Stress plays an important role in the development of mankind. Whether it’s making a quick decision for or against fleeing from or fighting predators (fight-or-flight syndrome) or achieving top sporting performance – stress is virtually omnipresent for us humans. Positive, short-term (eu-)stress is useful (e.g. high focus or rational thinking), whereas negative, longer-term (di-)stress can, for example, trigger illness and subsequently immense costs for organizations. Current challenges (e.g. crises) and excessive demands (e.g. volatility, uncertainty, complexity or ambiguity) require professionalization in dealing with stress in economic, social and private contexts more than ever before.

Resilience is a valuable key to this. This refers to the ability to react adequately to stress-inducing stimuli, whereby resilient people are able to return to a normal (sometimes even more productive), stress-free state within a certain period of time following a stressful situation. The important thing is that resilience can be learned or trained to a certain extent. One way to strengthen your own resilience is to consider the following seven points of reference:

Create acceptance.
Past decisions or events can no longer be changed – you have to accept them. The decisive factor here is to create space for new things by accepting them, because every change is also an opportunity that can be exploited.

Be optimistic.
This does not mean blind optimism, but “slight optimism”. You strengthen positive feelings (e.g. showing gratitude) and thus change your own attitude. Ideally, you should focus on your own strengths and thus create a bridge from the problem to the solution.

Establish self-efficacy.
You can achieve a great deal on your own, especially if you believe in it as part of a healthy self-confidence. In this context, it is important that you know your own needs and fulfill them to the best of your ability (e.g. sport).

Take responsibility.
Everyone must recognize and take responsibility for their own part in certain conditions or situations. When you take this on, you also take responsibility for yourself.

Living network orientation.
Reciprocity is a cornerstone of human behavior, which is why the following usually applies to relationships: “I pay into your relationship account and you pay into mine”. A well-maintained network of relationships represents a “safe space” that is essential in terms of resilience.

Solution-oriented thinking.
If you understand the connection between problem and solution, you see the solution instead of the problem and subsequently the opportunities associated with it. Solution-oriented thinking is activated – you focus and prioritize tasks according to your own guiding principles.

Be future-oriented.
You actively look for possible courses of action and formulate achievable goals (positive, concrete, measurable, scheduled, resource-based, context-dependent, economical, to the right extent). In between, you always take stock – compare debit and credit to know where you stand. It is important to keep exploring options and setting short, medium and long-term priorities.