Resilience

Resilient Skier

Over at Wharton there is an article/podcast dealing with the practice and development of resilience. The article is an interview with Bonnie St. John who has a remarkable story to tell. She talks about resilience. Something we can all use. The title of the article is "An Olympian Shares the Five Steps to Developing Resilience"

 Ms. St. John states "Resilience is very personal for me. We are talking about mental resilience to imagine new things, physical resilience to learn how to walk — never mind become an athlete — and even emotional or spiritual resilience."

 Resilience is defined by most as the ability to recover from setbacks, adapt well to change, and keep going in the face of adversity. It has been said that the only constant is change. In planning and living our lives there will be setbacks as well as setforwards. I think as resilience as a tool of flexibility.

On a personal note, at a very early age I lost the use of my right arm. An accident altered the trajectory of my life. There were challenges and I had to adapt and develop strategies to not only cope, but to succeed. There was quite a bit of uncertainty for a period of time. How I overcame that injury and regained sufficient use of that arm is another story. This may in part be attributable to an earlier accident from which I almost did not recover. That experience as a very young child, experiencing the death of two grandparents who expired while living in our home under the care of my parents and other relatives also provided some perspective about mortality.

I had not one but two setbacks before the age of 12. From personal experience I can say that Ms. St. John is worth listening to.

Click: An Olympian Shares the Five Steps to Developing Resilience