Developing Resilience in Patients

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How do individuals deal with difficult events that change their lives, such as the death of a loved one, loss of a job, ending of a relationship, serious illness, terrorist attacks, not making a team, not performing well at work, and more? These are some examples of challenging life experiences, each with varying degrees of intensity and trauma. Most individuals genuinely react to such circumstances with a flurry of strong emotions, a sense of uncertainty, and varying degrees of intensity. Yet many people are able to adapt well, over time, to life changing situations and stressful conditions. What enables them to do so? It involves resilience, the ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change through a process of steps over time, and the commitment to engage other people to support your efforts.¹

To assist both athlete patients and patients struggling with adverse life events, below are 10 tips to create a road to resilience in and out of sport by: (1) describing resilience and some factors that affect how people deal with hardship, and (2) focusing on developing and using a personal strategy for enhancing resilience.

What Is Resilience?

Resilience is a process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or even sources of stress such as family and relationship problems, serious health problems, or workplace (here, athletics) and financial stressors. The process is more like the length of a sports season, than individual challenges associated with one event—it takes more time, energy, and abilities to bounce back.Resilience is “bouncing back” from difficult experiences. Although the resilience shown by people like Serena Williams is extraordinary, research has shown that resilience is ordinary, not extraordinary. Individuals commonly demonstrate resilience. One contemporary example is the response of many Americans to support one another and to rebuild their lives following hurricane Florence (a category 4 Atlantic hurricane in 2018) that devastated the Carolinas and caused billions of dollars in damage. Resilience is not thought to be a trait that people either have or do not have, although it may come in varying degrees for different people. Instead, resilience involves thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that can be learned and developed by anyone facing incredibly difficult life circumstances. As clinicians, encouraging patients to develop their resilience through specific techniques can help increase their ability to bounce back and thrive after traumatic or highly stressful periods.

For example, let’s envision “Jason,” an elite track athlete who is eager to demonstrate how successful his months of preseason training have been, and is preparing for his season opener. With a good performance, this is an opportunity for Jason to secure a professional contract, win competition prize money, and secure additional high profile competitions with prize money for the rest of the season. Yet, the week prior to the competition Jason has a traumatically violent interaction. He was driving in his car going home with a friend after a date when an argument ensued in the car, and Jason and friend got into a car accident. Thankfully, no one was seriously injured. Jason was shaken by the violent accident, upset about the car damage, and emotionally disturbed by the argument that has jeopardized the relationship with the friend. Yet, Jason’s commitment to his track career is resolute and he decides to follow through with his contractual agreement to compete in the track meet. Jason shows resilience by focusing his attention to self care, building trust in his personal and athletic abilities, and focusing on his strengths and deliberate behaviors necessary to perform to the best of his ability. At the track meet, Jason wins his race, wins the prize money, secures a new contract, and establishes his position for future competitions. Jason demonstrated an ability to bounce back from a difficult experience and focus in the moment on trusting himself and how to execute the deliberate behaviors practiced during training in order to achieve high performance. Situations like these are where patients can employ strategies to build and access their resilience skills. By coaching patients to develop resilience skills, they may be able to better process and move past adverse life events.

Strategies for Building Resilience

Developing resilience strategies is a personal journey. Not everyone reacts the same to traumatic and stressful life events. Similarly, an approach to building resilience that works for one person might not work for another. Individuals use a variety of strategies to build and maintain resilience. The strategies discussed here can be useful to present to patients as options in working towards stronger resilience.

Some variations in preference may reflect gender, environmental and cultural differences, as well as past experiences. A person’s gender, environment, culture, or past experiences might have an impact on how a person communicates feelings and deals with adversity. Some or many of the following ways to build resilience may be helpful in helping patients develop their own personal strategies. Certainly, add to this list any other strategies that you as a practitioner have personally found helpful from past experiences.

10 Ways to Build Resilience

1. Seek opportunities for self-discovery. People often learn something about themselves and may find that they have grown in some respect as a result of their struggle with previous life challenges that have altered what was once comfortable or normal.Many people who have experienced tragedies and hardship have reported better relationships, greater sense of strength even while feeling vulnerable, increased sense of self worth, a more developed spirituality, and a heightened appreciation for life. A young athlete with an open mindset and a willingness to learn often advances further personally and athletically because they have an interest in building their knowledge and skills. Encouraging patients to spend time connecting with and learning about themselves can be highly beneficial.

2. Nurture a positive view of oneself. For patients, maintaining a positive perspective of who they are, developing confidence in their ability to solve problems, and trusting their instincts helps build resilience. Parents, coaches, and athletes can also support the growth of a young athlete by nurturing a positive personal and athletic identity. For example, an athlete can promote a positive self identity with affirmations like “I trust my coaching and what I’m learning,” “I feel good about the progress I am making,” “I believe in my ability to persevere.” Clinicians can assist the patient in creating these affirmations and foster this positive reframing.

3. Keep things in perspective. Even when patients face very painful events, try to consider the stressful situation in a broader context, encouraging keeping a long term and “big picture” perspective. In hard times, it is easy¾maybe even human nature—to lose perspective and amplify the event and its effects beyond what they believe their recovery abilities are. Consider the saying, “this too shall pass.”Quite often in training, athletes will hear the coach tell them the workout for the day and feel defeated by the length and challenge of the workout. A great way to overcome the challenges of a long hard workout is to help them focus on the only thing they can control: themselves in the present moment. So, approaching the workout or adverse situation with full energy one step at a time all the way through can create focus to persevere.

4. Maintain a hopeful outlook. An optimistic outlook enables one to expect that good things can and will happen in their life. Providers can help patients regularly “inventory” and build upon what they do have, rather than focusing on what it seems they are lacking.In the beginning it may be hard to genuinely find positive or optimistic pieces, but in time, this can happen. Be positive is more than a blood type. It is a way of life. Positive self talk and forward thinking are vital to athletic development and performance. Achieving a perfect performance is most desirable, yet often unattainable. So, practicing positive self talk and working on building positive affirmations like, “you got this” or “keep going” into training and performance will help athletes and patients maintain a hopeful outlook.

5. Take care of yourself. Help the patient pay attention to their own needs and feelings.Engage in activities that you enjoy and find relaxing, such as reading, walking, socializing with family and friends. Taking care of yourself helps to keep your mind and body primed to deal with situations that require resilience. Additional forms of care that may benefit the patient could include writing about their thoughts and feelings. Meditation and spiritual practices may also help build connections and restore hope. These practices can also help athletes manage fatigue and prevent injury and burnout. I often work with high school and college athletes who have overlooked the importance of taking care of themselves and as a result are dealing with sport fatigue, minor injuries that prevent them from training or competitions, and eventual burnout. The key is to identify behaviors and activities that are likely to work well for you as part of a patient’s own personal strategy of self care.

6. Engage family members, friends, and trusted relationships. One’s closest and trusted relationships with family and friends often become the most desired outlet beyond athletics. In sport, it is easy to spend the majority of time with other athletes, teammates, coaches and athletic staff. So, the escape from the athletic environment can feel like a cherished treat. It is recommended to maintain and strengthen communication and connection with caring family members. Patients can socially engage friends and network and build trusted relationships to support growth and advancement.

7. Self-help and support groups. Community groups can assist in resilience building and managing emotional struggles by having others share information, ideas, and emotions while providing comfort in knowing that patients are not alone in experiencing life difficulties. In high school and college there are many different types of social support groups available. Remember the support group may have nothing to do with sport, and that is perfectly fine. Clinicians may help patients find support groups and create plans to engage with organizations unrelated to adverse life events.

8. Books and other publications. Reading in one’s preferred areas of interest for pleasure and mindfully consuming professional self care teachings can be a rewarding experience that can promote movement through the process of dealing with life challenges. Both the act of reading and engaging with a variety of content can provide space to the patient to strengthen resiliency. With the option of hard cover, paperback, e-books, audio books, and apps to download there are a plethora of publications available to support resilience. For parents considering how to teach their children successful life skills, consider the book Introducing Your Child to Sports: An Expert’s Answers to Parents’ Questions About Raising a Healthy, Balanced, Happy Athlete.²

9. Reliable apps and online resources. There are a growing number of apps and online resources that provide support groups and resources for specific life circumstances. Optimize Mind Performance (OMP) is an app that provides valuable content with applicable methods and resources to build resilience. In the OMP app, Dr Flowers offers specific behavioral practices to support your resilience in sport. I encourage athletes to download the Optimize Mind Performance App.

10. Licensed professionals. Professional help, for example from a licensed therapist, can assist individuals in developing a working strategy when they feel they are not creating plans that seem to be helping. It is also important to utilize professional help if individuals feel they are unable to function, perform basic activities of daily living, or the bereavement process seems to go on indefinitely, as a result of a traumatic or other stressful life event. Experiencing new trauma on top of partially or entirely unresolved past traumatic events can also be good reasons to seek professional assistance. Sport mirrors life and the challenges one may face in either arena can provide the opportunity to learn, grow, adapt and thrive with resilience.

Dr Flowers is a sport psychologist in Torrance the South Bay of Los Angeles, California.

References

1. Resilience. Merriam-Webster. Accessed July 25, 2025. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/resilience.

2. Flowers R. Introducing Your Child to Sports: An Expert’s Answers to Parents’ Questions About Raising a Healthy, Balanced, Happy Athlete. GCG Publishing; 2014.