How Resilient Are You?
My thirty years of self-funded research to understand highly resilient survivors once got me a free lunch. The invitation came from Carol Angel, a certified public accountant (CPA) who specialized in small businesses. Carol said she had attended a leadership workshop I conducted for her state CPA society a few years before on the nature of life's best survivors. “This lunch is my way of thanking you,” she said, “for making my business so successful.”
“Thank you,” I said, “but how did I do that?”
She explained. “After hearing you speak I decided I would only accept clients who matched your description of the survivor personality. Whenever someone with a small business asks me to become their accountant, I tell them I want to become acquainted with them first. Mixed in with many questions about their business and business experience, I ask questions from your list. I accept as clients only the ones who match your description—about one out of three.”
Smiling broadly, she said, “You probably know that the survival rate for people starting small businesses is low. But most of my clients succeed. I don't have the same problems that most CPAs do with clients going through bankruptcy, owing back taxes, missing payrolls, having liens against their assets, and being hounded by collection agencies. Thank you very, very much!”
I thanked her, and then pointed out that she was showing many of the traits found in resilient survivors. She related to resiliency qualities in her clients because she had them herself.
Resiliency-psychology research has identified why some people are more resilient than others. The self-assessment that follows covers the key abilities, attitudes, and attributes found in highly resilient people. It will help you identify areas where you are strong and areas that need to be strengthened. It can also serve as a way to identify highly resilient people when that is important to you.
Resiliency Quiz
Rate yourself on the following items:
(1 = very little, 5 = very strong)
In a crisis or chaotic situation, I calm myself and focus on taking useful actions.
In a crisis or chaotic situation, I calm myself and focus on taking useful actions.
I'm usually optimistic. I see difficulties as temporary, expect to overcome them, and believe things will turn out well.
I can tolerate high levels of uncertainty and ambiguity.
I adapt quickly to new developments. I'm good at bouncing back from difficulties.
I'm playful. I find the humor in rough situations, laugh at myself, and am easily amused.
I'm able to recover emotionally from losses and setbacks. I have friends I can talk with. I can express my feelings to others and can ask for help.
I feel self-confident, appreciate myself, and have a healthy concept of who I am.
I'm curious. I ask questions. I want to know how things work. I like to try new ways of doing things.
I learn valuable lessons from my experiences and from the experiences of others.
I'm good at solving problems. I can think in analytical, creative, or practical ways.
I'm good at making things work well. I'm often asked to lead groups and projects.
I'm very flexible. I feel comfortable with my paradoxical complexity. I'm optimistic and pessimistic, trusting and cautious, unselfish and selfish, and so forth.
I'm always myself, but I've noticed that I'm different with different people and in different situations.
I prefer to work without a written job description. I'm more effective when I'm free to do what I think is best in each situation.
I “read” people well and trust my intuition.
I'm a good listener, I have good empathy skills.
I'm nonjudgmental about others and am comfortable with many kinds of people.
I'm very durable. I hold up well during tough times. I have an independent spirit underneath my cooperative way of working with others.
I've been made stronger and better by difficult experiences.
I've converted misfortune into good luck and found benefits in bad experiences.
Total points: __________
Scoring:
Low score: A self-rating score under 50 indicates that life is a probably a struggle for you and you know it. You may not handle pressure well. You don't learn anything useful from bad experiences. You feel hurt when people criticize you. You may sometimes feel helpless and without hope.
If these statements fit you, ask yourself, “Would I like to learn how to handle my difficulties better?” If your answer is yes, then a good way to start is to meet with others who are working to develop their resiliency skills. Let them coach, encourage, and guide you. Another way, if you work for a large employer, is to get resiliency coaching from a counselor with the Employee Assistance Program. The fact that you feel motivated to be more resilient is a positive sign.
High score: If you rated yourself high on most of these statements, you have a score over 90. This means you know you're already very good at bouncing back from life's setbacks. For you, this book will validate many things you are doing right. And, because you like learning new ways to be even better, it will show you how to take your already good skills to a very high level—something like reaching an advanced-degree black-belt level in the martial arts.
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A question for you to consider is how much you feel willing to tell your story to others and make yourself available to people who are trying to cope with adversities. People learn from real-life role models. You could be one.
Middle scores: If you agreed with many of the statements and scored in the 70–89 range, then that is very good! It means you will gain a lot from this book and will become even more self-confident and resilient than before. You will become better and better at bouncing back from adversities.
If you scored in the 50–69 range, you appear to be fairly adequate, but you may be underrating yourself. A much larger percentage of people underrate themselves than overrate themselves on the assessment. Some people have a habit of being modest and automatically give themselves a 3 on every item for a total score of 60. If your score is in the 50–69 range, we need to find out how valid your self-rating is.
One validity check is to ask two people who know you well to rate you on the items and see what scores they come up with. Have a discussion with them about of each of the items where there is a discrepancy and listen to what they say. If they rate you higher, this may indicate that you had a “good child” upbringing that is keeping you from being as resilient as you could be.
A second way of checking the validity of your self-rating is to answer these bonus point questions:
Has your sense of humor ever gotten you into trouble?
Has asking questions ever gotten you into trouble?
Has being unpredictable or too complex ever puzzled or bothered others?
Has your effort to anticipate problems ever had someone accuse you of having a negative attitude?
Are you such a good listener your ability to understand both sides of a conflict has confused others?
Give yourself a point for every yes to the bonus point questions above, plus an additional bonus point for the item in the quiz regarding self-confidence and self-esteem. These extra questions help show that you may not see the connection between some of what you do and resiliency. The chapters and activities ahead will reveal more resiliency abilities in you than you ever thought were possible. The next chapter shows how adversity brought out strengths in people who didn't know how resilient they could be.
