How to Cultivate Resilience: A Four Part Framework

As Diane Coutu so eloquently explains in her luminous “How Resilience Works,” “Resilient people possess three characteristics — a staunch acceptance of reality; a deep belief, often buttressed by strongly held values, that life is meaningful; and an uncanny ability to improvise. You can bounce back from hardship with just one or two of these qualit

... See more

TRANSMISSION #38

DISCOVERY: As I contemplate the evolutionary nature of inspiration, I've begun to sense a deeper connection between creativity and resilience. Just as species that are able to adapt to changing circumstances are more likely to survive and thrive over time, so too are individuals and organizations that are able to innovate and evolve... See more

Learning to thrive in a resilient culture is essential. Being indoctrinated into a rigid and fragile mindset is not.

confront a kind of resilience that isn’t really about returning back to the way you were before, but is much more about reclaiming whatever new shape your form has taken. A resilience that doesn’t really ask us to forget, but that carries the memory of whatever harm or whatever fire we’ve been through. A resilience that carries that memory and stil... See more

Resilience requires a kind of elasticity, an ability to stretch and reach but then to return, to spring back into a former shape—or perhaps to shapeshift into something new if the circumstances require it. Resilience is stretchy where optimization is brittle; resilience invites change where optimization demands continuity. But whether we’re talking

... See more

Resilience is built from real hardship and cannot be bought or manufactured

1-sentence summary:

Old models frame change as something that happens to us, when in reality we are always in conversation with change: navigating life's inevitable flux, and walking the path of personal excellence, requires equal parts ruggedness and flexibility.

1 important quotation:

"To be rugged is to be tough, determined, and durable. To be fl... See more

TL;DR: The first step must be to calm our nervous systems; to return to center. From that grounded place, we can take longer-term actions. Second, we can cultivate resilience practices to support us amid turbulent times: taking a rest. Gardening. Spending time with nature, art, music, reading. Third: we have to build community, to invest in relatio... See more