Success Skills: Resilience

* Insight - being able to ask ourselves the tough questions and giving honest answers.

* Independence - being able to distance ourselves emotionally and physically from the sources of trouble in our life.

* Relationships - making fulfilling connections to other people and building support networks.

* Initiative - taking charge of problems -- seing them as challenges not brickwalls.

* Creativity - being able to use our imagination and to express ourselves.

* Humor - finding the comic in the tragic, being able to relax and lighten up.

* Morality - acting on the basis of an our informed conscience; having a framework of belief.

AND Emotional Intelligence
It is often suggested that the key to leadership is high emotional intelligence -- self-awareness, self-discipline, empathy and the ability to form strong relationships.

Resilience to Stress

September 23, 2005, Dennis Charney, MD, Dean of Research at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, presented the results of his studies: "The Psychobiology of Resilience to Extreme Stress."
Dr. Charney identified 10 critical psychological elements and characteristics of resilience, including:

1. Optimism. Those who are extremely optimistic tend to show greater resilience, which has implications for cognitive therapies that enhance a patient's positive view of his or her options, thereby increasing optimism;

2. Altruism. Those who were resilient often found that helping others was one way to handle extreme stress, which can also be used therapeutically
as a recovery tool;

3. Having a moral compass or set of beliefs that cannot be shattered;

4. Faith and spirituality. For some test subjectss, prayer was a daily ritual, although others were not at all involved or interested in religion;

5. Humor;

6. Having a role model. Many people with role models draw strength from this; for treatment, using a role model, role modeling, or helping someone discover a role model can be beneficial;

7. Social supports. Having contact with others who can be trusted, either family or friend, with whom one can share most difficult thoughts was
important in recovery;

8. Facing fear (or leaving one's comfort zone);

9. Having a mission or meaning in life; and

10. Training. One can train to become a resilient person or to develop resilience by experience in meeting and overcoming challenges.