So, if an individual did not have someone who believed in them or had little social support and has few resilient traits, is that individual doomed to a life of adversity and misery? More and more evidence indicates that this is not the case. Martin Seligman, in Learned Optimism (1990) determined that resilience skills can be learned. While we cannot change the events of our past or the world around us, we can change the way we think about those events. One of the ways we can start changing our resilience mindset is to be more realistic in our thinking. By accurately assessing one’s own strengths, identifying the true causes of problems and evaluating oneself and others, we get a truer picture of the events unfolding around us and our level of control over those events.
Many people tend to view events in an overly positive way while many others are overly pessimistic. Reivich and Shatte believe that developing “realistic optimism,” the ability to maintain a positive outlook without denying reality, actively appreciating the positive aspects of a situation without ignoring the negative aspects, helps to build resilience. In “The Resilience Factor” (2002), they offer seven skills an individual can learn that can build resilience:
- Learning your ABCs – a technique whereby you learn to identify your thoughts and how they affect your feelings and behavior
- Avoiding thinking traps – a technique to identify the thinking mistakes that people regularly make when faced with adversity
- Detecting icebergs – a technique for identifying deep beliefs and determining when they are or are not working
- Challenging beliefs – a technique to test the accuracy of your beliefs
- Putting it in perspective – a technique to deal with the “what-ifs” so you are better prepared to deal with the real problems that come along.
- Calming and focusing – a technique designed to help you stay calm and focused during stressful times.
- Real-time resilience – a technique whereby you can quickly change your counter-productive thoughts into more resilient ones.
Positive psychology research has identified more techniques that can build positive emotion and optimism. Seligman and Peterson have examined the “Three Good Things” procedure as a means for boosting optimism. In this exercise, an individual writes down, on a daily basis, three good things that happened that day. Next to each entry, the person writes down why the good thing went well. In this way, the writer comes to see that they had an impact on the event. This method has been shown to build positive emotion and optimism over time as long as the individual continues to practice this exercise. Just like with physical exercise, we need to exercise our optimism “muscles.”
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