Resilience: Are You in Control?

Have you ever felt like you were trying so hard to move forward in life only to find yourself stuck in the same place? You may have been like me. It all started with The Locus of Control a concept that was extremely difficult for me to grasp in my psych 101 class. There is the Internal Locus of Control and External Locus of Control. The internal one focus on you believing that you have the ability to change how your life will go while the external one is about things outside of your control are responsible for why something didn’t happen for you. I hadn’t realized that I was living by the external control of things, I had thought I was the one in control of my life until I realized(after long hours of questioning myself) I was blaming my upbringing(you can insert what is blocking you) for why I couldn’t get better in my life, and when I thought I was moving forward I was really taking 10 steps back; I would end up back in the same place I was before. The problem was I didn’t really want to be responsible for myself, secretly I had been wanting someone else to sweep me away and take control of my actions, but deep down I wanted that control. So after many hours and months and years of research I came across the answer, resilience, the power of your accord. I will tell you it is not easy. It is a complete transformation of yourself, but the end result is worth it. You will be happier and healthier because of it. So, below are the principles of resilience which focus on the Internal Locus of Control —taking personal responsibility for yourself to overcome the hard times that enter your life. It has helped change my life and I hope it can shed some light on possibly some areas you might be going through as well. To those who already use this pat yourself on the back.

8 Principles Affecting your Resiliency

1. When things go bad, loss job, breakups, etc.. this can truly uproot your life and it will change you. You are not the same person you were before. You are either stronger or weaker, better or bitter. You have the ability to determine which way that will go for you. You will either grow or wither. Stand tall or fall.

2. The creation of your future lies on your mindset and habits, and when you are faced against adversity or unexpected change they either create the substance you need to grow or falter.

3. When something goes wrong for you, it is easy to place the responsibility on to someone else. That however keeps you in a victim mindset that will not allow you to take resilient action. The power of your destiny is in your hands.

4. Life is random. It can seem unfair at times. This is a silver lining, it gives you the opportunity to feel personally responsible to find a way to overcome this adversity, that is resilience. During these setbacks you can learn surprisingly a lot about how strong and able you are to overcoming and bouncing back from these hard times.

5. The school of life will teach you your self-motivation, and self-management are what create your own idiosyncratic resilient powers.

6. Power is knowledge. Self-knowledge is your power to learn about yourself. It opens doors to learning how to create your own way of being resilient. Self-observation, experimenting and being open to all kinds of feedback are the bread and butter of self-knowledge.

7. Your inner observant world is where you develop conscious choices about how you will interact with the world you live in. Experiencing choices leads to feelings of freedom, independence, and being in control of your life.

8. As you become more and more resilient, you effectively handle disruptive change, adversities and major setbacks faster and better

Siebert, A. (2005). Chapter 3. In The resiliency advantage: Master change, thrive under pressure, and bounce back from setbacks. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.