Dr. Meg Jay recently wrote an article on women and men who rose to success after overcoming difficult childhoods, displaying what’s commonly called resilience.
Two points in particular felt worth sharing:
1. A rough childhood, if it doesn’t break you, will make you stronger.
In one study, most successful individuals – a whopping 75% – had a rough family upbringing, including “poverty, abuse, absent parents, alcoholism, serious illness or some other misfortune”.
2. Resilience can be learned.
If you were fortunate enough to have a trauma-less childhood, you still can learn resilience.
“It helps to take on long-form projects that feel like challenges rather than threats. Whether taking up crew or judo, studying for an advanced degree or mastering an instrument, hard things that aren’t emotional or unexpected help us practice for those that are…Coping with stress is a lot like exercise: We become stronger with practice.”
Read the full article: The Secret of Resilience
