The Road teaches us ‘Resilience and Persistence’
We travel on roads every day, there are turns, there are speed breakers, there are potholes, there are smooth stretches, sometimes there are traffic jams, sometimes there are complete road blocks and we have no choice left but to take a U turn and take a different road.
Do you see the similarities of WHAT YOU DO ON THE ROAD with our life!! I do….I feel it’s so very similar to what life has to offer us, smooth stretches that we love and enjoy, speed breakers which come suddenly and surprise us, potholes which are quite a pain as they leave us injured ,roadblocks which push us to an edge and we have no option but to find a better way and turns which make us LIVE AND GROW.
What do we do when we see a speed breaker…slow down and go over it! What with a pothole…we go around it! What with the smooth stretch….increase the volume of our music and enjoy the drive! What with the turn…change gears and take the turn to our destination!
The ROAD teaches us Resilience, it teaches us that we continue to move on, come what may. Every speed breaker in life , every pothole, every setback can be taken care of like being ON THE ROAD.
We don’t stop on the road but in life we do….but there are ways to bounce back and master the ART OF RESILIENCE AND PERSISTENCE by following these simple things. (Note these in your diary where you can read often, keep them in your head and you will not fail to get past difficulties)
- Find the cause of the speed breaker – It is important to know what really has happened…objectively. Try standing out of the situation, try to see people as they are rather than the way you always see them. This will need you to ask questions of yourself about the cause and see the situation as it is.
- Pre- Decide how you will respond to a stressful situation – It’s your decision, you can cry, shout, fight or do something that doesn’t take you deeper into sadness. You could decide to just take a bath, go for a movie, talk to a friend but do not get into upset mode. It takes much longer to get out of it than to get into it. Once you know how you would react, its impossible to have an impulsive reaction.
- Slow down like you do on a Speed Breaker and hit the brake- You can hit a speed breaker and jump up but you can also drive over it if you are an experienced driver. Sudden troubles are not too many , we get stuck in troubles of everyday life, knowing they are there and deciding to do nothing about them. Be an experienced driver, slowly get past them. Think about it!
- The One Minute trick- It’s important to stop and give yourself atleast one minute without thinking of the problem, the way you perceive it in the first place.Keep yourself blank, the purpose is to intervene the auto reaction that your body and mind has. If you practice this enough, you will soon be able to identify your own auto reactions and how to control them.
- Do not attribute more than there is to the situation or person- Take your part of the responsibility in any situation and do not try to decide the ‘why’ in your own special way. Take it in passing. If you attribute more than there is to it, that is what it becomes …MORE of it.
- Speed Breakers are to prevent accidents – Look at the positive side, some places you do need to slow down. Any setback should just be treated like that. Gives us time to re-think, re-work and re-plan our goals, that’s it. It does not mean one has to live in slow motion, but one just needs to slow down for a while and get moving again.
Keep bouncing back and enjoy your journey!
Your Coach and Friend
Abha Maryada Banerjee
