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How To Be More Resilient During Stressful Times

How To Be More Resilient During Stressful Times

by | Jun 15, 2018 | Dealing With Emotions, Self-Confidence, Self-Improvement

We could all stand to learn how to be more resilient during stressful times of life. Because I know. there are times when stress completely takes over.

And it’s usually when you’ve reached your maximum capacity that things go south fast. You can’t control your temper, you’re short with your loved ones, and you’d do anything to get away from what you’re feeling right now.

But, there are ways to handle tough times in your life without going over the edge. Here are some tips to help you become stronger and more resilient when times get tough.

How To Be More Resilient During Stressful Times

Stress sucks. Our lives are crazy hectic at times and it’s no wonder we don’t flip out on people more often.

With how much we’re expected to handle without complaining, outbursts are bound to happen.  No matter how bad it is, you can stay calm and remind yourself this will pass.

I’m not saying it’s easy—I don’t always deal properly with stress. But, as I’ve reached my breaking point more often, I’ve learned that blowing up on my boyfriend and crying on the floor isn’t the best answer.

Neither is emotional eating or sulking your sorrows in alcohol. Our fight or flight reaction kicks in when we’re stressed, so we get one of two urges.

Fight it out with anyone in sight or run away from our problems with some ice cream in tow. And neither one of those is the right answer.

These don’t solve anything, they are just quick fixes to cover up a bigger problem. What you can start to do instead is work on being more resilient in the face of trouble.

What is Resilience?

In the simplest terms, resilience is your ability to bounce back from anything that gets thrown your way. I’m going to use a rubber band metaphor here. Think of pulling a rubber band as far as it can go, really stretching its limits.

Then think about letting go of the rubber band–what happens to it?

It snaps right back to its original form. I know that rubber bands lose their elasticity after a while, so it’s not the best metaphor, but resilience is basically a rubber band that never loses its elasticity.

Some people have a lot of resilience. They get knocked down, but they continue to get up and push through.

 How to Build Resilience During Stressful Times

There won’t be a time in your life when bad things and problems stop happening. The quicker you can accept that, the faster you’ll move on and develop resilience.

6 ways to be more resilient and strong

1. Think of Your Stressful Situation as a Learning Experience

So often we fall into the trap of playing the victim. When stress piles on, it’s hard not to think the world is out to get you.

It’s destructive thinking to believe you deserve to have bad things happen to you. And it’s incredibly difficult to be stronger during tough times if you just cave and let it control your life.

Think about any stressful situation as a growing period. You could even call it growing pains. You might feel vulnerable, hurt, or scared and these feelings are raw.

Nothing feels good about these moments, but they are going to pass. Resilient people believe this, and they take it as a learning experience.

They ask questions like:

  • How can I know better for next time?
  • What do I know now that I didn’t know before this problem?
  • What is the best solution to push through right now, so I can go back to feeling normal?

When you start to believe what you’re going through is just a growing phase, you’ll feel more confident you can push through it.

Every time a tough situation comes up and you believe that you build up resilience. Until one day, it’s not even a question if you’ll make it through or not.

So if you want to be more resilient, know that you need to tell yourself that you believe you are strong.

2. Use your Low Moments to Push You Forward

Everyone has setbacks. Trying to be a more positive and resilient person will have its own setbacks.

Life sometimes feels like it’s a one-step forward two steps back kind of thing. You might try really hard to focus on being resilient and not let things get to you.

But, you’re human. What helps is using those low moments, where you’ve fallen down and don’t see any hope, to push yourself out of it.

Think of what can change, and what problems can be solved. Take it one step at a time and lay it all out. When you get knocked down and decide to try again, you build resilience.

If you choose to stay down, it’ll be way too easy to stay there a fall prey to feeling like a victim.

3. Practice Being Grateful for What You Have

Think about it– what makes you happy? Is it your dog? Your boyfriend? Is it when you get to come home from a long day, make a yummy dinner and binge on Netflix?

These things are easy to take for granted. But these are the things that get you through the tough times.

Sometimes it’s hard to be grateful for things that are constantly there. We just assume they’ll always be there.

Thinking of things that bring you happiness makes it really easy to be grateful for them.

Resilient people know what they have, and they protect it and appreciate it every day. Start with the small things, like your car, your bedroom, or your pillow.

Thinking about those things during the tough moments will give you a new appreciation for what you do have. Bad things happen, but they are only temporary.

4. Take Care of Yourself

Do you find that exercising or eating healthy goes out the window when you’re stressed out of your mind? That’s because we are looking for comfort in any way we can find it.

Things feel out of control, and it’s so easy to resort to unhealthy ways of coping. But, drinking wine every time you come across an issue just makes you rely on it to fix your problems, or make them disappear for a night.

You’re not actually listening to what you need, which is a shoulder to cry on, or driving around listening to your favorite music.

  • Start putting yourself first, learn how to listen to what you need, and put in the effort to do those things.

Once you learn how to take care of yourself during tough moments in a healthy way, you’ll be well-equipped to deal with any level of stress.

Download my free mental wellness resource kit for more tips on how to take care of yourself from the inside out.

5. Focus on Improving Your Confidence

A lot of the time we lose sight of what we are capable of when we’re stressed. This can diminish our confidence and leave us wondering what the heck we’re doing.

Without confidence, it’s incredibly easy to want to give up. And that mental strength is exactly what you need to have in the face of difficult moments.

Confidence is one of the key ingredients to building resilience. Once you have it, you won’t struggle with feeling overwhelmed anymore.

You’ll believe you can make it through, and you’ll think logically about the situation.

Confidence also prevents your life from getting too stressful in the first place, because you’ll know how to set healthy boundaries.

6. Work on Building Strong Relationships

Sometimes you can’t do everything alone. Having the right people on your side can make a huge difference.

During the moments when you feel like giving up, talking to a close friend might be just the thing you need to keep pushing forward.

When you’re stressed and overwhelmed, keeping up with relationships is difficult. You’re so preoccupied with everyone going on that staying in touch with someone is tough.

This backfires during those moments when you’re in complete distress and really need someone. Building resilience requires taking time, even during hectic times, to call up a friend and say, hey can we talk for a few minutes?

  • Talking it out is one of the best ways to manage everything going on.

You’ll get a new perspective and learn the things you’re freaking out about aren’t that big of a deal, in the grand scheme of things.

  • Just remember that during stressful times in your life, things aren’t going to be perfect.
  • You’ll have moments of not knowing what you’re doing, but go easy on yourself.

If you beat yourself up over trying to handle a situation better than you did, you’ll only add to the stress.

Resilience is all about accepting what happens in your life and solving problems one step at a time.

It requires patience and practice, over and over again. You will become mentally stronger and you’ll go from thinking “I can’t” to “I can”.

The more obstacles you overcome in your life and come out on the other side, the stronger your resilience will become.

For More Tips On How To Be More Resilient:

If you’re looking for more help with building a stronger mindset, becoming more resilient, and creating your dream life, make sure to check out Refine Your Life Purpose + Wellness.

Inside Refine Your Life Purpose + Wellness course we cover:

  • Mindset
  • Blocks
  • Emotions and feelings
  • Self-love
  • Problems
  • Overwhelm, burnout, and busyness
  • Productivity
  • Time management
  • Goal setting
  • Habits

The course is packed full of information that begins with changing your mindset to push through obstacles and ends with giving you important life skills that everyone needs to know.

To see the full video, and all other lessons, click here.

How to be more resilient during stressful times

Why You Need To Put Yourself First and How to Do It

Why You Need To Put Yourself First and How to Do It

by | Jun 7, 2018 | Dealing With Emotions, Self-Confidence, Self-Esteem & Self-Love, Self-Improvement

Do you find it hard to put yourself first? Are you even aware that you probably don’t put yourself first?

This is a common problem for a lot of people. During the day, we are at the mercy of others. At work, we have to listen to what our bosses and co-workers tell us to do.

At home, we have to take care of our pets, children and SO’s. As an adult, there is a constant obligation you feel. To cater to everything else, and put your needs last.

But to be truly happy, you need to put yourself first. Especially when it comes to being able to take care of other people, pets, and responsibilities.

Why You Need To Put Yourself First and How to Do It

I applaud you because putting everyone and everything before yourself makes you a stand-up person. Putting others before yourself is a huge act of kindness. It’s hard to say it’s a bad thing because other people benefit greatly from what you do.

But, putting other people before yourself brings up a lot of issues. You’ve heard the saying you can’t pour from an empty cup, right? It’s true.

If your cup is empty or your batteries are dead, it becomes impossible to cater to others. But, you might have been taught that putting your needs first is selfish.

It’s what we’re taught growing up because acting selfless is viewed as good in our society.

And it is, don’t get me wrong. But, there’s a line that has to be drawn. If not, giving all you have away will end with you feeling miserable. Not to mention overwhelmed, stressed, and resentful of others.

If you don’t take time for yourself, you can’t be there for someone else in the way you want

You’ll also have less patience and tolerance for people who need your help. Letting your cup run dry will cause issues in your life. As you’re trying to please everyone else and take care of other people, eventually it will backfire.

You can only take on so much at a time before becoming so burnt out that you stop caring about all of it. It will affect your health because of the chronic stress it causes. And it has the potential to ruin relationships.

You might think putting yourself first is selfish and will cause these issues anyway. In reality, you’ll be a much better person to be around.

Once your cup is full, you’ll be more than willing to give more to other people.

How to Start Putting Yourself First

1. Set Your Limits

Everything is okay in moderation. To set your limits, you’ll have to figure out what your limits are. This might take some practice. It’s OK if you don’t get it exactly right all the time. But, setting your limits is so important.

If your boss keeps asking you to work overtime or your sister is crashing on your couch every night, you’ll need to set up some limits.

You can start doing this by taking a few minutes out of the day and reflecting on the balance in your life. Do you have enough of your own downtime every day? What brings you happiness?

Think about the things that start to get uncomfortable if they continue to happen. This is a great way to start putting yourself first. Saying no and setting boundaries is NOT a bad thing.

It’s 100% necessary. You’ll have to believe it’s necessary for your own health before you can start practicing it.

Get rid of those thoughts that saying no means you’re a bad person. If you don’t set limits, people will not know when to stop. It’s not their fault, it’s just that most people don’t know when they cross a boundary.

Boundaries are different for everybody, so it’s important to determine what your own are and make them clear to the people you care about.

In order to stay at your job and do good work, you need a good work-life balance. Let your boss know this, that way they can understand what you need to succeed and to stay at the job.

For some people, setting boundaries is too difficult so they end up quitting or getting out of relationships to avoid it.

This is not the best option, because you’ll always come across a situation where someone tests your limits. Instead of avoiding it, work on fixing it. And if you find that you try setting boundaries with certain people and they still continue to cross them, then that’s when you can decide to remove that from your life.

People who don’t respect boundaries are difficult, and you’ll need to determine if they are worth having around or not.

2. Learn How to Listen to Yourself

If you haven’t put yourself first in a while, you might have forgotten how to listen to your own wants and needs. Knowing what you want is essential because you’ll also know what you don’t.

This is how you build up self-confidence, by listening to yourself. If your friends all want to go out to a club on Friday night, but you really just want to stay in and watch a movie, listen to that!

Instead of going just to avoid upsetting anyone, listen to what you truly want. This is also part of setting limits. But, before you can set limits you have to know what you truly want.

You’ll have to get rid of everyone else’s thoughts and opinions about your life and practice listening to what it is you want. At the end of the day, it’s about what brings you happiness.

It’s not really about what anyone else wants, because the people who care about your happiness will be more than willing to give you what you need.

Our own voices can disappear once we start putting everyone else first before ourselves.

This is the time to start practicing listening to your heart and going after that. You deserve it!

3. Remember, You Aren’t Responsible for Other People

If you struggle to put yourself first, you most likely have your life way more together than others around you. People who need you to take care of them don’t have the right tools to do it themselves.

You might feel like you can give more because you can handle more. And that means giving some people way more than they deserve.

Everyone needs to hold themselves accountable for their own lives. You can’t be responsible for everyone. With the exception of animals and babies, other adults can take care of themselves.

And if they can’t, they shouldn’t be relying on you to fix their struggles.

You can do your best to be there for them when they need it, but you’ll also need to take time for yourself. Put up that boundary so they know they can’t run you completely dry.

This isn’t a selfish act. It’s actually really healthy for both of you. It teaches other people that if they draw the line, you can’t be there for them anymore. And that’s on them, not on you. And you won’t get to the point of resenting them or blowing up on them for taking so much.

4. Practice Self-Care

Do what it is you need to do. Do you enjoy reading? Taking hot baths? Talking to your closest friends? Drinking wine and binge-watching Netflix?

Do these things and do them often. Practice taking care of yourself every single day. Even if it’s just 15 minutes before you go to bed.

Self-care keeps you in tune with yourself. This helps you set your limits, listen to yourself more, and know when things are off-balance in your life.

Self-care is like watering a flower, and the more you do it the more you’ll grow as a person. You’ll flourish even!

5. Stop Feeling So Guilty

Guilt makes us feel awful and brings us to do things we wouldn’t otherwise do.

We feel guilt out of fear of people disliking us, feeling like we’re doing something wrong, or feeling like we’re being too selfish.

Guilt is what will keep your cup from filling up if you allow it to control your life. Instead, let go of it! I know how tough guilt can be. Even when you decide to make a decision for yourself, you might be flooded with guilt and decide to go back on your decision.

This is when you just have to lean into it. Deal with feeling uncomfortable and stand by your decision to put yourself first. Guilt is a test, and you have to push through it.

Once you become more comfortable with doing things for yourself, instead of always doing things for others, the guilt will go away. I promise!

The only reason you feel guilty in the first place is either because someone is trying to take advantage of you and make you feel bad, or you’ve been taught from a young age to not put yourself first. You have to counteract those feelings of guilt and understand how much good will come out of putting yourself first.

You can maybe even make a pros and cons list of what will happen if you decide to do something you really don’t want, just to please someone else. And see the pros of listening to yourself and doing what you want.

how to put yourself first