Resilience Toolkit

What is Resilience?

Resilience is the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or significant sources of stress— such as family and relationship problems, serious health problems or workplace and financial stressors. It means “bouncing back” from difficult experiences. Emotional pain and sadness are common in people who have suffered major adversity or trauma in their lives. In fact, the road to resilience is likely to involve considerable emotional distress. Resilience is not a trait that people either have or do not have. It involves behaviors, thoughts and actions that can be learned and developed in anyone. (APA.org)

Resources

Resources

The Chopra Center

Mind Body Green

Psychology Today

20 Scientifically-Backed Ways to De-Stress Right Now

5 Things Truly Resilient People Do Differently

Apps

Omvana

Headspace

  • The Headspace app is your very own personal trainer, here to help you train your mind.

Mindful

Human Performance Resource Center

Books

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

  • Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl’s memoir of life in Nazi death camps has riveted generations of readers. Based on Frankl’s own experience and the stories of his patients, the book argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward.

The Happiness Track by Emma Seppala

  • A leading expert on health psychology, well-being, and resilience argues that happiness is the key to fast-tracking our professional and personal success.
  • Everyone wants to be happy and successful. And yet the pursuit of both has never been more elusive. As work and personal demands rise, we try to keep up by juggling everything better, moving faster, and doing more. While we might succeed in the short term, it comes at a cost to our well-being, relationships, and, paradoxically, our productivity.  Link

GRIT The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth

  • In this instant New York Times bestseller, pioneering psychologist Angela Duckworth shows anyone striving to succeed—be it parents, students, educators, athletes, or business people—that the secret to outstanding achievement is not talent but a special blend of passion and persistence she calls “grit.” Drawing on her own powerful story as the daughter of a scientist who frequently noted her lack of “genius,” Duckworth, now a celebrated researcher and professor, describes her early eye-opening stints in teaching, business consulting, and neuroscience, which led to the hypothesis that what really drives success is not “genius” but a unique combination of passion and long-term perseverance. Link

Supersurvivors: The surprising Link Between Suffering and Success  by David B. Feldman and Lee Daniel Kravetz

Resilience: Hard-Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life by Eric Greitens Navy Seal

How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life by Caroline Webb

  • In How to Have a Good Day, economist and former McKinsey partner Caroline Webb shows readers how to use recent findings from behavioral economics, psychology, and neuroscience to transform our approach to every day working life.Advances in these behavioral sciences are giving us ever better understanding of how our brains work, why we make the choices we do, and what it takes for us to be at our best.

What Nobody Tells You About Happiness by Saisha Srivastava

  • Saisha has danced since she was a little girl. In a breath of fresh air that is as inspiring as it is poetic, she talks about growing up and shares stories from teaching dance to blind and visually challenged students, and the startling secret she learned about happiness along the way.
  • Video: What Nobody Tells You About Happiness

How to Fall Up by Dr. Greg Steinberg

  • Learn how to use adversity as your superpower in this entertaining and informative TED Talk. See more videos by Dr. Gregg at www.drgreggsteinberg.com. Learn about emotional toughness, emotional intelligence, how to find your purpose, and get greater energy and focus every day. Dr. Steinberg is a professor at Austin Peay State University near Nashville TN.
  • How to Fall Up

The Power of Resilience: Sam Goldstein PhD

  • Resilience embraces the ability of a child to deal effectively with stress and pressure, to cope with everyday challenges, to bounce back from disappointments, adversity and trauma, to develop clear and realistic goals, to solve problems, to relate comfortably with others and to treat one’s self and others with respect.
  • The Power of Resilience

When Your Mind Works Against You by Ted Powell

  • Our minds are programmed to make the unknown “known” as part of our basic survival mechanism. But in a seemingly chaotic world, Ted Powell argues that our brains are too often hijacked by what he calls the “Drunken Monkey,” which compulsively seeks absolute and certain truths in order to maintain a false sense of security in our rapidly changing world. Rather than learning to be comfortable with unanswered questions, our minds work against us when we prematurely reject a new or different idea out of the fear of the unknown.
  • When Your Mind Works Against You