RESILIENCE!

By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

If you watched Rory McIlroy win the Masters a couple of weeks ago, you might not have experienced such a roller coaster of emotions since the last time you watched the stock market. Rory not only produced a comeback for the ages but was the very definition of resilience. The Masters win, and the accompanying green jacket, had eluded McIlroy his entire career. It was the only major championship that he hadn’t won, and at almost 36 years old, he was beginning to lose hope that he would ever achieve the “career grand slam” of winning all four majors. But he didn’t give up, he practiced, he focused and as they say in the golf world, he kept “grinding”. And on that glorious Sunday evening when he sank the winning putt, all of his efforts and perseverance paid off. You could see the weight of the world, and the world’s expectations, lift from his shoulders. When he spoke to the crowd after receiving the green jacket, he addressed his daughter and said, “The one thing I would say to my daughter, Poppy, who’s sitting over there: never give up on your dreams. Never, ever give up on your dreams. Keep coming back, keep working hard, and if you put your mind to it, you can do anything.” In other words – be resilient.

Two days prior to watching Rory’s win, I attended an ASU OLLI lecture titled, “Finding Your Resilience”. It was taught by a professor who works at the Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions. Over 60% of the students in that college are “first gens” – kids who are the first in their family to attend college. Many of them also come from disadvantaged backgrounds and the foster care system. And yet, a great many of them not only get their degrees, but they thrive. To find out why some people overcome hardship and others don’t, the professor conducted a study of hundreds of people and found ten traits necessary to cultivate resilience. They are:

Social Support – having a good network of family and friends

Boundry Setting – the ability to disengage from unhealthy influences

Insight and Empathy – being able to understand your own adversity and understand the problems others have faced

Commitment – setting a goal and sticking with it

Creativity and Flexibility – finding multiple solutions to problems and being willing to adapt to changing circumstances

Initiative and Self-efficacy – the willingness to act and to believe that you are capable

Communication – being able to communicate both verbally and non-verbally

Humor – the ability to remain lighthearted, even in the face of adversity

Morality and Spirituality – having a belief system that provides direction

Appraisal – finding meaning in the struggles we face

Not everyone hits all ten factors, or at least they don’t hit them all at the same time, but to varying degrees, these qualities exist in people who are able to overcome whatever negative circumstances they face.

Elizabeth Edwards, the late wife of that scoundrel John Edwards, faced what some might consider more than her fair share of adversity – cancer and a husband who publicly humiliated her. When her cancer recurred, rather that wallow in her fatal diagnosis, she said the following: “Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it’s less good than the one you had before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you’ve lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something that’s good.”

Winning the Masters was a study in resilience for Rory, but whether he won or not, his life would remain magnificent on many levels. That is not the case for many people, who face adversity and possibly dire consequences from their situation. Which is why, when we can, we should lend a hand or an ear, to someone who is trying their hardest to grind it out and be resilient.