Success, happiness, fulfillment – we use these words to describe our best life. But many of us would say we aren’t quite there yet, or we have trouble staying “there”. This is an issue of resilience.
A Resilient Farmer
There’s a story of a farmer whose donkey fell into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally, he decided the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway-it just wasn’t worth it to retrieve the donkey.
He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They all grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone’s amazement, he quieted down.
A few shovels later, the farmer finally looked down in the well. He was astonished at what he saw. With each shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up.
As the farmer’s neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and happily trotted off!
Life does a great job of shoveling all kinds of dirt on us. The trick to getting out of the well is to shake it off and take a step up.
Our opportunity for Resilience
For you the dirt may be coming from your relationships, your marriage (or singleness) or maybe your business or career isn’t bringing happiness – but misery.
Maybe it’s your business or job that isn’t as successful as you feel it should be.
Or your kids – or your parenting – just isn’t working as you think it should.
Your hobbies don’t bring the fulfillment they should, they just aren’t fun anymore.
Perhaps you’ve gotten close, but time and time again something happens and the path you are on becomes a well to fall into. You were well ono your way then something happened, and everything seemed to fall off course and you couldn’t get back on track.
One thing will make all the difference.
Get up.
This is known as resilience; it’s our ability to bounce back. Depending on a variety of things our level of resilience can come and go. So how can we develop resilience when the circumstances of life seem to be working against us?
Great question.
Three ways you can become more resilient today.
- Stop what you are doing right now. Take a moment to reflect on your purpose. What is it? You were uniquely created for a unique purpose. Write it down and read it out loud. If you haven’t figured it out yet, set aside some time to think about what it is.
- Think about your next immediate goal and write down two or three actions steps for moving forward. Goals we care about are exciting and motiving, remembering them will make you want to get up and move forward. The action steps you identify become the path to developing and maintaining resilience.
- Call someone you respect. You probably need to hear a different voice. We hear our own enough – usually feeding our minds with limiting beliefs; now is the time to invite someone else to speak into our lives, reminding us of our strengths.
- I know I said three ways to develop resilience, but here’s an extra. It’s probably the most important thing you can do as well. Pray. It is God who created you and has a plan for your life, and it is God’s Spirit that empowers us to get up and move forward.
So, don’t quit. Get moving!
Our troubles are steppingstones. We can get out of the deepest wells just by not stopping, never giving up! Shake it off and take a step up.
