The ABCDE of Resilience

The ABCDE of Resilience

Next time you feel hopeless and helpless, go back to basics: the ABCs.*

A is for the Activating event: What is the cause of the problem?

B is for Belief: What belief is triggered by A?

C is for Consequence: How does this activated belief make you feel?

D is for Dispute: Is this belief the only possible interpretation?

  • Do you have evidence to support the connection you made?
  • Is there a possible alternative interpretation?
  • Really? Are you sure you’re not exaggerating?
  • Can you choose a more positive interpretation of what happened, which would make you feel happier?

E is for Energise: Having gone through this thought process, energy becomes available for making new plans to work on the problem.

Let’s see how this will work in practice. Take this example, which came up in one of StudyTrust’s mentor visits to campuses:

A third-year IT student from a deep rural background overcame huge obstacles by not only making it to university, but also all the way to third year. He did very well in his June exams, obtaining three distinctions. But now all was in the balance again. To graduate, he had to complete six months of “experiential learning” – he had to find somewhere to work for six months.

Example

The Activating event was not getting a position to complete that training.

The Belief it triggered was, “They don’t look for achievement, they just pick.”

The Consequence was that he felt completely discouraged.

The mentor helped him Dispute the connection between A and B on the basis of information from other students.

  • The evidence did not support the connection – other students had found placements, and this did not seem random.
  • An alternative interpretation was that success was not random. The successful students had applied for more opportunities (9 on average, as opposed to his 3); he did not communicate well, using the “eish, ja-né” type of interaction; and he did not prepare well for interviews, because he did not believe it would make a difference.
  • He was not exaggerating the impact, but …
  • All the factors mentioned in 2 were under his control, which lifted the feeling of helpless discouragement.

From this process Energy flowed, which allowed him to plan new actions to change the situation: practising to communicate better, applying for more positions, improving his CV, and making use of his network.

Next time you feel helpless and hopeless, go back to the ABCs!

* Martin Seligman, the founder of Positive Psychology, created the ABCDE of Resilience as a technique to deal with the emotions that go with difficult situations.