How Well Do You Bounce?

Part 2: Adapting a Growth Mindset

Kristine Proctor, MSW, LCSW

In part 1 of this series, we affirmed the fact that while we all approach life with great expectations – And we should! – There are times we need to deepen our understanding of ourselves in order to be successful personally and relationally. In other words, we need emotional wellbeing to thrive.

We learned the importance of knowing how to identify stress in our lives, some of the indicators that we are stressed and that tracking our emotional responses is a healthy way to enable us to respond with intention.

One of the ways to increase our coping capacity is to develop our resilience, defined as the ability to recover quickly from difficulty. We looked at characteristics of individuals who have the ability to bounce back from adversity in order to give ourselves a benchmark for our own level of resilience. We asked ourselves, “How well do I bounce?”

One strength we can develop or improve to be more resilient is to…

• Adapt a growth mindset.

In this context this means thinking of yourself and your coping skills as something that can be developed rather than fixed.

Teach yourself to expect that your journey will have twists and turns. Expect that life will not be a linear process. Expect that there will be hard things and you’ll need to dig in and apply tenacity, sometimes a little and sometimes a whole lot! Expect that you will handle what comes the best that you can and that you will grow from the experience.

Self-talk is a powerful tool in shifting into a growth mindset. This does not mean that you need to start having conversations with yourself! What it does mean is that you can develop your ability to be your own coach or cheerleader when it comes to reframing the experiences you have from negative to positive. Pay attention to your thoughts and beliefs. You can tell yourself, either quietly in your head or aloud, what you need to hear. One example might be, “This is a really tough situation. I am doing the best I can, and that is good enough.” Or, “I really wasn’t expecting that! I’ll know to watch for that the next time.”

Additionally, acknowledge and embrace your imperfections. Be real and attempt to value authenticity and growth more than being right. Commit to developing your strengths further and improving the weaker areas over time. You are unique and there is no one like you! That includes the lessons you’re learning and the way you handle life, not just your successes.

One way to help shift into a growth mindset is to partialize. This means to break down what you see or feel into smaller chunks and deal with them one at a time. This decreases your level of frustration and overwhelm and makes what needs to happen manageable. 

Another piece of the resilience puzzle is to set realistic goals. Work to accept what you cannot change. Set your own expectations and seek to fulfill them rather than using your emotional energy on whether or not you are pleasing someone else.

As you know yourself better, you will be more equipped to find your sense of purpose. Remember, resilient people have a sense of independence and self-worth and intentionally form and maintain positive, mutually respectful relationships. These support what they know to be true about themselves. And overall, because they know their sense of purpose, they can live out of that.

Paying attention to what your passions and strengths are and what gives you life, will guide you in knowing where you prefer to focus your energy.

Eleanor Roosevelt said, “People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.” Knowing yourself better helps you to recognize where your strengths are. It enables you to recognize that you do have it in you to lean into life’s challenges and to bounce back. Let’s go grow!

Find yourself, and be that!