Three Ways to Become More Resilient

TL; DR: Sh*t happens. Your best plans fall apart. Take back your center and remember who you are and why you’re on this adventure.

Something will always go wrong.

If you’re pushing your limits, facing the unknown, doing things you’ve never done before, you're going to run into setbacks.

Depending on the size of the problem and your own personality, you could either recover in just a few minutes, or you could spend the next three days punching a wall.

I’m going to give you two ways to transform your setbacks.

The first way is to take back your center. The second way is to alchemize the problem, changing it from a lead ball and chain into a bright, golden gift.

Take Back Your Center

I woke up this morning to a broken window frame.

 When I lived in L.A. I could have easily hired someone to fix it for me, but now live in a rural area where I have to do a lot of these small repairs myself.

It’s going to take time and it's going to take me away from other important things like talking to you about adventure.

It’s normal to feel frustrated whenever reality fails to cooperate with your intentions.

But when you’re screaming and throwing stuff across the room, or when you’re crying because you’ve sunk into a pit of absolute despair, your ability to deal with the problem at hand drops to zero.

You’re letting something external control you. You’ve lost your center.

Now we all need to acknowledge our emotions, but you also need to keep it in perspective. Did you lose someone you love? Were you robbed of your life’s work? Or is your problem just a software glitch?

Whenever you're dealing with adversity, it helps to ask yourself, “Is this permanent?”

Most of the time, it's not.

Maybe the latest setback is going to steal time away from something important you were going to do today. But that's all about today.

Get through it, and tomorrow is another day.

My broken kitchen window is not a permanent situation. It's not going to change my long-term goals or upset my life in any significant way.

After being upset for about 2 minutes, I took back my center and watched a few YouTube videos to learn how to fix it.

Tool of the Week: Empowering Questions to Take Back Your Center

1. Is this permanent?

2. Do I need to fix this right away? Do I want to?

3. How big of a problem is this?

4. What will I do to fix this?

5. Is this a priority or just a distraction?

Once you ask yourself, “Is this permanent?” and you have an answer, you can start thinking about ways to solve the problem.

Physical stuff can be repaired or replaced, minor injuries will heal, and even money that you lose can be acquired in new ways.

One of the overarching goals of adventure is to become a person who can move beyond any minor situation in a few minutes or less.

So how big is your adversity really? And what can you do to fix it?

Once you're ready to address the problem, ask yourself, “Do I need to fix this right away? Do I want to? Is this a priority or just a distraction?”

Often, your best option is to ignore the problem and focus your energy on something completely different, something way more valuable and important.

You've regained your center. You've reclaimed your balance, and now you are back in control of yourself and your situation.

And that brings us to the second way of dealing with adversity. Alchemize the problem and turn it into an advantage. Here’s how you do it.

Alchemize Adversity

Sit down and brainstorm 10 ways that you can solve the problem that's in front of you.

There are probably one or two logical solutions that will immediately come to mind, but it’s important to think of at least ten.

This number is going to force you to think more deeply and come up with crazy, outlandish, ridiculous solutions to your problem. This process accomplishes two things.

First, it makes you more creative and gets your brain to come up with new ideas.

These new ideas might not be the best answer to the current situation, but they might lead to some new breakthrough or plan that helps make your life better and helps you serve others.

You’re turning a problem into an opportunity, or at the very least a chance to exercise your creative muscle.

Second, while you’re struggling to come up with more and more ideas, getting increasingly ridiculous as you go, you’ll start to become detached from the problem itself.

All the frustration and anger or fear or worry you are feeling starts to feel like it belongs to someone else.

This process puts you back in the frame of mind where you can deal with the problem or postpone it.

The Reframe

Another way to alchemize a setback is to reframe the problem. You do this by remembering who you are and why you had this setback to begin with. Let me explain what I mean.

One of my favorite books, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, has a scene where the hero, a young shepherd, has sold his entire flock in order to pursue a dream he had.

He takes a ship to Morocco, where he's almost immediately robbed. His entire life’s savings are gone.

Now he's alone, penniless, in a strange country where he doesn't know anybody or even know the language.

He's upset about this for maybe five minutes before he stops and thinks, “Wait, I'm an adventurer on a quest for gold. This is wonderful!”

He has reframed the situation, stopped being a victim, and is taking charge.

After he makes this important mental reframe, he almost immediately resolves the problems of food and shelter. Pretty soon he's back on track to fulfilling his quest and completing his adventure.

Once you've chosen to see yourself as a hero on an adventure, most issues become smaller, minor things you can deal with quickly and without too much emotion. Reframe and reclaim, and you’ll create an amazing life for yourself.

That wraps it up for this week.

If you’re enjoying these rants, lessons, and tools, I would love to hear from you.

If you’re not, I would like to hear from you even more.

Reply to this email and tell me what you think, what you’d like to see in the future, or just to drop me a line about your cat.

I don’t always have the time to reply to your message, but I read every one of them.

Jacob