Invicta Vlogs
Resilience is a transferable skill
When given the challenge of writing this week’s blog I felt overwhelmed by the range of topics that I could discuss. However, recently I have been looking into writing my personal statement and what qualities universities are after. Resilience is a transferable skill that continuously pops up across my research. Therefore, I was inspired by this to write this week’s blog. It also fits very well with everything we have had to endure in the last year.
So, what is resilience and how do we demonstrate it? According to the dictionary resilience is “the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness”. I believe that the phrase “it doesn’t matter how many times you get knocked down. All that matters is you get up one more time than that you were knocked down” applies very nicely to this. This is a motto that I live by and apply to my everyday life (I blame it on being a Virgo!). The idea of picking yourself up from a small or large challenge is the most important thing. It is worth noting that this is a skill you can learn; you are not born with. Resilience can be explored on different scales and can be applied to school life, sports or hobbies.
This is a crucial skill especially during the greatest challenge we have all faced - a global pandemic. We have all experienced very different challenges. These range from: changing our life style, adapting to online learning or coping with being prisoners of our own homes. Everyone at Invicta did incredibly well and rose to the challenge. I took the initiative to research further and discovered that during each of the three waves the government carried out a household resilience survey. According to a survey carried out 64% of people in the UK, say that they are coping well with the pandemic. The ability to overcome such a challenge is amazing and defines very strong individuals, which I believe every Invicta student is.
On the other hand, resilience can occur on a small scale. When looking back at myself in Year 7, I absolutely hated English lessons and as a result it was my weakest subject. I dreaded the lessons and exams. After receiving results that I was not happy with, I decided to persevere and overcome this challenge. Invicta staff has been exceptional in supporting me and helping me whenever I am struggling. Therefore, it was no surprise when I was able to receive extra help from my teacher in order to boost my ability, but also my confidence. I put many extra hours of revision and came out with a great GCSE grade. I then proceeded to take it for A Level and I can confidently say it is my favourite subject. This is only one example in which resilience and determination can help you discover a new love as well as to step out of your comfort zone at the same time. To say I have had a turbulent relationship with it is an understatement, but my resilience has made me want to continuously improve myself.
The idea can be applied to any sport too. My dance teacher has always told me to “attack everything new with 100%, because what do you have to lose?”. The answer to the question is very simple you have nothing to lose, but everything to gain. Resilience is a skill we can continuously develop and improve by challenging ourselves often and not giving up. Having an end goal or target can motivate us to reach them. Setting SMART objectives (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time–bound) is a great way of tackling tasks and can be applied to any context.
The last piece of advice I can offer is that resilience doesn’t come over night. It increases as your self–belief grows (read previous blog for more information). It’s important to learn from each challenge and use it as a tool to develop. The key to resilience is self–belief, drive and desire to achieve whatever you set your mind to. We must drive wholeheartedly into everything we do in order to be fully determined to overcome any obstacles in our way.
I hope this has helped you gain a better understanding of resilience and its importance in life. To conclude this Blog, I thought that I best leave it to someone who knows all about resilience…
“Nobody is gonna hit as hard as life, but it ain’t how hard you can hit. It’s how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. It’s how much you can take, and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done.” Rocky Balboa
Kalina Tsvetanova
Senior Prefect Team
