Resilience is a skill that can be learned. And I was watching a
creator the other day who totally embodies it: Laura Kampf. Like,
she's such a great example of resilience. Oh hi, everybody, and welcome to my bathroom.
So when it comes to being more resilient, a lot of people probably think that being more
resilient means just try harder or suck it up or get over it. Right? They think that the way to be
more resilient, the the way to overcome obstacles is to just force yourself to be motivated and to
keep going even if things aren't working. And while grit is a great characteristic,
just forcing it can't be your only tool. If you really want to be more resilient
you've got to have a toolbox of skills to rely upon when it all hits the fan. So in
this video you'll learn six ways to be more resilient. And I'm gonna give you lots of
examples of how to be resilient from Laura's channel. So let's get better at feeling.
Back to resilience. Resilience means to bounce back. So for example, rubber is resilient.
Resilience means just getting back up one time more than getting knocked down. Now,
I think some people think that mental strength comes from just being super tough,
from being super strong, but I would disagree. Ice is strong, but it's not resilient.
Resilience is this combination of toughness and flexibility, like like a trampoline, right? The
nylon on a trampoline actually doesn't move or stretch. It's very strong and very, you know,
unstretchy, but the springs are stretchy. So it's this combination of strength and flexibility that
makes a trampoline resilient. Okay. Resilience is not just the same thing as trying over and
over again. It's not just trying harder. It's not just willpower. It's trying something differently.
So that's the first trait of resilient people. It's a it's a belief that everything is
figure-outable. It's a growth mindset. It's an attitude that if I don't have the skills now I
can learn them, that if I come across a problem that I don't know how to solve I will learn the
skills to solve that problem. Now, in her latest series Laura is trying to renovate a house,
a really old house, and they keep coming across all of these big problems that they
did not expect. Hi, everybody, and welcome to my house. My house full of surprise.
This house is a really old house with water-damaged walls and all sorts of
unexpected problems, and Laura is not a contractor. She's never renovated a
house before. She's a maker and she's a designer. That's bad. I think that's bad.
I still love the house. I still think it's worth rescuing it. And she thought the house was pretty
solid before they started the renovation. So as she starts coming across problems
that are much bigger than her ability to solve, at first she feels overwhelmed and discouraged,
but then she uses her resilient mindset, and she says, "We'll figure this out."
This is good. Like, I learned how this house works, and we will be able to fix this.
Resilient people see every problem they face as an opportunity to learn a new skill and improve
themselves. I mean, I heard so much comments about last week's video where I talked about the water
damage. I'm so surprised, like, oh yeah, this is bad. I didn't even notice. It is worse than
I thought. But I don't mind it because I know I can fix it and I know that I learned from it.
It's all good. Almost every time they come across a new, difficult, expensive problem
with the house - like, for example, finding out that there's electrical wiring behind the
shower or that there's mold or asbestos or a beam is rotting - Laura is a great example of
resilience. She says, "Well, it's good we learned about this problem because now we can fix it."
Now, because she has a growth mindset, every time Laura comes across a new problem she researches
it, she finds out the names for things, and she explores what the solution is.
I don't know what to know. How would you Google this?
I saw an end. Should I tear out my ceiling? Now, I saw this recently with one of my clients. I
mentioned to her that the process she was going through of learning to be kinder with herself
could be called re-parenting. And as soon as she had a word for it, she started listening to
podcasts and reading articles on that topic. And that helped her make a ton of progress,
both in her parenting and in herself. So resilient people, when they come across a problem in their
relationships or in their emotions or in their mental health, they ask. And they ask other
people, you know, "What skill am I missing? What can I learn to resolve this?" And so
that leads us to the second trait of resilient people: they don't try to do everything alone.
They don't pretend to be self-sufficient. They build a team. They reach out for support. They
ask for help. Now, this may be seen as a sign of weakness to some people, but it's actually
a trait of resilient people. I'm an amateur. And I love being an amateur, but with a serious project
like a house and serious topics like electricity, asbestos, I think it is the better choice to call
some pros. So I hope I find some people that I can work with. I have some people in mind. Um but I
think you can expect a little bit of team-building for houses. Laura hired a photographer,
she reached out to her community for suggestions, and she found some experts in her fields to help
her. So when things get hard she just reaches out even more. And this takes a lot of vulnerability,
especially on the internet. I talked to a bunch of people, and they told me, "This is how you do it."
That works. It turns out that the internet disagrees, and I got
700 comments telling me that I compromised the load-bearing wall, and that this is not the
right way to do it, and they were right. In the back of my head I was thinking,
"Maybe this was not the best choice." And I think there was a very very interesting
moment because the internet got a chance to react to the video. And we listened to you guys and made
a video about it and now it's fixed. Now, with mental health, shame prevents a lot of people from
reaching out. If you're struggling with depression shame says, "Oh, don't tell anyone." If you have
a history of trauma, shame says, "Oh, hide that from people." If you're having difficulties in
your marriage just, you know, shame says, "Pretend like everything's fine." You may
look strong on the outside, but not seeking help actually makes you more fragile, not resilient.
It's super hard for me to ask for help, but in the last year I've been forced to. And honestly,
I've seen wonderful results. So resilient people replace shame with vulnerability and connection.
Okay. Number three: the next trait of resilient people is that they have skills for tolerating
uncomfortable emotions, or they develop those skills. These are things you can learn;
it's not just something you have or don't have. They work on these skills. So in this clip,
you know, Laura finds out that all of the beams in her house have been damaged by ants.
Okay. So it's the next morning. Uh the surprise yesterday was a little bit overwhelming, and
we didn't know how to handle the situation, so we decided to just go home and sleep on it. So
yeah. We have we have to react to this. And I think the first thing we need to find out is
how do we get rid of the ants. Do we have to kill them? Are we allowed to kill them? Is there maybe
a way to resolve this more friendly? So I will call the nature, like the nature nature police.
I would call the nature police and ask if they have experience with that kind of ant problem.
And then I think it's very important to understand how big the damage is. So Laura gets overwhelmed,
stressed out, and worried. I don't know if I'm brave or stupid, to be honest. I don't know
if this is - I don't know anymore if this is the right thing to do or if this is just like
a waste of - But she doesn't feel ashamed to have normal emotions. She just works through them. She
often doesn't know what to do next to solve her problems with her house, and they get increasingly
more expensive. So she takes breaks. She sleeps on it. She works on a different project for a while.
She takes a vacation. And she comes back with a fresh approach. She eats ice cream and other
yummy food with her friends, and she pets her dog. Now, she must be under a lot of pressure,
but she has faith that she can work through the problems. And she just takes this sustainable
approach to solving problems instead of, you know, sprinting about in a panic about everything that's
a catastrophe. So she has developed the skills to tolerate uncomfortable emotions. Okay. The fourth
trait that resilient people develop is that they learn to focus on what they can control instead of
focusing on what's out of their control. So Laura, you know, while she's working on her big house,
while she's renovating her big house, she needs a place to live in. So she has this tiny house
that she's building as a side project. And things didn't go perfectly with that either. Raining so
much here in Germany lately. Basically for the last eight weeks it has been raining non-stop,
and that led to water damage because we didn't have the time and the supplies to finish the roof
and the siding. So the house is somewhat open. It should be waterproof enough. Turns out it wasn't.
So we had to replace all the insulation, and we had to tear out the floor again.
This is soaking wet.
Ready to fix the mesh? Yeah. Good. I got new tape,
new seal. We got new insulation. I think we have everything we need to fix the water damage.
She can't stop the rain from having ruined her tiny house, but she can move it under a shelter
and make repairs. Um she can't fix the dry rot in her beams, but she can learn how to replace them.
So in a 2005 study on resilience, researchers said depression is hopelessness and helplessness. And
so resilience is the opposite. Resilience is accepting what you can't change and focusing
your energy and attention on what you can change. You are not helpless. You do have
control over many aspects of your life. And a simple way to develop this skill is
to just frequently do the locus of control activity. If you don't know what that is,
watch my video on it. Okay. Number five: flexibility. Resilient people learn to
be flexible in their thinking and adaptive to changing situations. They develop the ability
to adjust their strategies and tactics in order to find solutions. Albert Einstein reportedly said,
"Insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
Now, if your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, right? Super rigid thinking
can actually contribute to mental illness, but flexible thinking can be very resilient. Right?
People who struggle with mental health may try the same thing over and over again. So for example,
let's say you make a mistake. The thing you try over and over again is beating yourself up about
it. So you make a mistake, you beat yourself up. You make a mistake, you beat yourself up.
And that's the only thing you try when it comes to that mistake. Can you see how that might make you
mentally ill? If you feel anxious about a social situation, maybe your only tool is to just avoid
it and avoid it and avoid it. Right? It's not going to help you. Um one of the biggest things
I've learned as a therapist is that there are dozens of things you can try for every problem
you face. I've got an entire toolbox for anxiety. Right? Willingness, diffusion, acceptance,
mindfulness, grounding skills, deep breathing, cognitive treatments, nutritional treatments,
sleep treatments, medication, relational skills, and on and on. Right? Resilient people are able to
identify problems and develop creative solutions in order to move forward. They're not afraid to
take risks, and they're just willing to try new things and accept failure as part of the
process. Setbacks and failure not only comes on one level; it can come on multiple levels. So when
you think you're dealing with the failure from last time - Okay. Yeah? I think we're over the
hump. I think we got it now. It's straight. You're repairing it, you get hit with a new thing that
goes wrong all the time. It's like kung fu. You get hit with all these unforeseen circumstances,
and you become a kung fu Master. So now when I was fixing the water damage, it just didn't
stop raining. It got worse and worse. And we were so close to facing another water damage.
Resilient people just keep experimenting with new approaches. They try to solve a problem
from different angles, and they practice accepting failure as just being part of
the process. No one likes failure, but you can learn to be good at tolerating it. Okay.
The sixth thing that resilient people practice is one of my favorite traits that Laura has:
she laughs. When things are bad, she laughs. Sometimes there's nothing else she can do.
But I think it's important to learn to make your own calls and make your own decisions
and only take advice from people that you are willing to forgive. Hey, pretty much just the
the roof. I didn't know what it was and thought like, "This is not a problem. I hope."
Now, Marjorie P Hinckley said the only way to get through life is to laugh your way
through it. "You either have to laugh or cry. I prefer to laugh. Crying gives me a
headache. So there you have it. Six ways to be more resilient. Number one: have a growth
mindset. Every challenge is figure-outable and an opportunity to learn. Number two:
replace shame with connection. Reach out for support and build a support network. Number three:
develop skills for regulating uncomfortable emotions. Like, take breaks and do some self-care.
Number four: focus on what you can control and let go of what you can't. Number five:
be flexible and try new things. Number six: laugh. Okay. I hope you found this video helpful. Laura,
if you see this, I hope you agree. Okay. Thanks for watching, and take care. Thank you.