1. RESILIENCE Materials needed this session:
Resilience Self Assessment and Article
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Handout
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RESILIENCE

2. Resilience
SAY:
In earlier sessions about change, we’ve learned about ourselves during times of change. Let’s now talk about the cumulative effects of change, and how we can better prepare ourselves for changing times. We’ll focus on resilience today.
ASK: What is resilience?
[Pause for responses.]
You can think of resilience as bouncing back, like the character “Tigger” on Winnie the Pooh.
Resilience can help us to recover from life’s unexpected circumstances and allows us to forge ahead successfully. It’s not a trait people have or don’t have. It involves behaviors, thoughts and actions. It can be learned and developed in anyone.
ASK:
Has anyone been to Ireland and the Burren?
The Burren is an area on the western edge of the country. It looks very rocky and desolate, but winds come from the Atlantic Ocean, carrying seeds from all over the world. Some seeds fall in the cracks of the rock and flower. Even in the midst of not so nourishing soil, these plants live and thrive. That’s resilience.

3. Characteristics of Resilient People
Self-Assurance
Personal Vision
Flexible and Adaptable
Organized
Problem Solver
Interpersonal Competence
Socially Connected
Proactive
[This slide is animated.]
SAY:
Think about someone you know who you consider to be very resilient.
ASK:
What makes them special? What do they do, that you can say they are resilient?
[Pause for responses...]
[Then add in from the list on the slide.]
Characteristics of Resilient People
Self-Assurance. This involves a high level of self-confidence and a belief that one can meet any challenge with hope and realistic optimism. Self-assurance also includes the understanding that, while the world is complex and challenging, one has the ability to find the opportunity and to succeed despite these challenges.
Personal Vision. Resilient people know what they believe in and have a clear idea of what they want to accomplish or create in their lives. With a larger life purpose pulling them forward, resilient people approach adversity and stress with a sense of opportunity and hope.
Flexible and Adaptable. The most resilient people are those who are keenly aware of and sensitive to the changes occurring in the world around them. With the help of this awareness, they are able to shift gears and direction if necessary to accommodate the new reality while remaining true to their life purpose/vision. Resilient people adapt to the environment as both a survival mechanism and also as a vehicle for enabling them to continue the pursuit of their personal goals.
Organized. In the face of chaos and uncertainty, resilient people find ways to create a level of order and structure that provides them the focus and stability they need. This can involve setting short-term goals, thinking through the situation before taking action, putting together “to-do” lists, and so forth.
Problem Solver. Resilient people have the ability to analyze problems, discover the root causes, and create lasting solutions. They are also effective at seeing the relationship of a problem to other problems within a larger system or network of deeply interdependent issues. This awareness of the bigger picture enables them to recognize the limits of their own influence and to expect (and not be blindsided by) the unexpected.
Interpersonal Competence. A key dimension of resilience is an individual’s ability to understand and empathize with others. Resilient people demonstrate the competencies of emotional intelligence: a high level of self-awareness and social awareness and the ability to use this awareness to effectively manage themselves and their relationships with others (see Golman, 1997).
Socially Connected. Closely related to interpersonal competence, this resilience dimension involves the quality of a person’s personal and professional network of relationships. Resilient people tend to have a strong relationship network within which they share ideas, problems, solutions, frustrations, hopes, and so forth. In the face of adversity and stress, resilient people call on this network for support, affirmation, and problem solving.
Proactive. Resilient people, rather than simply reacting to a change, actively engage it. They tend to have an internal locus of control (Rotter, 1966) where they believe that they have the capacity and the responsibility to determine their own destiny, versus feeling powerless in a given situation. Resilient people, as a result, focus on expanding their influence over a change through assertive behaviors and actions. This proactivity enables them to preserve their self-efficacy in the face of any change—even a traumatic one. Viktor Frankl’s moving testament of life in the Auschwitz Nazi concentration camp speaks to the power of being proactive in the face of adversity (see Frankl, 1963).

4. Resilience Self Assessment
This will take ~10 minutes. Read each statement carefully. Check the box that best reflects your level of agreement with the statement. Transfer your answers to the scoring worksheet. On the scoring worksheet, add the numbers in each row to calculate the score for each dimension and enter it in the right-hand column. Add the total, and read the interpretations.
[Handout the Resilience Self Assessment.]
SAY:
Between now and our next meeting, I’d like you to complete a self assessment about resilience. This is a tool for you, not for anyone else. It helps for you to see factors that you’re doing quite well with resilience – and perhaps areas that you might need support in. You won’t have to turn this in, but bring it back with you to our next meeting. It will take you about 10 minutes to complete.
[Use the animated list on the slide.]
Look at the self assessment. Here are the instructions.
Read each statement carefully.
Check the box that best reflects your level of agreement with the statement.
Transfer your answers to the scoring worksheet.
On the scoring worksheet, add the numbers in each row to calculate the score for each dimension and enter it in the right-hand column.
Add the total

5. Are you more or less resilient than you thought?
Partner up with someone for 5 minutes, and share what stood out for you from the assessment.
Are you more or less resilient than you thought?
What might you do differently to be more resilient?
SAY:
From those self assessments and the interpretation of scores, I’d like you to partner up with one other person and go through the following questions:
Are you more or less resilient that you thought?
What are the things that you might do differently to be more resilient?
[Allow for 5 minutes to partner up and paired shares.]
ASK:
In the large group, now, would anyone be willing to share what they learned about their own resilience?
[Pause for 1 person to share…]
Thanks for sharing. We’ll keep those characteristics of resilient people in mind as we explore how to support each other in being more resilient.

6. Recap [Note: this slide is animated.] ASK:
What stands out for you from what we covered today?
[Pause for responses.]
SAY:
This section was to explore resilience. Hopefully this will be helpful as changes impact us cumulatively over time.