As an academic lecturer and sport psychologist, I am often asked by athletes, and indeed my students, about strategies to help them cope with the stresses of training, competition, exams and difficult life events they face in general. I believe in teaching life-long skills to any of the individuals I am privileged to mentor.
In psychology, such skills are called transferrable skills, meaning that the same mental skills and strategies can be used to help individuals to cope with taking part in a major sporting event, as are used to deliver a speech in public (which is one of the top anxiety-provoking scenarios for most people, according to research in this area).
So, what information should we be imparting to individuals seeking help to cope with difficult situations they find themselves in? Until recently, much of the conversation and research in my discipline of sport psychology, has focused on promoting mental toughness. This buzz phrase has, however, been criticised somewhat for implying that individuals should aim to always be ‘tough’, which often invokes images of ‘macho’ individuals, who never fall short of their goals, or never show emotions, such as crying. Due to such unrealistic expectations, and unhelpful targets for human behaviour, the term resilience has thankfully started to dominate some applied work with athletes and students alike.
Resilience is defined as the ability to persevere, to try to overcome setbacks. In ‘everyday’ language, it can be thought of as ‘bounce-back-ability’. This is a much more realistic concept for people to relate to. In life, we all face disappointments, loss, illness and hardship, in various forms. Knowing that we are not expected to deal with such situations alone, by showing no emotion, and pretending that they do not affect us, is like lifting a weight off a person’s shoulders.
In life, many of our successes and happiness is born out of the pain of a loss, when we ‘fall short or fall down’. The challenge should not be ‘never fall’, but to have the skills, mentally and physically, to get back up when such falls happen, as they inevitably will. Indeed, research on Olympic athletes has suggested that resilience is a key component in helping them to achieve their goals.
So, how do we build up our skill set to enable us to rise again after a setback, a fall or a loss? Well, research, by individuals such as Mustafa Sarkar and his colleagues in the UK, has outlined eight key tips for developing resilience, that protective shield that can help you to work through a difficult time in your life with a positive outcome.
Tip #1 is – Have the courage to be imperfect
Too often in life, we expect ourselves to perform perfectly. I do not recommend such a word is used by the athletes or students I work with. Instead we work together to help them produce consistently good performances, that strive for excellence, not perfection. No performance, no matter what it is, a game, a kick, an assignment, will ever be ‘perfect’. However, that should not stop us from giving one hundred per cent to the effort. To aim for excellence allows for some error and we should decide what an excellent performance is for us. It is an individual thing, a personal best perhaps? By not feeling you have to be perfect in what you do, you are more likely to ‘have a go’!
Tip #2 is – Have a positive outlook
This does not mean always displaying a ‘sunny-happy-smiling’ face, or disposition. It refers to being open to new experiences, new ways of doing things, such as trying out new activities or new projects. It is only by allowing ourselves to try out these things, will we find out what we really are passionate about, what inspires us, what brings us joy in our lives, even when they are difficult things to do – such as running a marathon when you have never run before, or studying for a degree when you have no prior formal academic qualifications.
Tip #3 is – Know what you want to achieve, and why
It is important to think about that you would like to achieve, why you want to achieve it (primarily for yourself, not for others), and, something which we often neglect, how we plan to achieve that goal. Having a plan is important, and my last piece here on A Lust for Life, on goal setting, might help you with this planning task. What process and performance goals do you need to achieve in order to reach your ultimate outcome goal (such as making it to the start and finish line of a marathon, for example)? Who might you need to contact for advice, support and help to achieve this goal? This brings us to the next resilience building tip.
Tip #4 is – Seek out social support
Do not be afraid to ask for help. The most successful athletes, teams, business people, indeed performers of any kind, have a team of people around them who help them to reach their targets. So why should you expect that you need to walk your path alone? Asking for help is a sign of resilience, not a sign of weakness. No one person has all the knowledge or expertise on anything, so do ‘spread the load’ and vary the information you receive to work out what is best for you.
Tip #5 is – See your decisions as active choices
Too often we use the word ‘sacrifice’ to describe the decisions we make in order to achieve our goals. Such a word can conjure up images of toil and struggle. Yes, while the effort it takes to achieve many worthwhile goals in life are often physically and mentally challenging, they are active choices you make, that you have control over. See them as active choices, not something you are being forced into. This leads us nicely to the 6th tip for building resilience, that of taking control and taking responsibility for our behaviours, our feelings, and our thoughts.
Tip #6 is – Take control and take responsibility
You ultimately have the power over your feelings, thoughts and actions. We often say things like ‘he made me feel like….’ However in reality, we allow the remarks and actions of others to impact on us. We allow them to ‘make us feel’ a certain way. Take back the power! That often means having a couple of ‘self-talk/trigger’ phrases that we can say to ourselves to remind us that we do not need to ‘let’ another person make us feel bad, when they are being unkind, or judgemental about our behaviour. However, if we act in a way that makes us feel bad ourselves, then we need to take responsibility for that and change the behaviour for our own benefit, for our own mental wellbeing.
Tip #7 is – Focus on your personal development
Again, we often engage in too many comparisons of ourselves to others. What someone else has achieved in their life may not be right for you, so you need to focus on yourself. Decide what you can do to change your life for the better, if that is something you think is necessary or is something you have a personal desire to do.
Finally, Tip #8 is – View setbacks as opportunities for growth
We often hear of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, because it is a condition that has received much research and coverage in media, in general, and rightly so. However, what is not often mentioned is the possibility for Post Traumatic Growth. This term refers to the possibility of learning valuable and positive lessons from a difficult experience we faced in life such as an illness, or an injury in sport. Being able to cope with the often physical, and mental, pain of such situations can allow us to draw strength from the experience. We can then recall this experience and bring it with us as a ‘mental strength booster’ into the next challenging situation we will face further along the path of life.
To conclude, I hope these resilience tips will be useful for you, as you face the challenges of life in the days, weeks, months and years ahead. If you wish to contact me for more information on this topic or for some of the research in this area, you can watch out for more of my contributions on A Lust for Life, or you can locate me on Twitter @DrOliviaHurley. Finally, my best wishes to you all as you strive to find what gives you that ‘Lust for Life’!
Support Our Campaign
We rely on the generosity of the public to fund our work and so far together we have achieved great things! Please do continue to support us so we can provide future generations in Ireland with the resources to recognise and talk about their emotions, and equip them to navigate the ever-changing world around them as they grow
