The Oxford English Dictionary says the earliest known use of the noun ‘resilience’ is from the early 1600s.

So as a concept within the human context, the idea of being able to recover quickly or easily from a setback, misfortune, illness etc is not new.

Resilience has been described as the “capacity to remain flexible in our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours when faced by life disruption, or extended periods of pressure, so that we emerge from difficulty stronger, wiser, and more able.” (Pemberton, 2015)

But sometimes when you’re facing significant life events that you can’t just effortlessly ‘bounce back’ from, you have to find a new path instead.

That new path requires emotional awareness, emotional agility and flexibility.

 How do you do this?

The simplest answer is by reframing your thinking. While you don’t necessarily see the gift in a situation until long after the fact, you can choose to find the gift or opportunity in ANY circumstance.

Because a belief is just a thought you keep thinking, and a thought can be changed.

Easy, right? And yet the process of changing your limiting beliefs into self-supporting ones can feel like a struggle at times, especially if you don’t recognise that the belief even exists.

So what keeps you stuck?

Sometimes there’s a blind spot, a hidden belief that stops you from making the changes you want to, and that’s what’s known as a Secondary Gain.

A Secondary Gain represents either the advantage of keeping a situation as it is, or the benefit of avoiding reaching a new goal.

“Sounds crazy, why on earth would I do this to myself?” is the question a client asked recently, and it’s a recurring theme that many of my clients have faced.

A simple approach to uncovering Secondary Gains that may help is by asking one of two questions:

 * What benefit do I gain by maintaining this situation?

 * What will I lose once I have reached my goal?

If you’re stuck on a particular issue, ask yourself these questions and then become quiet and listen for the answer.

What you may discover is that resilience is found in actually addressing the tough stuff, in making the enquiries into the dark, emotional cavities you’ve kept hidden for so long because you couldn’t face them. By remaining flexible in your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours when dealing with life disruption, emotional upheaval or extended periods of pressure, and then considering those hidden Secondary Gains alongside them, you will emerge from said difficulties stronger, wiser, and more able than you realised.

If you’d like further help exploring what’s keeping you stuck and lowering your sense of resilience – at work, in life or in relationships – connect with me and I’ll share how I can help.