“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
– Confucius (+ Rocky Balboa + a bunch of people in pop culture)
Introduction
This is your ultimate Sapiens Maximus guide on resilience.
It doesn’t matter what’s your background, who your parents are or which circumstances you find yourself in. One thing we all have in common is that sooner or later, we’re faced with tremendous difficulties. For many of us, adversity is the rule rather than the exception.
A key part of becoming a Sapiens Maximus – the best you could be – is your ability to deal with life’s challenges. To get to a point where you thrive not despite of your life’s obstacles, but because of them.
Being a Sapiens Maximus is about dealing with the brutality of life. It’s about strengthening your mind and your ability to endure. Holding your head up high regardless of what life throws at you.
Your ability to do so is tied to a fundamental life skill: being resilient.
In this guide, we provide you with 8 powerful yet actionable resilience tools. Absorb them. Put them into practice. This is how you supercharge your resilience & unlock the power to endure anything.
Content Breakdown
Resilience Tip #1: Understand that Suffering is Part of Life
In other words, the first step to becoming resilient is understanding that shit happens. In fact, bad shit happening is in many cases the rule rather than the exception.
Somewhere along the lines, our fake and perfectly curated society buried this undeniable fact under a ton of soft, self-deceiving garbage. One look at Instagram and you feel like you’re the only one who has any problems in this world. In most instances, all you can see is people “living the life” and being happy. Having a blast on their exotic vacations. Looking fit, smiling as the sun hits their interior designed living room where even the golden retriever seems to be living better than you. The staged, carefully designed social media BS is endless in its variations. And it’s proliferating like cancer.
At one point, we started buying into a dangerous narrative. One that says that pursuing a life that’s problem free is not only possible – but actively recommended. Every problem we encounter becomes a detour on our journey to the perfect (social media worthy) life.
Let me break it to you: you’re chasing an illusion. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. What you need to change is not so much your life but your attitude towards it.
You might lose your job. Fail your loved ones. Get sick. Loved ones might get sick. People die. It might be uncomfortable for you to hear, but instead of living in La La Land you should make peace with this raw, immutable truth. Importantly, you should prepare yourself for the storm – sooner or later, it’s going to come.
You might call it bad luck. Karma. God’s will. At Sapiens Maximus, we just call it life.
Resilience Tip #2: Focus On What’s In Your Control & Accept What’s Not
The great Stoic philosopher Epictetus puts it brilliantly: “The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own…”.
Homo Sapiens has intuitively understood the importance of this fundamental distinction throughout the ages. Another place you might have heard this is the Serenity Prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”
Your flight is delayed and you’re stranded at the airport. Your company goes bankrupt and you lose your job. Disease strikes you or a loved one. No amount of shouting, blaming others, blaming God or lamenting your luck could change that. All you’d be doing is wasting valuable time and energy – further exacerbating the situation.
What’s done is done. And you’re faced with a binary choice: you either allow the negativity to consume you or you decide to practically do what’s good for you. You either accept your victimhood – or push back against life’s attempt to bring you to your knees.
To have a fighting chance at being resilient, you have to entirely focus on what you control and make peace with what you don’t.
Resilience Tip #3: Find Meaning In Your Suffering
If you find meaning in what you’re going through, chances are you’ll be able to adapt and overcome whatever life throws at you. As Nietzsche puts it, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how”.
You might be saying that I don’t understand. That this is BS. You might be telling yourself that this might apply to others and their challenges, but that you’re in an special category of screwed. That there’s no meaning to be found in your challenges and suffering – only tragedy.
Viktor Frankl: A Masterclass in Resilience
Finding meaning is how Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor, psychiatrist and philosopher, clung to life during three long years of torture in concentration camps. He managed to do this when many of his companions slowly lost hope, gave up on life and gradually decayed in body, mind and spirit.
In Man’s Search For Meaning, Frankl describes how a number of concentration camp prisoners would refuse to get up in the morning. They’d reach for a cigarette they had stashed deep inside their pockets, and finally smoke it. Resigned to their fate. At that moment, their accelerated descent to death had started. They had lost all meaning, given-up on life, and within 48 hours they’d be gone.
Frankl and his companions endured hardships most of us can’t even comprehend. Being forcibly separated from one’s family, and loved ones dying in gas ovens. While Frankl was in captivity, he had to endure not only his own torture and inhumane treatment but also the thought of his family helplessly going through the same thing. Little did he know, but his father, mother, brother and wife would be killed during his time as a prisoner.
So how do you hold on to life in these extreme circumstances? How could you possibly be resilient in the face of such insurmountable adversity? We keep going back to the same fundamental point: you have to have meaning in your life and suffering. If you do, you’ll be able to endure. If you don’t, you’ll crumble.
Logotherapy
This is the essence of Frankl’s brainchild: logotherapy. It is widely perceived as the Third Viennese School of Thought, the two predecessors being the Freudian and Adlerian schools. Whereas Freud focused on pleasure and Adler on power, Frankl focused on meaning.
Frankl shares an illustrative story in Man’s Search For Meaning. At one point, an elderly gentleman came to his clinical practice with severe depression. His wife – and soulmate – had died. Faced with this tragedy, Frankl asked the man what would have happened if he had died before his wife. To which the man answered that his wife would have suffered gravely.
It’s fairly obvious where this is leading: the price the man had to pay to spare his wife the suffering was to go through it himself. When the elderly man realised this, he shook Frankl’s hand and calmly left the office.
As Frankl puts it: “In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.”
You might be going through substantial adversity RIGHT NOW. If not, adversity is never far off. What’s the meaning of this? Of your life? Deliberately & relentlessly pursue meaning. Once you find a strong why, you’ll be able to endure the how.
You’ll be able to embody Homo Sapiens’ ultimate act of defiance – that of turning tragedy into conquest.
Resilience Tip #4: Amor Fati – The Art of Turning Obstacles into Opportunities
Marcus Aurelius: A Philosopher King’s Take on Resilience
Marcus Aurelius is widely perceived as the embodiment of Plato’s philosopher king. Aurelius was a Roman emperor and during his era, he was arguably the most powerful man in the world.
Although he had no immediate constraints on his power, he led an exemplary life of virtue and service to others. It’s been often said that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. While these words generally ring true, Aurelius is one of the key historical exceptions.
While Aurelius was emperor, he didn’t lead a stress-free life. Instead, his life was one of tragedy and adversity. He was faced with constant wars, rebellions, and betrayals. During his reign, the Antonine Plague swept through the Roman Empire and claimed anywhere from 5 to 10 million people. Aurelius had to bury most of his children. He struggled with poor health himself. His problems were endless.
Dealing with insurmountable difficulties, Aurelius would turn to his personal diary where he would reflect on life and its challenges. His personal diary miraculously survived and became one of the most influential books ever written: Meditations.
“The Obstacle Is the Way”
In Meditations, Aurelius writes to himself one groundbreaking observation encapsulating thousands of years of ancient philosophy and wisdom: “The mind adapts and converts to its own purpose the obstacle to our acting. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
In other words, there are no obstacles – only opportunities. We could turn whatever life throws at us, no matter how depraved and tragic, into something positive. The only pre-requisite is having the right attitude.
In The Obstacle Is The Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials Into Triumph, Ryan Holiday shares dozens of stories of people who have applied this wisdom throughout history to thrive amidst adversity.
Thomas Edison & The 1914 Fire
One of these people is Thomas Edison – one of history’s greatest inventors. In 1914, a massive fire erupted at Edison’s laboratories. Given the ferocity of the chemical-fuelled flames, the buildings engulfed with fire were beyond salvaging.
At 67, Edison helplessly stood there with his son, watching some of his life’s most important work reduced to ashes. As the chemicals-fuelled fires raged, Edison calmly told his son: “Go get your mother and all her friends. They’ll never see a fire like this again.”
Edison could have wept, burst with anger, blamed God and/or succumbed to depression. Yet none of those things would have put out the flames or reinstated what’s been lost. None of these instinctive reactions would have helped the situation. Quite the opposite, they would have made it worse.
Instead, Edison chose to perceive this tragedy as an opportunity. It was a chance to shake things up and rebuild better than ever before. An opportunity to overcome complacency and boredom of old age. With a loan from Henry Ford, Edison immediately got to work. His laboratories would be soon up and running, generating a healthy revenue in the following year.
Are you Facing a Challenge? “Good”
Whatever you are going through – yes, whatever it is – you could get something positive out of it. Jocko does a great job illustrating this ancient wisdom in his short video – which you can find on YouTube here. We have also copied the video below for easy access.
It’s not merely about accepting the challenges in your life. It’s about loving your fate – loving anything and everything that life throws at you.
Amor Fati: this challenge is my chance to get better, to build my resilience and armour my mindset. No matter how dark the situation is, no matter how tragic, I’m going to emerge victorious and be better because of it. This is not an obstacle, it’s the best opportunity I’ve ever had to re-invent myself and transcend my self-imposed limitations.
Resilience Tip #5: Overcome Catastrophizing
Catastrophising is thinking, unjustifiably, that something is (or is going to be) much worse than it actually is. You might make a mistake at work, and start worrying about losing your job. Not only that, but you’re convinced that once you lose your job, you’ll never be able to find another one. You’ll fail to take care of yourself and you’ll end up bankrupt and homeless. Catastrophising is a supercharged version of fear and anxiety.
It’s difficult to be resilient when you lose touch with reality. If you are consistently convinced that the worst is going to happen, the fear becomes debilitating. Your ability to endure gradually withers away. Eventually, you crumble.
A key step to becoming resilient is recognising that things are rarely as bad as we think they are. As Seneca puts it, “We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more in imagination than in reality.” Dealing with things rationally and challenging our catasrophising tendencies with sensible counter-arguments (using pen and paper if needed) is essential.
Keeping things in perspective is inextricably linked to being more resilient in life.
Resilience Tip #6: Make Peace with the Worst Case Scenario
Although the worst-case scenario very rarely (if ever) materialises, it tends to be the main point of focus when times are challenging. This is closely connected with our catastrophising tendencies discussed in the previous section.
A powerful strategy is to visualise the worst-case scenario – regardless of how unlikely – and make your peace with it. It might be irrational for you to think that making a mistake is going to get you fired. However, what if this unlikely scenario happens? Consider your options. How would you survive such a situation?
You could start by polishing-up your CV. Saving more aggressively than usual so that you have a crisis fund. Getting in touch with family to ensure that worst comes to worst, you’ll be able to stay somewhere while you get your act together. Whatever comes, you’ll almost certainly be able to survive it.
Are Your Basic Needs Covered?
In the worst-case scenario, will you have some shelter? Will you have some food so that you don’t starve? This might not be ideal but it’s surely sufficient. If Frankl could survive Nazi concentration camps and endure incomprehensible suffering, surely you could wither your (highly unlikely) worst-case scenario.
By realising this, you can find strength. You no longer crumble when faced with challenges – you press ahead with the knowledge that the worst outcome is still manageable.
Paradoxically, being fine with the lowest lows could propel you to unprecedented highs. An interviewer asked David Tepper, a multi billionaire hedge fund manager, about the origins of his astounding confidence and resilience. Coming from a humble background, Tepper answered that he “was never afraid to go back to Pittsburgh and work in the steel mills.”
Resilience Tip #7: Focus on the Process
This is a difficult tactic to convey due to its simplicity, yet it is undoubtedly one of the most powerful. Part of the challenge is that you could tackle this from many different angles. Countless books have been written on the power of being present – from ancient religious and spiritual teachings to more modern ones on productivity.
Living in the Present: An Antidote to Feeling Overwhelmed
A key point is this: it’s difficult to be resilient if you have a tendency to feel overwhelmed. Homo Sapiens is uniquely gifted with higher cognitive abilities. This means that we’re continuously living in either the past or the future – very rarely paying attention to the present and the task at hand.
Being resilient is about breaking the cycle of reminiscing and/or torturing yourself for past mistakes. It’s also about getting rid of your anxious anticipation of what’s lurking around the corner.
To be resilient, you have to be able to trust the process. You exclusively focus on what’s immediately in front of you and you do the best freaking job you can at it.
If you suffer from a debilitating illness, you could be stuck in abstractly thinking about all the things that led to this. How life used to be. You could also obsess about the implications of this turn of events – the impact on your family and on your ability to do the things you’ve always wanted. Yet none of these things are productive. Once you take some time to craft a recovery plan, or one where you’re making the most of what’s available to you, it becomes a matter of execution.
From Big Picture Thinking To Micro-Execution
Make sure you take sufficient time for planning and big picture thinking. Once you do, it’s about (i) minimising the energy you spend on questioning if the ladder is against the right wall and (ii) maximising the energy you spend on climbing the ladder itself.
If you’re focused on the task at hand, dealing with difficulties becomes easier. It’s almost like you broke the tumultuous path ahead into small manageable chunks – and then proceeded to systematically knock off your to dos as you went along. When you look ahead, you don’t see a giant staircase. What you see instead are a thousand small steps.
Being resilient becomes easier when you tackle your challenges step by step.
Once you know you’re on the right track, momentarily forget about the big picture. Take comfort in the process. Lean on it. Do whatever is in front of you well and the rest will take care of itself. Before you know it, you develop the ability to navigate some of the most challenging times in your life.
Resilience Tip #8: Practice Endurance
Most things in life are easier said than done. The first step towards becoming your unstoppable, super resilient Sapiens Maximus self is understanding the tactics in this article. The second and crucial step is consistently applying them.
Having the whole knowledge in the world doesn’t mean anything if you don’t do anything with it. As we commonly say at Sapiens Maximus, it’s not knowledge that’s power but applied knowledge.
Resilience is a muscle. You need to test and challenge it so that it could improve.
This doesn’t merely apply to cognitive and emotional stressors however. It also very much applies to physical stressors. You don’t necessarily train for a marathon for the physical benefits. You could be doing it to toughen your mind just as much as your body. Separately, if you are interested in learning about exercise’s physiological, psychological and cognitive benefits, we recommend that you check out our ultimate guide here.
David Goggins & The 40% Rule
One person who embodies the symbiotic relationship between physical and mental toughness is David Goggins. Goggins is, to many, the toughest man on the planet. He’s a navy SEAL who has completed astounding physical feats – including running an ultra marathon with pneumonia.
Yet Goggins was not always quasi superhuman. Growing up, he was weak – both in mind and body. Gradually, he learnt to push himself harder. As he puts it, and as you have heard many times before, “It’s possible to transcend everything that doesn’t kill you.”
Goggins was the first to come up with the 40% rule. This basically says that when you think you’re mentally and physically drained, absolutely spent, you’re only at around 40% of your true capacity.
Whatever applies to the physical realm similarly applies to the cognitive and psychological realms.
You’re much stronger than you think – you just need to consistently and deliberately practice being resilient.
Bottom Line
If you absorb this article and put it into practice, with time, you’ll develop an unbreakable mindset. You’ll vex the dim sea. You’ll go through any shit life throws at you and emerge on the other side triumphant – one way or another.
To complement your endeavours towards becoming your super resilient self, we recommend that you also check out our following two articles: (i) the ultimate guide to managing anxiety and (ii) the ultimate guide on becoming happier. These articles ensure that you are supercharging your mental health / toughness more comprehensively.
As always, we wish you good luck on your journey to strength in adversity, calm amidst the storms, relentless resilience and uncompromising health.
Your self-proclaimed family,
The Sapiens Maximus team
Sources & Further Readings
Discourses and Selected Writings – Epictetus
The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph – Ryan Holiday
Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds – David Goggins