#011 Resilience 101

What Strengths Are You Building Right Now?

“It ain’t about how hard you hit; it’s about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. How much you can take, and keep moving forward.”
~Rocky Balboa

Resilience for parents and teens.

Parents worry that their teens are still struggling, worry that their teens don’t have resilience, worry that things are too hard.

You and your teens are human, you are going to struggle.

Developing resilience means that you are struggling, doing hard things, and getting stronger and better equipped to handle all of life’s struggles and adversity.

When parents and teens understand what resilience is and how to develop it, struggles become an opportunity for growth and strength.

Resilience leads to self-confidence, and self-confidence leads to resilience. This is a cycle.

Dr. Ivan Joseph said, “Self-confidence is the ability to believe in yourself to accomplish any task, no matter the odds, no matter the difficulty, no matter the adversity.”

What Resilience IS NOT vs What Resilience IS:

❌ Resilience is not a character trait that we are born with.
- Not genetically passed on.
✔️ Resilience is a skill that we have to learn, practice, and develop.
- We can model it through our example.
- Everyone has the capacity to develop resilience.
❌ It is not a one-time achievement.
- Not something that you can just do once.
✔️ It is a daily process, practice, and commitment.
- It’s something you will develop over your lifetime.
❌. It doesn’t magically make things easy or easier.
- Don’t be disappointed when things are still hard.
✔️ It is a commitment to do hard things.
- Hard things make you stronger.
❌ Resilience is not something you simply learn or do.
- Learning or blindly doing it won’t cut it.
✔️ Resilience is something that you learn, practice, do, and become.
- Learning conceptually a layup in basketball vs learning by physically practicing a layup.

How to develop resilience with M.E.S.S.:

🧠 M-Mindset is key to developing resilience!

A decision
- A commitment to do hard things.
- A decision to bounce back.
A perspective
- Sometimes when we see our teens struggling, all we see are the struggles, the mistakes, and the things that we wish were different. We miss is the strength that our teens are building in their struggles.
- Future focus
- Looking for the benefit.
A belief
- Trusting that you can overcome any obstacle.
- Our self-talk (personal narrative)
- Grittiness/toughness

🧡 E-Emotion

Determined
- What emotion will drive you when things get hard?
Hopeful
- When you’re worried and thinking all is lost.
persistent
- When you want to give up.

🎯 S-Skill

Practice
- Be intentional
- Understand that you’re practicing because your not perfect.
Daily actions
- It’s a daily practice.
- It’s a habit.
Intentional
- You control how you show up.
repetition
- Be willing to do this over and over.

💪 S-Struggle

Do hard things
- They make you stronger.
Challenge
- When you challenge yourself, you grow.
Make mistakes
- Mistakes are what it’s all about.
- Embrace mistakes, own them, and grow from them.

You can’t change your teen, but you can be the change.

Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”
I say, “Be the change you want to see in your teen.”

This will take your focus off of your teen (who you can’t control) and bring your focus back onto yourself (the only one you can control). It’s natural as a parent to want to lighten the load that our teens face. It’s easy to worry that our teen’s struggles will be too much, of that they will somehow “ruin their life” with their mistakes.

But the truth is, it is our teens’ struggles that are making them stronger. It’s their mistakes and struggles that give them valuable experience. Lots of parents come to me, worried that their teens are making “too many mistakes,” or “ruining their life” somehow.

They want to know that everything will be okay.

Your teen cannot ruin their life! They are resilient; they have the power to bounce back from EVERYTHING!

Trust that your teen has the resilience that they need to recover from everything. They do, and it starts with YOU believing in them! You see, your teen wants to believe that everything will be okay too. If you believe it, they’ll believe it.

I can help you believe in your teen’s resilience. I can help you develop the mindset and skills to boost your own resilience, which will boost your teen’s resilience too.

Join the 5 Day Be The Change Challenge

If you haven’t yet, join our FREE Be the Change Challenge. Each day we will be doing simple 5-10 minute daily exercises to help give you a powerful perspective on your role as a parent and your ability to be the catalyst for incredible change in your life and your relationship with your teen.