Personality traits that can increase your resilience

ANNE-LAURA VAN HARMELEN: You may wonder what could help to build resilience. Well, we wanted to know this too, so we did a scientific study. And what we found is that there are certain aspects of a person’s personality that might help. It helps when you can deal with stress, the ability to accept negative feelings caused by stress and to allow them. You’re more resilient when you believe in yourself and your own capabilities, that you really feel that you’re just as good as your peers. Another example is being proud of who you are and that you’re proud of your own achievements.

It helps when you don’t get angry too often, that you keep don’t get upset when things don’t go your way and that you’re not insistent that everything needs to go your way. It also helps when you’re being nice to people and that you don’t bully people. It helps that you’re flexible and that you can cope with change. So for instance, when something happens that you weren’t expecting it, that you could find the solution for it. For instance, when you miss your bus, that you’ll just sit on the bench and relax.

It helps when you don’t worry too much, that you don’t worry too much about things that happened or things that will happen in the future, in other words, that you’re able to let things go once in a while and to relax when something is happening and to not constantly think about why you’re feeling stressed or why you’re feeling low. Maybe you have some of these traits, and maybe you’re better at some than others. That’s completely normal and differs from person to person. And you don’t have to have all these traits to be resilient. You can actually be very resilient if you even have only one.