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Building resilience

Key facts

  • Resilience is the ability to bounce back from life's challenges.
  • While some difficult situations can't be avoided, resilience can help you work through them.
  • You can build resilience by always practicing healthy coping strategies to manage your stress and anxiety.
  • You can also build resilience by maintaining healthy relationships, seeking support from people you trust, and working on your self-esteem.

What is resilience?

It's not always possible to prevent stressful situations or setbacks. A series of challenges, or a traumatic situation, can be hard to deal with.

However, you can increase your capacity to deal with these challenges by engaging in healthy coping habits regularly. Resilience is the ability to cope with unexpected changes and challenges in your life.

Building resilience can help you to face difficult situations and maintain good mental wellbeing. If you know you can cope with stress, you can gain the confidence to overcome tough situations.

What are helpful coping strategies?

If you need to talk to someone about your mental health, call Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636.

Coping strategies (Opens in new tab) can help manage stress and anxiety levels and maintain a sense of control in your life. They can build your resilience and help you:

  • focus on building healthy relationships
  • practice problem solving skills
  • Reality checking your thoughts more easily
  • ask for help when you need it

There are many ways of coping with stress, and everyone is different — it's about finding what works for you. Anything that does not harm your health and wellbeing is worth a try, such as:

  • exercise or meditation
  • breaking a challenge down into small, achievable goals
  • spending time in nature
  • connecting with loved ones
  • play
  • eating good food

You can try different, healthy ways of expressing your feelings. This might include:

  • keeping a journal
  • writing music
  • creating artwork
  • dancing or singing

Practice being kind to yourself — this can help build your self-esteem and help you gain confidence. Be sure to:

  • take time to relax
  • do things that make you happy
  • celebrate goals when you achieve them
  • recognise your strengths and remind yourself of them

Avoid harmful coping mechanisms, like:

  • isolating from family and friends
  • drug use
  • alcohol

How can I strengthen my resilience?

To build your resilience, you can work on understanding and strengthening certain thought patterns.

  • Being passionate and focus on your goals, even though achieving them may not be easy.
  • Practice the 80:20 rule. Try to spend 80% of your time working towards your goals (e.g. moving your body, eating well, focusing on study or work). It's OK to not work towards your goals about 20% of the time (e.g. eating chocolate, or spending a day procrastinating).
  • Recognising that you can't always change your situation, but you can change how you view it.
  • Reminding yourself that you are not alone, and that you are worthy of care and support.
  • Practicing gratitude — acknowledging things that you are grateful for.

Healthy coping mechanisms can help you practice these helpful thought patterns. Practice can help these thoughts come to you more easily when you feel overwhelmed.

It can also help to recognise your triggers — try writing down things you find difficult. When you notice these things, try out a healthy coping strategy. This can help you overcome difficult situations.

Resources and support

If you need help, talking to your doctor is a good place to start. If you'd like to find out more or talk to someone else, here are some organisations that can help:

For advice and to get connected to local mental health services, call Medicare Mental Health (Opens in new tab) on 1800 595 212. Check the operating times.

For more information on coping strategies and building resilience, you can:

You can also call the healthdirect helpline on 1800 022 222 (known as NURSE-ON-CALL in Victoria). A registered nurse is available to speak with 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Last reviewed: October 2024

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