How far in can you reach?

“It’s a good thing you’re tough.”

Like all parents of Gen Alpha, I’ve become pretty familiar with “Bluey”, and I have to say there’s a heck of a lot more to it than just a cute kid’s show. There’s plenty for adults to learn and reflect on as well when it comes to raising children. It’s no wonder that it’s such a popular franchise at this point.

The quote above is from one of the episodes on resilience and how to instill it in kids. Whenever they encounter hardship, it’s your role to encourage them to persevere and push forward to overcome obstacles. Your particular saying may be some variation on the statement above, but the key is repetition and patience.

Let’s dig into this a bit more for yourself.

Where does it come from?

Your resilience originates from several different aspects of life:

• cultivated mindset

• early life experiences

• the environment you grew up in

• learned behaviors from friends, family, and mentors

In general, these fall into two categories when it comes to building it up throughout your life.

Nature

There’s a certain amount of stubbornness that resides in all of us. We’re naturally predisposed towards surviving (otherwise, none of us would be here). How we respond with fight or flight that is embedded in our genetics largely shapes how we endure difficult situations.

The interesting thing about this is that you can see there’s not a whole lot of it when it comes to toddlers, bringing us to the next category.

Nurture

I have two kids, and I’ve watched them learn the difference between a good idea and a bad idea.

With each bump and bruise (sometimes a trip to the emergency room), they’ve gradually come to understand what a calculated risk is, or at least what it means for a grade schooler who wants to navigate a ball pit without faceplanting.

The small triumphs that they overcome build confidence. The ones they screw up on build character.

It’s very stressful to keep them from the challenges that are potentially life-threatening, though. No wonder parents seem to age years during this stage (it doesn’t do any favors for my hairline).

Build that wall

Your inner strength is like any muscle.

It needs to be exercised and flexed on a regular basis, and it grows with each repetition. It’s a fortification that is built brick-by-brick with each crisis that you face, each challenge that you overcome, each frustration that you navigate. Bamboozling your way through something or avoiding it, kicking the situational can down the street to be dealt with by others, these don’t do you any favors.

Weaseling your way through life makes for a miserable existence, one that encourages manipulative behavior and lack of values or moral fiber.

Resilience isn’t something that is magically gifted to you. It’s constructed through hardship that you face, people that you work with and share you struggles, situations that would otherwise have an easy way out but cost you both deeper insight into your character and increased willpower to take on bigger challenges.

Each moment is an opportunity to grow. It’s only a matter of whether or not you realize it.

Never too late to start

You know those redemption arcs that people love to follow?

The character has major flaws and fails spectacularly but stumbles upon a mentor that pushes them beyond their limits. There’s a fantastic training montage that inspires you as they gain more power, prestige, or popularity (or a combination of both) until they finally face whatever kicked their ass at the beginning and triumph over it.

Too many movies to mention here, but I bet you can name at least five (no fair using the Rambo franchise).

Answer this for yourself: What’s one challenge that you faced earlier in life that left you stronger than you realized you could have been beforehand?

I didn’t go too far into details today. I’ll leave that for the next issue and share a few ways from my own resilience toolkit.