Your Wellbeing Matters: 5 Essential Steps to Resilience
One of the most wonderful qualities of resilience is that it’s just like a muscle that can be strengthened with practice.
Another amazing quality is that engaging in ongoing resilience-building practices will help us to not only be able to handle stress and adversity more effectively-but will actually create a sustainable state of wellbeing and high life satisfaction regardless of what’s going on in the world or our lives!
Below are 5 steps for greater resilience, wellbeing, and high quality of life:
1.Practicing Self-care.
Self-care is an intentional ongoing lifestyle that allows us to be, feel, and live at our best.
Real self-care goes way beyond occasional treat-ourselves, luxury, something extra activities like massages, bubble baths, and vacations.
It’s about developing a personalized and sustainable self-care practice for our body, mind, and spirit. A practice, which becomes our essential core life component.
There is no pre-existing, cookie-cutter self-care routine that works for all.
Every single self-care plan that works sustainably over a long period of time is completely personalized.
That is why it’s so important to try many different activities and strategies so through the process of elimination we can determine what works for us, sustainably, in the long run.
Having said that, some of the most basic self-care routine components include prioritizing sleep, learning nutritional basics, healthy meal plans, moving our bodies, learning self-soothing techniques, and practicing gratitude.
Most people struggle with developing a personalized self-care plan. If you are one of them- I highly recommend you check out the Self-Care Wheel, one of our most loved wellbeing tools.
It contains 88 self-care activities and has been successfully used by hundreds of thousands of people worldwide since 2013! Free download below!
2. Nurturing relationships.
One of the greatest contributors to our resilience and wellbeing is the quality of our relationships with ourselves, with our loved ones, and with our community.
In my resilience-building trainings audience often comment that they have no idea how to start developing nurturing relationships with themselves.
This reaction is completely natural and understandable-unfortunately, they don’t teach this in schools.
That is why I put “relationship with self” as a separate category on our new tool, the Resilience Wheel (see image below and download yours at https://olgaphoenix.com/resilience-wheel/ and read more on Resilience Wheel’s 36 resilience-building strategies here) to give people some ideas, a jumping-off point on where to begin.
Some of the things we can do to foster relationships with ourselves are noticing our inner dialogue and how we speak to ourselves, challenging our inner critic, practicing self-compassion, seeking counseling or coaching, being our best cheerleaders, and celebrating our mind, body, and spirit every chance we get.
We are social animals and have an innate need for human contact and interaction. Strong interpersonal relationships and support groups provide a sense of safety, create belonging, improve self-esteem, and as a result act as a protective barrier against life stresses.
We can nurture our relationships by regularly planning fun activities with loved ones, by improving our interpersonal communication skills, by setting and sticking to our boundaries, by joining a support group, and by engaging in volunteering for social causes.
Real investment and commitment to nurturing our relationships with loved ones and our community greatly influence our overall resilience, wellbeing, and health.
3. Setting Personal and Professional Goals.
Intentionally pursuing our personal and professional growth, setting and achieving goals, learning or trying something new- boosts our resilience and wellness by producing a sense of personal accomplishment, improving self-confidence, raising self-esteem, and creating a sense of purpose in life.
It could be as small as trying a new recipe and as large as going after an advanced degree or a new career- every effort to pursue something new and create meaning in our lives will strengthen resilience.
Some of the things we could do to stimulate our personal and professional growth: identifying short and long-term goals, creating a bucket list, getting mentored, attending a webinar, planning a vacation, setting a budget, joining a meetup, going on a date, and volunteering.
4. Cultivating Life Purpose.
Finding meaning and purpose in our lives is very powerful for cultivating resilience. The more we feel that our existence is meaningful and purposeful- the more empowered, centered, peaceful, and joyful we become.
This is because purpose and meaning give us clarity in our lives, help us carry on when things get tough, give us a sense of personal accomplishment, and a strong feeling that we matter.
Regardless of where we find our feeling of purpose and meaning- in nature, in work, in our family and friends, in spiritual practice, in a religious community, in expanding our worldview, in travels, in studies, in taking care of people around us- once we find it, we immediately start enjoying its incredible wellbeing benefit.
5. Practicing Self-Love.
Think about how we interact with our best friends. We support them, we feel compassion when they suffer, we accept them as they are.
Self-love is about striving to treat yourself like your best friend. It’s a feeling of self-appreciation, self-kindness, and self-acceptance that grows over time as a result of continuous nurturing actions that support our resilience, wellbeing, and growth.
It’s difficult to practice self-love but it’s an integral part of our resilience building and figuring out our self-love practices is incredibly important.
Some things we could do to practice self-love: making a list of positive personal qualities and accomplishments, challenging inner critic, reaching out to a friend, pursuing personal healing, asking for help, learning nutrition basics, practicing digital detox, establishing good boundaries, and celebrating every win. For more inspiration, please read this “100 Things I Love About Myself List” and create yours.
Ongoing unwavering commitment to ourselves, to nurturing our resilience and wellbeing, and always putting it first, no matter what- is one of the greatest and the most powerful expressions of self-love.
About the Author
Olga Phoenix, MPA, MA is an internationally recognized self-care, resilience, wellbeing, and vicarious trauma prevention expert, speaker, and best-selling author. She is the creator of the Self-Care and the Resilience Wheels, some of the most loved self-care and wellbeing tools in the world. Her keynotes, trainings, consulting programs, the online academy, and books empower and inspire individuals and organizations to grow and flourish. For more information, tips, tools, courses, and trainings, please visit www.olgaphoenix.com.