Issue #22
#22 - On resilience: learning, awareness -- and mud pits?
June 17, 2022

#1

#Resilience #LearnableTrait #HealthyGrowth

This nugget sets an important baseline: decades of research show that resilience is something that can be taught, and learned.

What's more, Greg Bonnano, a clinical psychologist at Columbia, explains that the way we perceive an event or experience -- as either a chance to learn and grow, or a trauma -- is a crucial determinant of whether or not that experience will foster resilience.

#2

#Resilience #AwarenessOfDiscomfort

The first insight posits that our perception of an experience as growth-inducing is a key aspect of what makes it resilient. Here in our second 👆🏻, we layer in an element of awareness. This study from researchers at Cornell, Kaitlin Woolley and Ayelet Fishback, found that when participants in activities like writing, comedy and research understand that feeling discomfort is a goal -- they're more persistent, and increase their capacity to recover quickly from a hard task.


#3

#Resilience #KeepGoing

Jack Butcher's gift is to be able to compress complex ideas into tidy, well-designed visuals.

Here, he visualizes the grind of an umpteenth rep -- and how often it's the rep we perform just before we realize growth and progress.

So to tie it all together -- this is how I'll lay it out for the kids, ahead of their camp:

  • You'll be doing something that makes you uncomfortable -- this is a good thing.
  • Discomfort itself is the goal. Know that, even before you embark on the challenge.
  • And so long this challenge is something you perceive as an opportunity to learn and grow: make sure to keep going.

🙌🏻

Work moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
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