MENTAL TOUGHNESS IS RESILIENCE

Don’t allow your life to be defined by your hardship. Instead, let your life be defined by how you overcame your hardship.

The Psalmist said, “For You, O God, have tested us; You have refined us as silver is refined. You brought us into the net; You laid affliction on our backs. You have caused men to ride over our heads; We went through fire and through water; But You brought us out to rich fulfillment” (Psalm 66:10-12). Scripture makes it clear: The affliction added quality to the psalmist’s life. It brought a measure of increase, a rich fulfillment. It actually propelled him to a higher level.

In its most basic definition, resilience is the ability to bounce back. When applying this term to the human condition, people think that resilience means you can “bounce back” from hardship without affect. They mistakenly think resilience is the ability to face loss, suffering, or pain without it altering your attitude, identity, or character.

But the reality is that loss, suffering, and pain will change you. If you have ever lost a child, it changes you. If you’ve gone through a divorce, it changes you. If you’ve been fired from a job, experienced bankruptcy, or suffered a physically debilitating injury, it changes you. Indeed, loss, suffering, and pain will change you, but when character is resilient, it will change you for the better. The psalmist said his affliction brought him out to “rich fulfillment.”

Mental toughness is resilience, but it means more than to simply “bounce back.” It means a person not only has the capacity to overcome a deeply stressful situation, but is also coming out of that circumstance with a deeper level of functioning and experience. What happens to us becomes a part of us. It doesn’t leave us, nor should it. It should teach us, inform us, deepen us. Resilient people may “bounce back,” but they bounce differently. They adapt; they change. They are wiser, stronger & more discerning. They find new meaning in life and healthy ways to integrate their hardship into their life.

Paul never resented or complained about his trials. He met each affliction with a measure of faith that God was in control and was “working all things together for the good.” The stress, he said, caused his “outward man” to perish and his “inward man to be renewed.” He credited the affliction for equipping him with a greater capacity to complete his work for greater weight of eternal glory. For Paul, affliction had value. It provided him with a depth of preparation that would propel him into greater effectiveness.

The same applies to us: A resilient attitude will propel you forward. I remember as a young boy, my father taught me how to make a slingshot. You need a “Y-shaped” tree branch that is strong enough to withstand pressure and attach two pieces of rubber (usually cut from an old bicycle tire) to the two intersecting prongs. A pouch would be fastened to the opposite ends of the rubber strands used to hold a small stone or marble. As a boy, I loved pulling the pouch with its stone in place until the tension of the rubber band could go no further. With the target in sight, I released the sling and shot the object forward with such momentum that it would pierce leaves and branches and anything in its way. The key to this operation is resilience.

It’s the resilience in the rubber band that stores the energy to produce the tension that propels the small stone forward. It’s resilience; the nature of rubber to return to its original form, that produces the action.

Tension in your life is not meant to destroy you. Like the stone in the slingshot, it’s meant to propel you forward. It may feel like you’re being pulled back, taking steps further away from what you believe God has called you to do, further back from your goals, further back from your destiny, further back from where you thought you should be. You may be under tension and stress, but don’t lose heart. It’s all part of the process. God has you in the slingshot. The very thing that is causing that tension, stress and worry, and is seeming to delay your life, could be the very thing that God uses to shoot you forward.

Out of these seasons in our lives came our deepest, most profound growth. Not only did we learn vital lessons about authenticity, servant leadership, integrity, and humility, we developed core competencies that would stay with us for years to come. Things you cannot learn in a university or by taking a course. It was by enduring that we developed a credibility among our congregation, the community around us, and even our district leaders. Add to that, these were the experiences that gave birth to Global Leadership Training, numerous books, and our emphasis on training leaders in matters of character.

Jeremiah said, the greatest thing that can happen to a man is for him to bear the yoke in his youth (Lamentations 3:27). It’s these times of pain and hardship that give us the capacity to stand firm in future seasons of pressure and adversity; when there is more at stake and the costs are greater.

Theodore Roosevelt famously said, “If there is not the war, you don't get the great general; if there is not a great occasion, you don't get a great statesman; if Lincoln had lived in a time of peace, no one would have known his name.” It took a Goliath to qualify David and a lion’s den to distinguish Daniel. Joseph was made great by the betrayal of his brothers and Jesus because He overcame death. Adversity is the slingshot that propels us toward greatness. There is a necessity for adversity. No one becomes great without being resilient through it.
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Do you really want to go to the next level? Then resilience must be your friend. It’s the capacity to bounce back having been usefully transformed by the adversity you endured.

For more practical advice on “Mental Toughness,” check out my newest book, Upward: Taking Your Life to the Next Level.

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