Planting Seeds of Resilience, Resilience with Purpose, & Emotional Flexibility
Wednesday Wisdoms for January 8, 2025
Welcome to Wednesday Wisdom, our 3x3 Newsletter where I distill worldly advice for better living with 3 quotes, 3 observations, and 3 questions.
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Planting Seeds of Resilience
🤨 Quote
“We plant seeds of resilience in the ways we process negative events.”
Sheryl Sandberg / Adam Grant
Source: Option B
Observation 🧐
Resilience is not built in the moment it is needed, rather, it is built long before through experience and practice.
Each event we encounter brings with it challenges, learnings, and meanings that build who we are and what we stand for.
The loss of a job we faced three years ago prepares us for the layoffs of tomorrow.
The heartbreak from our last relationship teaches us what we will and will not accept in our new relationship.
Skipping our child’s baseball game for a work meeting teaches us what we prioritize.
Resilience is built in the good and bad, the magnificent and the sucky.
Each experience we have holds meaning to our lives and it is within each of these that we build the life we want to live.
🤔 Question
Spend some time reflecting on a difficult period where you didn’t perform to your best, didn’t make the right decision, or just gave up. What lessons did you learn and how do you carry those lessons forwards with you?
Resilience with Purpose
🤨 Quote
“Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.”
Viktor Frankl
Source: Payoff
Observation 🧐
When we lack meaning and purpose, we find ourselves tossed about by the ever splashing waves of life.
Purpose provides us with a reason to be resilient. It grounds us by speaking to our inner desire for meaning in a meaningless existence. In turn, it transforms and reveals us to ourselves.
It’s when we do not care about purpose that we cutoff our ability to be truly resilient.
Resiliency comes from effort, but it also comes from the emotional effort we put in.
And for those driven by purpose and meaning, emotional effort is always in abundance.
🤔 Question
How do you apply meaning to your life and how does that drive you?
Beneath the paywall this week we explore the wisdom of Leonard Mlodinow. Click below to support and get access.