21 Days to Resilience: How to Transcend the Daily Grind, Deal with the Tough Stuff, and Discover Your Strongest Self

by Zelana Montminy

Although this might sound counterintuitive, happiness shouldn’t be the end goal if you really want to be happy.

Lasting happiness requires building upon your strengths, persevering, and being gracious with yourself and others—it’s really not about personal achievements or experiencing fleeting positive thoughts and feelings.

Being resilient does not mean that you won’t encounter problems or have difficulties overcoming a challenge in your life. The difference is that resilient people don’t let their adversity define them. At its core, resilience is about being capable and strong enough to persevere in adverse or stressful conditions—and to take away positive meaning from that experience.

The only thing we have control over is that we have the ability to definitively and consciously change how we respond to what life throws at us at any given moment.

They found a way for their struggle to redefine their life and fill it with new meaning. This type of growth is the cornerstone of resilience.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. ARISTOTLE

Resilient people know what their bad habits are and know how to break them.

Their positive habits support their daily functioning and free energy to focus on overcoming more demanding things.

Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today. THICH NHAT HANH

Hope is our fuel. It’s our choice.

Resilient people choose to overcome feelings of hopelessness.

hope increase our capability to thrive despite negative circumstances—making us more resilient. Hope mobilizes us, motivates us, and keeps us moving forward.

My life didn’t please me, so I created my life. COCO CHANEL

Resilient people believe that what they choose to do will directly affect the outcome of a situation.

Making active choices literally reduces stress and increases our happiness-inducing hormone called dopamine.1

Resilience lies in being able to get in touch with feelings of control, and exercise mastery, without letting oneself be limited by overregulation.

It requires being able to adapt as things change while still making choices that rein...

What’s crucial to understand is that biology and circumstances are not our destiny—we can actually control and affect our outcomes.

One of the best ways we can get to know our true selves is through paying attention, with curiosity rather than judgment, to our current experience.

Remind yourself every morning that things might not be perfect and go your way. This is important to setting yourself up for realistic optimism since it puts the power directly in your hands. You’re less likely to become unglued when life gets sidetracked. You won’t waste precious energy on yearning for unrealistic outcomes and rather spend that energy on problem solving and getting back on track.

We all feel stress during the day at some point, some more often than others. Being mindful and resilient requires us to feel the feeling. Don’t just get in fight-or-flight mode and try to avoid the real issues. Just when it can’t get any worse, experience the emotion of that moment, and then do one of my favorite breathing techniques; it will help you in any stressful time, I guarantee. Breathe in through your nose for the count of 4, hold for 4, and breathe out through your mouth for the count of 4. Now breathe in through your nose for the count of 3, hold for 3, and breathe out through your mouth for the count of 3. Breathe in through your nose for the count of 2, hold for 2, and breathe out through your mouth for the count of 2. Breathe in through your nose for the count of 1, hold for 1, and breathe out through your mouth for the count of 1. This will help slow heart rate and get you to refocus your energy to where it really matters. Simple, quick, and effective.

The key is to stay aware. Are you living a life you’re proud of? What legacy are you leaving for yourself?

Resilient people accept what is; they accept that nothing is permanent. Instead they focus on the lessons they can learn, how they can overcome, adapt, and move forward with grace.