Resilience vs. Happiness: Striking a Balance for a Fulfilling Life
The teen years can be challenging for anyone, specifically for young men who have experienced trauma or deal with mental health challenges. To cope, they may turn to unhealthy escapes like alcohol, drugs, excessive gaming, social media, or pornography. Unfortunately, these habits can hold them back from reaching their full potential and developing the skills needed to thrive in the real world.
If your son is facing these difficulties, how can he learn how to cope with the changes that come in life? Resilience is essential. Developing this trait is the key to decision-making skills and being able to bounce back from challenging situations. We’ll look at the link between resilience and happiness and the steps your teen can take to build more resilience.
What is resilience?
The American Psychology Association (APA) defines resilience as “the process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional, and behavioral flexibility and adjustment to external and internal demands.” Just as life continues to present new challenges, resiliency should continue to evolve and help you thrive in different situations as you get older.
For young men, laying a foundation of resiliency early on can help maximize their potential and keep them from turning to unhealthy coping mechanisms. This foundation gives them the tools they need to better handle life’s demands. Instead of shutting down during hard situations, they will be able to succeed even amidst academic pressures, peer relationships, and future career challenges.
Building Up the Next Generation at The Carpenter Shed
At The Carpenter Shed, we believe that resiliency is best developed in a community environment. Through group therapy and team-building activities, our program allows your son to develop a framework for successfully navigating challenges in life. We also provide individualized therapy services to help your son address traumas from the past and move forward in a healthy way.
Learn more about how we help young men find purpose and transform their lives.
Types of Resilience
Before we jump into how to build resilience, it can be helpful to understand more about the different kinds. Resilience can be broken up into four different types:
Psychological resilience: This type is often referred to as “mental fortitude” or “mental toughness.” People demonstrate this when they’re able to stay calm in a crisis without experiencing long-term signs of distress.
Emotional resilience: Being able to identify your emotions and understand why you are feeling the way you are is the cornerstone of emotional resilience. It’s also important to be able to channel these emotions into healthy methods of expression.
Physical resilience: This refers to your physical ability to react to challenges with stamina and strength. Exercising and making healthy lifestyle choices can help to improve physical resilience.
Community resilience: As opposed to individual resilience characteristics, this type is demonstrated when a group comes together and recovers from a tough situation, like a natural disaster or a tragedy.
Factors That Help Build Inner Strength
If your son is struggling to adjust to life’s changes or dealing with past traumas, resilience can be the key to helping him move forward. The APA identifies three key factors that affect personal resilience:
● How you view and engage with the world
● The quality and availability of social resources
● Your specific strategies used for coping
Is Resilience the Key to Overcoming Adversity?
While none of us know what challenge we’ll face in the future, we do know that they will come. Resilience is the way to help make sure your son is equipped to face what life brings him. Instead of shutting down and resorting to bad habits, resilience is the key to thriving in tough situations.
Even more, resilience and mental health are closely intertwined. Having more grit throughout life can protect you from developing conditions like anxiety and depression. It can also help you get through situations that may endanger your mental health, like bullying or trauma.
Five Tips for Building a Resilient Life
Thankfully, resilience is not a fixed trait somebody has or doesn’t have. It’s something that can be developed over time. We’ll take a look at how your son can build up his resilience in a way that will serve him for the rest of his life.
Focus on Interpersonal Relationships
A feeling of social belonging can help your son get the support he needs during the good times and bad in life. It can come in many forms – family, church, sports, or clubs. Make sure your son is plugged in with a group he can relate to and enjoys being around.
At The Carpenter Shed, we take a community-minded approach, giving young men the opportunity to build authentic relationships with those who are going through similar challenges. Sharing life experiences and having positive social influences can help young men build confidence and the resilience needed to persevere when life gets hard.
Take Ownership Amidst Life Challenges
Another key to living resiliently is understanding the power you have to change your outlook, as opposed to getting stuck in a victim mindset. While we can’t always control our circumstances, we can control how we react to adversity.
We teach young men to take ownership of their actions, even when the circumstances are less than favorable. Using approaches like experiential therapy, we help young men develop skills to cope with challenges in real-time through group challenges, physical fitness, and hands-on life skills.
Develop a Routine
Part of taking ownership of your life is taking ownership of your day-to-day routine. This will help you keep track of your progress but also keep your priorities in check. Work with your son to develop a daily routine and hold him accountable to the plan he’s mapped out. Don’t forget to carve out time for fun activities and leisure too.
Know When To Take a Break
Building resilience is hard work. Make sure your son has a “safe place” to rest and recharge – this is an important part of dealing with life’s stressors. It’s also important to take a break from the screens and find some stress-relieving activities to take a break from a hard situation.
Find a Creative Outlet for Managing Emotions
It can be hard dealing with the different emotions that come with life. Helping your son find an outlet to express himself can be a good way for him to clear his head and make sense of what he’s feeling. This could be anything from painting, playing music, or journaling.
The Link Between Resilience and Happiness
Avoiding conflict and challenges doesn’t guarantee happiness. Rather, it’s the way you learn to cope with the troubles in life that increases life satisfaction and positive feelings. If your son is dealing with feelings of unhappiness, like resilience, this is something you can actively work towards.
Happiness Habits
As you help your son proactively build his resilience, you can also establish “happiness habits.” These habits can center around finding healthy (and fun) methods of self-expression and making time for what truly brings your son joy. Here are some habits to put into practice:
Spend time outside every day. It can be easy to get sucked into technology and stay indoors, but studies show that spending time in nature can enhance mental health and even improve cognition.
Make a list of fun activities. Work with your son to pinpoint activities he used to do that bring him joy. Try those activities again (or even try something new) just for the sake of bringing enjoyment.
Identify happiness triggers. Just as you may have circumstances that trigger negative emotions, help your son make a list of what triggers happiness. Use those ideas as a guide to plan for moments of happiness each day.
The Carpenter Shed: Helping Young Men Find Life Fulfillment
For young men who are struggling to find their purpose, it can be hard to know where to turn to start building resilience. Our transitional program is designed for young men who are struggling with mental health and substance use challenges and lacking direction in their lives. We provide a highly structured and community-based program that helps develop them into purpose-driven men.
Our program gives young men the foundation for building resilience and finding fulfillment that will serve them for the rest of their lives. To learn more about how we help young men find purpose, schedule a call here.
