The 4 Ways To Boost Your Resilience
You have something in you more powerful and miraculous than the things that affect you.
“When life hands you lemons, ask for a bottle of tequila and salt.”
“You will recall how impregnable your mind is when it withdraws into itself and steadfastly refuses to do what it doesn’t want to do, even when its refusal is unreasonable.…Free from passions, the mind is a veritable fortress. A man cannot find a more secure place to take refuge and remain unassailable forever. Ignorant is he who fails to see this, and truly ill-fated is he who sees but fails to take refuge.” - Marcus Aurelius
I was 72 hours deep into this challenge my best friend gave me.
Or it was the 80th hour.
I can’t remember.
My vision was hazy. The thoughts to quit had gotten louder. I sniffed defeat.
I was unsure about partaking in the dare from the outset, as I didn’t see any value in it. Therefore, I didn’t train as well as he did.
I also foreshadowed I’d be inefficient with my daily tasks while fighting the temptation to break the fast. And I knew better than to fight many battles simultaneously. That’s the economy of war.
I had it all figured out with excuses.
Channeling the trickery of Odysseus, he asked me whether I had heard of Seneca’s words saying,
“I judge you unfortunate because you have never lived through misfortune. You have passed through life without an opponent—no one can ever know what you are capable of, not even you.”
A little perturbed, I said I did and I was living that philosophy in other ways. But missing food for 120 hours without any reward was crazy.
“You’re crazy.”
I told him.
9th February, the challenge day, arrived faster than I expected.
Interestingly, as if I had taken on the fast unconsciously, I got so busy I forgot to eat. I was also too lazy to cook that day.
In the calm, youthful evening, as I gazed at the beautiful twilight, staying strong while getting smacked by the aroma and sizzle of fried meat from my neighbor’s house, I convinced myself to go on.
I called my friend and told him I would be participating. We’re on.
I started the clock.
I decided to be strategic with my approach by not letting the weight of the whole event crush me. I’d take it a day at a time. A moment at a time. Breathe at a time.
“Don’t let your imagination be crushed by life as a whole,”
Marcus Aurelius would tell himself,
“Don’t try to picture everything bad that could possibly happen. Stick with the situation at hand, and ask, “Why is this so unbearable? Why can’t I endure it?” You’ll be embarrassed to answer.”
Day one was easy. Day two, peasy. Hunger was non-existent. I was also enjoying the endorphin high.
My energy was steady throughout those days as I was sharp in the lengthy hospital ward rounds and my productivity was at an all-time high. The momentum was exciting. And I knew I had this challenge by the chokehold. What’s the worst that could happen?
Yo! I had spoken too soon. Day three got interesting.
It was when I felt the heaviness of what I had gotten myself into because, dear reader, part of the challenge was that we still had to lift at the gym and work.
Fatigue had encapsulated my being when I woke up. I thought it would fade on my way to the gym, but its adhesiveness was stubborn. The warm up was a struggle. Setting up the weights was a chore. I felt miserable.
It was apparent...I was down bad. Like Ken Carson, I was
“fighting my demons.”
I wanted to go back to sleep.
My friend pointed out that he could see me going through it. He laughed. Called me a wuss—hoping it would trigger some anger and ketosis.
I laughed back at myself in agony.
I thought. Do I go on and experience what it feels to win, or break the fast because this was not looking good? I was at crossroads. And I had to make a choice. Fast.
Suddenly, it hit me that I didn’t control how I felt. The gloom and decline in energy was an inevitable physiological phenomenon resulting from the fast. And in wishing this state away, I was focusing on the wrong thing. I was trying to change the impossible.
My best bet for survival was guiding my attention and effort on what I did control: my response.
I decided to love and get comfortable with what I felt. Being a rebel, that was the most audacious and atrocious thing I would do to spite this obstacle. It was a chance for me to practice courage and confidence. To hold my head up high, and shake off the torment like it was nothing.
This act renewed my energy.
And the results came in the second set of the bench press when it got easy. I even told my friend to help me add more weight for the third set.
He smiled knowing we were about to destroy this session. With a smirk, and like a shark tasting blood, I knew I was back.
How could I not be proud? The day was young and I had conquered the worst. Part of me even wished it would happen again so I could feel myself overcome. It was beautiful.
When Future said,
“I’m at a stage in my life where I feel like I can conquer anything and everything,”
in the intro of Diamond’s Dancing, I felt that.
The rest of the 120-hour fast felt good and simple.
And at the end of it, as I ate some eggs to break my fast while playing some Lana Del Rey in the background, reminiscing about the hell I just went through — I felt I had earned more audacity and drive to do whatever I wanted.
With courage, confidence, and more love, this event had fundamentally changed me. I felt invincible, that nothing could hurt me.
The challenge also helped me see the essence of a strong brotherhood.
Had my friend not been noble enough to want to challenge himself. Had he pitied and implored me to go back to sleep, I wouldn’t have felt what I did — which was better than any material reward.
It was...a spiritual experience. Priceless. An illuminating event I knew I’d draw on for much needed strength on a dark day.
“It’s time you realized,”
Marcus Aurelius wrote,
“that you have something in you more powerful and miraculous than the things that affect you and make you dance like a puppet.”
And below is a breakdown of lessons you can draw from this story which will help you endure and make the most of the pain and pressure you could be going through or will experience in the future.
1. Seek Refuge in Your Inner Citadel
“Things cannot touch the soul. They have no access to the soul. They cannot produce our judgments. They are outside of us. They themselves know nothing, and by themselves they affirm nothing.” — Marcus Aurelius
Nothing can get to you. Not pain. Not endless temptations and distractions. And not the words of rude people.
At the same time, you can’t help but feel the initial eruptions of what has happened. This sting is inevitable. You’re human. But because you have the powers of Reason, you can stop the emotions where they stand.
You can be free.
And this is how you gain mind control.
Ancient Stoics classified matters into what’s within our control and what isn’t. The former should be your major concern since it holds the keys to your well-being and you ought to ignore the latter.
Among the things within your control are your thoughts, judgments and opinions and those not within your control are the weather, what people say and do, and if your business will thrive or fail.
Further still, among the things not within your control, there are some you can have a degree of influence on the outcome while others are fixed.
For example, your business has a high potential to thrive if you work hard and tap into the right market while you can’t do anything to influence the weather however much you pray.
It’s because of separating matters, or lack thereof, between what you control and what you don’t that people have different reactions to the same situation.
Think of this story about Seneca who, when young, used to get asthma attacks that almost left him for dead.
Do you know what he did?
Gasping for breath on his bed, he fully embraced the asthma attack and even wished for death itself, if that was destined to happen.
Crazy, right? I know.
But through rational surrender to what fate had imposed on him, he got the upper hand and emerged from the experience stronger than ever having overcome the fear of death.
You control what you think of situations and you can as well write the coolest story ever in the book of your life.
2. Distract Yourself
People will tell you it’s good to pay attention to what you’re doing if you want to get the most from it.
Being good at your craft, social interactions and enjoying your food requires you pay attention to what’s happening for you to create meaningful connections and enjoy these moments.
However, doing this all the time can be counterproductive.
There are some fears or pains you can’t overcome however effortful and deliberate you are to focus on the moment. And it’s during these trying times that it’s wise to stop trying and take advantage of your nature as it already is since when left to ourselves, as Montaigne learnt,
“Our thoughts are always elsewhere.”
It’s prudent to distract yourself from painful thoughts with other interesting activities.
You can rely on nature to take care of you rather than throw your intellectual axe at a problem you can never hope to crack. You can let go and live in the flow.
This helps whether you’re grieving or if fear threatens to paralyze you.
3. Love the Struggle. It’ll Make You Better
“I love to feel a bitter throe,
Rise to its fullest height,
Then watch a conquering anodyne
Softly assert its might.”
- Anne Reeve
You might think it’s absurd, but yes, the struggle will make you a better and stronger person.
And perhaps the greatest benefit will be enhancing your empathy.
When you experience deep pain, you don’t have a choice but to put yourself in other people’s shoes and wonder what they’re going or went through and be compassionate and kind enough to them to ease their torment so you can pacify your pain.
Opening yourself up to empathy is what makes you want to call your mother and tell her you love her, since you now understand the perils of adulthood aren’t as easy as she had protected you from. Not to feel sorry for her, as that would be insulting her strength and dignity, but to draw inspiration from her since you’re cut from the same cloth.
If she survived and thrived through the pain, you can do it too.
You may not need the struggle to make you a kinder, more loving person, but some of us need the shock that we’re not at the centre of the universe and this forces us to consider other perspectives through empathy and connection with people on a much deeper level since we’ve discovered that we’re still human, prone to the same sufferings we had previously considered ourselves immune to.
And through this communal bond of being and suffering, we get to exercise other noble aspects of our nature such as love, active listening, and even assertiveness.
This openness to the world is also what helps us create the best businesses, lasting relationships, and beautiful art or entertainment as it speaks to the natural human condition.
Other times, it’s not until you’re forced into responsibility that you discover your agency. You realize you can pick up a book or Google solutions to a problem, learn a skill, and talk to people to ask for help. Or simply practice patient endurance.
It’s for this reason that most people become better when you put them in charge of a group and expect results from them. Or if they become parents.
Far away from the comfortable beach, you have no other choice but to swim.
So, embrace the struggle.
That might not be what you want to hear since you wish for life to keep getting better and you’re probably already tired. But you’ll be more at ease once you understand living requires strength, since your responsibilities and expectations will continue expanding with age.
Life doesn’t get better; you get stronger.
And when you soak up that truth, you’ll be happy to know that you’re building up strength and endurance for the future through what’s happening right now.
That it’s all practice. For, as Marcus Aurelius wrote,
“The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
4. Train For the Hard Times
“What ought one to say then as each hardship comes? I was practicing for this, I was training for this.” — Epictetus
From the story above, it’s clear that I should have trained for the long fast.
But what I haven’t told you is I usually eat once a day on most days. This practice contributed to my resilience for that challenge.
I had benefited from Seneca’s teachings saying,
…we should voluntarily set aside a few days to subsist with little food, coarse clothing & no material comforts. We should prepare for adversity, amidst the favours of fortune. Such practices of endurance will help us realise we can make do with very little. Vagaries of fortune won’t effect us.
Recent studies in Neuroscience confirm what Seneca quipped 2,000 years ago.
Dr. Andrew Huberman, a neuroscientist from Stanford University, tells us that the anterior mid-cingulate cortex is the source of our will-power.
This brain area grows bigger when, at our worst — tired and wanting to quit, we need to express more discipline.
That adaptation then helps us be more disciplined in other areas of life that might require it. It also helps you see that you can train to increase your will power; it’s not a limited resource as many people tend to believe. And if you can take this idea further, you might see the wisdom in doing challenging tasks often so you can play daily life on easy mode.
You’re capable of so much more than you think, dear reader. You can do this. Take it a step at a time and give yourself some grace.
The opposite also applies.
The more you avoid doing hard things, the more you lose your will power. You become soft.
Now you can be grateful for and love what you’re going through as it’s building up the strength reserve you might need in the future.
It’s helping you get stronger to handle the heavy crown you were destined to wear.
So when trouble comes, think of yourself as a wrestler whom God, like a trainer, has paired with a tough young buck. For what purpose? To turn you into Olympic-class material.” — Epictetus
There are various ways to simulate adversity so you can cultivate this capacity.
Exercise, fasting, not picking up your phone when doing deep work, sleeping on the floor, writing, or reading are all ways you can do so.
You’ll also be happy to note that even small activities like cold showers, as long as you don’t enjoy them — Huberman says, could go a long way into boosting your resilience.
It’s time you took back control and ruled your mind. Don’t you think?
And while you’re at it, remember this encouragement from Epictetus,
“every habit and capability is confirmed and grows in its corresponding actions.”
Prepare for life. It’s a long journey ahead.
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I'm going to do that fasting challenge.
The inner citadel point is the one most people miss. They think resilience is about endurance. It is actually about where you choose to stand when the pressure arrives. That distinction changes everything.