Background

Resilience encourages using positive-coping skills to manage stress in an optimal way. Our objectives are to develop social support systems, positive-coping skills for resilience, self-esteem, self-efficacy (believing you are capable of reaching a goal), and problem solving skills. An entirely educational approach is used for learning resilience using the theme of the "Hero's Journey." Common to many epic stories is the hero who, facing a challenge, goes on an adventure, is victorious, and returns as a transformed person. You are the hero in this journey.

Read the following Why/How/Example Flashcard. Work on answering the questions in the Tell your story, Collaborate, and Own It exercises. Writing your responses will help you to better organize your thinking. You are most strongly encouraged to do the Collaborate exercise with another person so that you become aware of how to work with people within a social support system, people who can work with you on real life challenges. Refer to the workbook for a more in depth look at this skill and its exercises. For more background information on Persistence. More »

Persistence Flashcard

Persistence is facing a challenge believing you will succeed.

• Why: Persistence encourages you to make change, mark your progress, and build belief that you can reach your goal.

• How: Create a realistic goal and the steps needed to reach the goal so that when all of the steps are completed, you have attained your goal.
• Consider your challenge and realize the importance of believing you can meet the challenge.
• Creating a goal is a way to build the belief you can meet the challenge. The goal must be reachable within a realistic time limit. What is your goal?
• A goal without a plan is only a wish. The steps describe the actions that are needed to reach your goal. Create as many steps as needed so that you can see the progress you are making. What are the steps? You persist by building belief in yourself.
• Remember to reward yourself as you persist.

• Example: I have a project to do and need a plan to complete it on time.
• My challenge is to complete a project.
• My goal is to “Create a Project Time Plan.”
• I break the major parts of the project into smaller steps to better identify the tasks and how much time is needed to complete each part.
• I assign a due date to each project part.
• I make sure that there are enough steps so that I can see the progress I am making.
• monitor progress, check-off completed steps, and remember to reward myself as progress is made.

Hero's Journey

• Tell your story

  Think about a time when you used something like Persistence to successfully deal with a challenge. Answer the following questions. 1) What was your challenge? 2) What was your goal? 3) What were the steps needed to reach your goal? 4) What made the goal reachable?

• Collaborate

  Work with a companion and consider a real challenge you, your companion or someone you know is currently facing by applying the Persistence skill. Answer the following questions. 1) What is your challenge? 2) What abilities or qualities does your companion have that can help with the challenge? 3) What is your goal? 4) What are the steps needed to reach your goal? 5) What makes the goal reachable?

• Own it

  Reflect upon the Persistence skill and describe the skill in a few of your own words. You are adapting the meaning of the skill to be more useable and memorable.