THE SCIENCE OF RESILIENCE

Summaries of the presentations and my personal reflections on how to successfully bounce back from setbacks.

Notes by Sang H. Kim, Ph.D.

I blog about them as a series. 

Resilience is the ability to roll with the setbacks and bounce back with renewed vigor. The American Psychological Association defines resilience as “The process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or even significant sources of threat.”

Resilience is a skill that we can learn and master. It’s a mindset that can be developed to transform setbacks into growth opportunities. To start, let’s look at some basic facts about resilience and ways to incorporate them into your lifestyle:

FACT ONE: We are remarkably resilient and capable of healthy adaptation to adversity.

What to do: Believe it.

FACT TWO: We are multidimensional in nature. You may be competent in some areas but not others. We have uneven functional capacities across various domains in life. You may be at-risk and resilient at the same time. For example, you may be good at work but falter in family relationships or vice versa. If you are good at both, you have nothing to worry about, and stop reading. The truth is that in general no one can perform consistently high or low in all areas at all times.

What to do: Be excellent in your most competent area but be happy with average performance in other domains.

FACT THREE: We are born to grow. We grow inside first against challenges outside: we fear risks, we endure pains, but we overcome challenges.

What to do: Look inside, ignore outside. Then look outside, do what you heard inside.

FACT FOUR: We are in general natural in creating balance: when stable, we take risks; when unstable, we play safe. The heart of resilience is a delicate yet daring balance between forces that are harmful and helpful for optimal conditions.

What to do: Interplay between two extremes expanding your capacity to build a stronger, smarter, and stable person.

Resilience Building for Performance is a science-based experiential training strategy for stress resilience. It consists of a 60-minute presentation and 20-minute hands-on MBX-12 practice modified for agents working in the field and office. This and following blogs are the partial summary of my recent presentations for Leadership Training Programs for law-enforcement and security agencies and educational institutes in the US, UK, Ireland, and Korea.

To be continued…