Resilience is something we learn through adversity. We apply those beliefs and skills, in turn, when we face new adversity.

Here is my list of attributes, from March 2017, that support resilient people during difficult times.

"6 Cs of Resilience"

I offer the “6 Cs of resilience” to stimulate your thinking and perhaps guide your actions: 

Clarity about values, ideas, goals, and strategies to accomplish those goals. Such clarity will come in and out of focus and require fresh thinking when circumstances change within and around us.

Commitment to persist through difficult times. Resilience sometimes requires doing the thing we don't want to do b....

Communication that seeks first to understand and that is both respectful and assertive. Such communication is particularly challenging when people vigorously disagree with us by asserting values and positions that we believe are irrational and even immoral. 

Community to gain clarity, support, guidance, inspiration, and the power of c... when we are addressing powerful social and economic forces. Dialogue created in community can also help us find and maintain clarity.

Courage to do what is uncomfortable and even frightening. Courage is not the absence of fear, but instead acting in its presence. As someone once said, "Feel the fear and do it anyway." 

Care, beginning with self-care. Self-care means making our physical, emotional, and spiritual health a priority because if we don’t care for ourselves the other Cs will be difficult if not impossible to achieve. Care also includes, of course, respect for others, particularly those with whom we most strongly disagree.

No matter our starting place, the “6Cs” enable us to take well-considered stands about things that are significant to us and to join with others to achieve what we cannot accomplish alone.

Which of the Cs is most important for you at this particular moment in time? What would you add to this list?