biking (and she’s even started paddling)! Now that’s true grit and fortitude!!!
Resilience and How to Build More Grit and Resilience
From my Adventure Travel Show podcast:
Eleven Traits of Resilient people:
- They look at problems and setbacks as a challenge to overcome, not as a reason to collapse and wallow in self pity. Mistakes and failures are something to be learned from and not something they personalize to diminish their self worth.
- They have purpose in their lives: at home, at work, their friends, to causes they believe in. They know why they want to get up every morning.
- They focus on those things that they can control and minimize time worrying about things they don’t. Therefore they feel in charge and not helpless.
- They are optimistic and view set backs as temporary. They would say, “I didn’t do very well on my presentation”, not “I always suck at giving presentations”. One is detachedly describing an event and the other is a demeaning self loathing. Note the permanence of the word ‘always’ in the non-resilient phrase. And going back to #1, a resilient person would try to learn from what went wrong.
- Resilient people don’t let problems or setbacks in one area of their life infiltrate the other segments. For instance, they would say “I’m not very good at giving presentations” rather than “I’m no good at anything.”
- Resilient people don’t knock themselves down when they fail. While acknowledging where they could have done better, they will also attribute other causes and environments that played a part. Again, going back to #1, instead of saying, “I am incapable of giving a decent presentation”, they would say, “I can do a better job on
giving a presentation if I have a little more time to prepare next time and also go to Toastmasters to work on my skills”. Note that their self talk is not negative and permanent [I ALWAYS, I NEVER]… instead they give themselves almost a pep talk about how they will make things better. Resilient people avoid negative self talk that is permanent, pervasive or personalized.
7. Resilient people do not consider themselves a victim. They feel in control of their life, and use their energy to direct their life.
8. Resilient people are tolerant of disagreement and ambiguity. Because of their self confidence, they are able to work towards a solution without knowing every single fact before making a decision, believing that they will be able to figure things out.
9. Resilient people have thick skin and are persistent. They are not quitters.
10. Resilient people are good at looking at the big picture.
11.Resilient people are usually good at time management.
People who lack resilience might ignore the problem and put their head in the sand. Often they will get angry, blame themselves unfairly, wallow in their misery or shut loved ones out. But if these people worked on building their resilience, they would recover more quickly and cope better in general.
Why is having resilience important?
I love what Dean Becker, the CEO of Adaptiv Learning Systems, a company that provides resilience training says:
“More than education, more than experience, more than training, a person’s level of resilience will determine who succeeds and who fails. That’s true in the cancer ward, it’s true in the Olympics, and it’s true in the boardroom.”
Life is filled with obstacles and setbacks. Learning to bounce back after these sometimes life changing events can’t help but to improve your mental well being. And while some people may be born with more resilience than others, most of the time, resilience is a skill that people learn.
How to build resilience: 20 Coping Strategies for Tough Times
1. Make strong personal connections
Build a network of good friends and family that you can share in your triumphs and failings. This will build your empathy and give you a resource when you need social support. Talking may not eliminate the problem, but sharing your feeling in an of itself is helpful, plus you will often get support and feedback, and sometimes even potential solutions. Those with a strong faith and/or connections to an organized religion often experience the benefit from having a strong connection between themselves and a higher power.
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Learn to stop ruminating
Ruminating is when your mind keeps the same thought revolving through your brain over and over again. Sto reliving the event or rehashing the pain. Nothing is gained from your ruminations. You get no closer to solving your problem or healing. Easier said than done. One effective technique is to do what is called Expressive Writing: just spill your guts in a notebook for 20 minutes on the subject. Don’t worry about grammar or spelling. Just dump brain’s thoughts about your problem into the notebook.
Don’t Catastrophize the Situation
Are you blowing things out of proportion? Are you expecting only the most dire and horrible outcome? When your lover breaks up with you, are you saying, No one will ever love me again? That’s catastrophizing. Yes you should acknowledge the worst thing that can happen, but don’t obsess over it. If you suffer from this, studies say keeping a talisman on you, like a small pendant or stone that you rub everytime you feel like catastrophizing something. And while touching it, you remind yourself that a positive outcome is as likely as a negative outcome. This can help to retrain your brain.
Another way is to try to be a fly on the wall and look at the situation like an outsider. Would you be able to understand why you are upset? Can you see any other person’s point of view? How would the non-interested observer assess the situation? How does that compare to your initial assessment?
Develop Your Problem Solving and Goal Setting Skills
Resilient folks are great problem solvers. They have an uncanny ability to invent and improvise. When faced with a new problem, there are several ways to come up with solutions that help:
- Get a sheet of paper and write down as many possible solutions as you can think of , whether they make sense, or you can afford them or not. This gets the brain juices flowing. Then go take a walk and then come back to your list and then think more critically about the potential solutions. What things can you do right now that will help the situation?
- If you have others that can help you, tell everyone about the problem and ask them to think about it and add solutions to [a Google sheet for example] for the next say five days. These people can see other’s ideas which may help to foster a winning strategy. Then look over the possibilities and see what solutions make sense. Practicing your problem solving skills will help you cope better whenever a situation occurs.
- Be proactive. Create a goal and work toward it a little bit everyday, no matter how small. Eventually you will reach your goal line. Remember to look back on what you’ve accomplished on reaching your goal. Break your solution into actionable steps and set SMART goals:
Specific – Measurable – Achievable – Realistic – Time Bound
Sometimes your solution means you need to change your world, not you. According to Change Your World: The Science of Resilience and The True Path To Success, Dr. Michael Ungar, resilient people take advantage of available resources in addition to modifying their own behavior. Dr Gruber says that when you get the right resource that you need at the right time during a crisis, it acts as a catalyst that stimulates a whole cascade of other internal and external resources. And then, magic happens.
Build Up Your Confidence in Your Abilities
Remind yourself of times you were resilient. This helps to build confidence in our ability to be resilient. It might help to keep a notebook of your ‘wins’ that you can review when courage fails. Think back on the occasion. Remind yourself how little worry helped the matter. Looking back, does the situation even seem as dire? Oftentimes not. EXERCISE: Try to teach yourself to be a fly on the wall and look at your own problems. Does doing so help put the problem in the actual perspective? Are you making a proverbial mountain out of molehill? You might want to write in your notebook some self affirming attributes like, “I am a great mother”, I did a great job on the XYZ presentation, etc. Build your confidence in your abilities to slay those dragons. Visualize success. Piggy back on the resilience of others. When you see someone overcome an obstacle, it can give you the confidence that you are capable as well.
Become the hero of your own story
Reframe your stress as a way to test your mettle and to see what you are made of. This also makes you the star of your own ‘Hero’s Journey’. You will build your self esteem and confidence and feel more in control of your life. Never play the victim. It’s debilitating. The hero always has battles to fight and dragons to slay. In the movies, aren’t you always rooting for the hero during these times? Well now, root for yourself!
Accept Failure and that Life Always Throws us Curve Balls
We all fail. Failure is not a disease or threat. Failure is a fact of life. If you haven’t failed you haven’t tried very hard. Resilient people acknowledge the failure, study it to try to learn from it so as to not repeat the failure AND to get some ideas on WHAT TO TRY NEXT! The difference between resilient people and sensitive, vulnerable, non-resilient people: They don’t
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Do a mental Mindshift aka Cognitive Restructuring
Abraham Lincoln said that people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. YOU are the person in charge of what emotion you are going to give any occurance. You give it the power. You are in charge of what response you are going to give anything. Are you going to choose panic or self pity? Are you going to choose to stay calm and think critically about your situtation to find the best course of action? You can work to change the slant that you mentally describe an upsetting event. Do you want to look at it as yet another reason to be miserable, or do you want to reframe this catastrophe as an opportunity for you to grow and shine? Never forget that you are in charge of your mind and no one but you can tell your brain how to react to any circumstance.
Focus Outward
Instead of focusing inward, turn your attention outward to someone else in need. You won’t feel as helpless plus you’ll benefit from doing SOMETHING. Volunteer, help out a friend in need, etc.
Think Long Term
When obstacles hit, ask yourself if, when you look back on this experience in a month, a year, ten years, how much will this matter? Try to remember old problems that you were worried about that no longer matter, and maybe add these to your notebook. Most problems are temporary and reminding yourself about that is important. Your goal is to look to the future with hope and optimism and trust in your abilities to deal with the challenges you are going to face en route to your goal. REMEMBER: This too shall pass. Ask yourself in times of trouble, “When I look back on this in a year, will I even care or remember?”
Embrace Change
Flexibility and adaptability are cornerstones of resilience. When the door closes, you try the window. When you can’t climb the mountain, you ford the stream. Look at change as an opportunity for growth and a chance to reflect : do you still want to go in the direction you are heading? You don’t look for change, but change doesn’t care. Things are going to change. How you react to change is what matters. Don’t let change crush you: use change as a springboard for growth and your own development.
Build Routines into your life
Routines, especially healthy ones like exercise and getting a good night’s rest, can help build your resilience. People find comfort in the structure of routines. Determine what routines you would like to develop and slowly build them into your life until they become a mindless habit you don’t even need to think about in times of trouble when you will need them the most.
Take a Break
Take a break if you find yourself worrying in that endless cycle. Distract yourself. Distance yourself from the thing or things causing you stress, whether it’s something terrible in the news or at work. For example, break up the day by taking a walk in the sunshine or catching a matinee. Shake things up a little bit.
Look For the Silver Linings
Can you see ANY positive outlook from your current catastrophe? Maybe the only good thing you find is that you learned something. Don’t underestimate the power of “post-traumatic growth”. Is there SOME good thing that can come out of this mess??? Life goes on after a loved one’s death, after divorce, after illness, after bankruptcy, after job loss. The world still turns but with you in it a bit tilted. There is truth to the saying that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. If you can’t see the silver linings of your problems, beef up your skill at finding them by looking for the silver linings of other people’s problems, say on the movie screen. What are their silver linings? What advice would you give them?
Write in your notebook about obstacles you faced. Was there ANY positive things that came from it? An exercise called Finding Silver Linings can help. For a past obstacle, write down three good things that came out of it. Did you learn anything important? Did you meet a new friend through the crisis? You build your grit bone and courage muscles by facing your adversities. Plus studies show that doing this practice, like a gratitude journal, helps make you happier and more optimistic. It works especially well for hard core pessimists, but they have to keep up the practice as it wears off after a couple of months.
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Face your fears
If there is something you are afraid of, lean into your fear, BUT in small bites. If you are afraid of public speaking, try to pipe up more during meetings. Once you find that easy, then offer to host a meeting. Keep building that courage muscle and climbing that fear hill. You can do this! It all goes back to that +1 I keep mentioning. Push yourself just a little bit out of your comfort zone. Stretch yourself. The more you do the thing you are afraid of, the more your brain realizes that this isn’t as bad as you once thought, and your fear will lessen. This is called Exposure Therapy, and it helps to change our mental associations with a given stimulus. So dip your toe in slowly, and then repeat often. Push yourself outside of your comfort zone just a little bit on a regular basis and watch your resilience and courage muscles get stronger.
When you are afraid, allow yourself a few minutes to actually feel the fear, acknowledge it and then get on with dealing with the situation. Sometimes it helps to REALLY exaggerate the worst and most ridiculous possible outcome in order to help you put the situation into perspective. When you give that presentation, you know you’re not going to wet your pants or throw up on stage. Do you think you can dial back that fear just a little bit?
Meditate and Practice Mindfulness
Since we worry most about things in the past or future, our happy place can be in the present. We feel pain and regret over things that have happened, and we worry often needlessly over bad things that might happen in the future. That’s why mindfulness and being in the present is so helpful. Are you ok TODAY??? In meditation, you just kind of remove yourself from problems and act the casual observer, like the fly on the wall. You acknowledge and observe when you feel negative emotions and then let them flit by. It is very powerful. Meditation has been proven to enhance your mental and physical well being. Mindfulenss and meditation has also been found to make us more aware and thus better able to self-correct bad habits, like eating junk food or skipping exercise.
- One effective exercise is to do a Body Scan. Here you body part by body part check in with your body from head to toe. Some recommend that you tense and then relax the each part. So for example, you lie down and then observe and then tense your toes and then release the tension. Then do your whole foot, then calves, etc and work your way up to your forehead. This can also help when your stress manifests as a knotted stomach, tight chests, headaches, etc
- Another exercise you could try is mindful eating. Exercise: Take forever to eat a bite of fruit. You pick it up and look at it, touch it to see how it feels, smell it, move it around in your mouth a bit before even taking a bite. Then pay attention to swallowing it and feeling it move down to your stomach. It sounds weird, but by practicing mindful eating, you can seriously change your food habits.
- Another calming mindful exercise is the well known mindful breathing. You focus and study your breath. When your mind wanders, you acknowledge the wandering, don’t say to yourself, “Oh I can concentrate. I can’t stay focused”. You can – it just takes practice like so many things. When your mind wanders, you bring your focus back on your breath. Try to work up to 15 minutes. It’s hard, but powerful, so stick with it. In times of stress, try to grab a few deep breaths even if you can’t spare the 15 minutes. Use your breath as an anchor to secure you when your negative thoughts start to drift into your consciousness.
Practice Self Care and Self Compassion
You know how they tell you on the plane to place the oxygen mask over your face before helping others? It’s the same thing. If you don’t first take care of your health by eating right, getting enough exercise and sleep, you are going to be useless in combating your problems or to help those you love.
In times of crisis, while difficult, it is even more important to nurture yourself, and that’s when many people opt out of self care altogether. That’s why building routines, #12, comes in handy. When something is a habit and routine, it just gets done. Make self care a priority and a routine so that in troubled times, taking care of yourself doesn’t fly out the window just when you need it most.
And show yourself a little self compassion: In short, give yourself a break! Sometimes adversity and fear can make you feel isolated and alone, and feeling like you are the only person feeling these things. Remember that you are not alone or the only person feeling this way. All of us have our crosses to bear just some hide it better than others. Cut yourself a little slack and be gentle and kind to yourself. You are likely to find it a smoother road to healing. So how do we do this? You do something called Mindful Self-Compassion. The goal is to try to look at your own sufffering through a lense of compassion and warmth instead of judgement. Doing This mind shift has been proven to reduce depression and anxiety. To be mindfully self-compassionate, you:
- Acknowledge without any judgment or analysis whatever it is that you are feeling. Say to yourself, “ I’m stressed”, or” I hurt, I’m miserable, I am suffering”, etc.
- Remind yourself that you are not alone and that everyone suffers, feels stressed or struggles in their lives.
- Then they recommend that you place your hand on your heart and say something like, “May I accept myself as I am”, or “May I give myself compassion”.
- If you still have difficulty practising self compassion, ask yourself how you would treat a friend in the same situation and try to extend that courtesy to yourself. Ask yourself WHY you are having problems being compassionate to yourself. What would your life look like if you are able to be compassionate to yourself? Some psychologists even recommend spending 15 minutes writing a compassionate letter in your notebook to yourself about something you are struggling with and ways you can improve in the future.
- Learn to laugh at yourself and your foibles, and find the humor in the everyday struggles. Write in a notebook the things you tell yourself ABOUTyourself. Are you one of those “I always mess things up!” people or are you a “Man, I blew it this time, but I’m going to learn from this and do better next time” person. If the former, you will need to retrain yourself to refrain from the negative self talk. Would you talk that way to a loved one? Why would you talk to yourself that way? If you have a negative self image, it will help to write down the positive things about yourself to start reinforcing your positive qualities. Everytime you slay a dragon, take a moment to enjoy it, appreciate your courage and reinforce your self esteem.
Cultivate Compassion and Forgiveness
- Those with empathy are more resilient. Those who are good at forgiving tend to be more empathetic. Studies show that those who work at cultivating compassion and forgiveness are happier and feel more in control of their lives than those who dwell on slights or repress them. It’s super hard when you’ve been wronged, but at least try to remember that this person is human like you and makes mistakes. Hate the crime, but try to find compassion for the human. The more compassionate you are to others, you might find yourself more compassionate to yourself.
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Beware the Danger of Optimism
Optimism is great and you want to be an optimist instead of a pessimist, but it is important to also be a realist. You need to address the problem and not put your head in the sand and just hope everything is going to turn out ok. Thinking positively when the odds are against you can surely be beneficial. But more importantly, being positive while having your feet firmly on the ground will make all the difference.
Remember the Serenity Prayer:
Lord grant me the ability to change the things I can change, accept the things that I cannot and the wisdom to know the difference.
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