Resilience is our ability to adapt and bounce back when things don’t go as planned. Resilient people don’t wallow or dwell on failures; they acknowledge the situation, learn from their mistakes and then move forward. According to University of Chicago psychologist Susan Kobasa, there are three essential elements to resilience:

Challenge: Resilient people view a difficulty as a challenge, not a paralysing event. They look at their failures and mistakes as lessons to be learned from and opportunities for growth. They don’t view them as negative reflections on their abilities or self-worth.

Commitment: Resilient people are committed to their profession, job, life and goals, and they have a compelling reason to get out of bed in the morning. Commitment isn’t restricted to their work. They commit to relationships, friendships, religious or spiritual beliefs and the causes they care about.

Personal control: Resilient people spend time and energy focusing on situations and events they have control over. Because they put their efforts where they can have the most impact, they feel empowered and confident. Those who spend time worrying about uncontrollable events often feel lost, helpless and powerless to take action.

American psychologist Martin Seligman says the way we explain setbacks to ourselves is also important. (He talks in terms of optimism and pessimism rather than resilience, but the effect is essentially the same.) This “explanatory style” is made up of three main elements:

• Permanence: People who are optimistic (and therefore have more resilience) see the effects of bad events as temporary rather than permanent. For instance, they might say: “My boss didn’t like the work I did on that project,” rather than: “My boss never likes my work.” This tendency to extrapolate, or to give a universal generalisation, can be damaging to personal resilience.

• Pervasiveness – Resilient people don’t let setbacks or bad events affect other unrelated areas of their lives. 

• Perspective – People who have resilience don’t overact, create a drama or blame themselves when bad events occur. Instead, they keep things in perspective.

Dr Cal Crow, co-founder and programme director of the Center for Learning Connections in Washington, USA, identified several further attributes of resilient people: 

• Resilient people have a positive image of the future. That is, they maintain a positive outlook, and envisage brighter days ahead

• Resilient people have solid goals and a desire to achieve those goals 

• Resilient people are empathetic and compassionate, but they don’t waste time worrying what others think of them. They maintain healthy relationships, but don’t bow to peer pressure

• Resilient people never think of themselves as victims – they focus their time and energy on changing the things that they have control over.

How we view adversity and stress strongly affects how we succeed, and this is one of the most important reasons why having a resilient mindset is so vital.