As an eight-time disaster survivor, people come to me and ask how in the world I have found the will to keep getting up after living through fires, floods, riots, an earthquake, lawsuits, a tsunami that killed one of my key vendors, loss on 9/11, and now a pandemic. What is it that makes me keep getting up again and again? The fundamental answer lies in resilience, and the good news is that it is something that everyone can build.

 If you find yourself taking things personally, feeling defeated, wondering why things keep happening to you, and why others seem to bounce back when you are struggling, you need to learn these valuable practices to build resilience in your life.

Build Confidence From Your Past

While living in the past is unhealthy, visiting the lessons from the past can be a powerful tool in building your resilience. To accomplish this, think of a time when something occurred in your life that caused you pain and uncertainty. Perhaps it was the end of a relationship, the loss of a job–anything that caused you to feel as though you had to battle through. When you moved past that feeling, you realized that you made it, and you survived! Now, when life brings a battle to you again, because it will, you know that you have made it through tough times before, and you can make it through again. 

Living through problems allows us to experience our own strength and teaches us that we can recover from whatever is happening in our world. Don’t waste those lessons; use them to help you gain confidence. When you are in a difficult place, take a look back over your life and look for those moments where you became an overcomer and let the confidence from past victories be the first place you go to begin building resilience. 

Reframe Failure

The next step to building resilience is to learn to stop taking failure personally. When you take failure personally, it can leave you feeling defeated because you reinforce the myth that these things only happen to you, which is entirely untrue. Everyone experiences failure and adversity. Actually, if you find yourself continually dealing with a great deal of adversity, you may be going through these trials and challenges to fulfill your greater purpose. Many people who make the most significant impact on others have been through the most challenges in life. These trials have taught them to understand the human condition, and it has activated them to fulfill their purpose in life. 

When you face a multitude of challenges, then you have been called to become more resilient. It allows you to reach more people, share your brilliance with the world, and gives you the platform to tell your story and encourage others to realize their capacity to overcome the adversity in their own lives; a message of hope that is needed more than ever in today’s world.

Find the Opportunities In Failure

Failing does not mean that you are a failure, and it is no indication that something is wrong with you. On the other hand, failure is an opportunity in disguise. Instead of focusing on all of the things that have gone wrong, look for the bright spot, the lesson. When you fail, and you are going to fail, it means that you are human–this is the time to reach deep inside and look for the gift that is in it, just for you. Under challenging times, it takes an intentional mindset to pause and search for where the opportunity is hiding; it is always there. 

Suppose you learn to look for the gift versus focusing on the defeat. In that case, you can walk away with an appreciation that although it was tough, walking through the adversity allowed you to find something remarkable that you would never have known existed. 

Get Back Up

The critical piece to building resilience lies in learning that you are not defined by how you fall; You are defined by your ability to get back up. It is easy to say those words, but when you genuinely believe them, it allows you to embody the resilience to bounce back no matter what life throws your way. When staying down is no longer an option in your life, you learn that although you may have little control over things that happen to you, you are in complete control of your reactions to these events. You get to choose what happens next because how the story ends is in your hands. Write the story the way you want it written. 

At the Growth Architect, your growth is at the height of importance, and our goal is to help you reach your full potential. If you want to learn from someone that doesn’t just give resilience lip service, but has lived a life that required it, then join me at The Growth Architect and watch my video on building resilience.


Beate Chelette is The Growth Architect & Founder of The Women’s Code, a training company specialized in providing companies an ROI on Balanced Leadership. She has been named one of 50 must-follow women entrepreneurs by the Huffington Post. A first-generation immigrant who found herself $135,000 in debt as a single parent, she bootstrapped her passion for photography into a highly successful global business and eventually sold it to Bill Gates in a multimillion-dollar deal.

Beate works with business leaders and supports organizations by developing and providing training the training, tools, and expertise to create and maintain a balanced, equal, and inclusive work environment that fosters creativity, employee engagement, and corporate growth.

Recent clients include Merck, Women’s Legislative Caucus of California, Cal State University Dominguez Hills, Small Business Development Centers (SBDC), NFTE, CreativeLive, the Association of Corporate Growth, and TracyLocke.

Beate is the author of the #1 International Amazon Bestseller “Happy Woman Happy World – How to Go From Overwhelmed to Awesome” a book that corporate trainer and best-selling author Brian Tracy calls “a handbook for every woman who wants health, success and a fulfilling career.

To book Beate to speak or train please connect here. Your Time Is Valuable!

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