In the last entry, I had you assess your thinking style to better understand your chances of not only recovering from your lay-off, but using it to propel yourself to better things in the future. Please review yesterday’s blog before reading further.
The reason a flexible, Realistic Optimist thinking style works best can be explained from several angles. Although research has shown that you can learn to think/behave in a Realistic Optimist manner, it may be beneficial to learn about people who come by it naturally.
So, lets take a look at hard core survivors and explore how they think, what they feel, and what they do. Specific characteristics (listed below) are found in almost every person who has survived and thrived following harrowing life and death events — Events like being lost at sea for 76 days (Adrift), or walking from Siberia to British India in 1942, approximately 3,000 miles (The Long Walk).
Characteristics of Survivors:
1. Move on quickly: On the emotional level, resilient survivors don’t get stuck in the grief process. Resilient survivors have an uncanny way of recognizing, acknowledging, and accepting the reality of their dire situation more quickly than others. They also move through the stages of grief (denial, anger, depression, and acceptance) more quickly. In doing so they recognize that any possible solution must emanate from their own efforts. They stop blaming, wishing and bargaining early on in the process, so as to focus their energy on a solution.
2. Think, analyze, and plan: Survivors quickly organize, set up routines, and institute discipline. They act on the anticipation of success. They take correct, decisive action. Those who end up surviving are able to transform thought into action when the non-survivors act aimlessly, or not at all. They break down large (seemingly impossible) jobs into small manageable tasks, and are meticulous about performing those tasks well. They deal with what is within their power from moment to moment, hour by hour, and day to day.
Touching the Void chronicles the heroic story of expert mountain climbers Joe Simpson and Simon Yates. Joe took a tremendous fall, losing the use of both legs and was essentially left for dead. Whereas most of us able-bodied people would be goners, he managed to drag himself miles to access help. Joe Simpson told Backpacker magazine:
“…you have to fight like a bastard. You can’t just sit there and wait to get lucky. It doesn’t happen.”
3. Celebrate minor successes: Survivors take great joy in the smallest successes. This provides relief from unspeakable stress, and helps create hope.
4. Believe in a successful outcome: Survivors admonish themselves to do their very best all of the time and convince themselves (despite what appears to be hopeless odds) that they will succeed if they continue to execute their systematic plan.
5. Never give up: Survivors are not easily frustrated and are not greatly discouraged by setbacks.
Laurence Gonzales (Deep Survival) summarizes his research on survivors by saying:
“Gratitude, wonder, humility, imagination, and cold, logical determination: those are the survivor tools of mind.”
Next time I’ll discuss why this philosophy works.
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