Developing study resilience
About
Resilience is a necessary skill for coping with life’s inevitable obstacles and one of the key ingredients to study success.
When things go wrong with your performance at uni and you’re not achieving your goals, resilience is what helps you to cope and get through tough times.
What to do
Coping with challenges
The key to developing resilience is having effective coping strategies to deal with stress and maintain a sense of control in your life. There are many ways of coping with stress, and everyone is different, so it’s about finding something that works for you. Here are some things to try:
- taking time out to relax;
- exercise;
- meditation;
- breaking a challenge down into small, achievable goals;
- celebrating achieving your goals;
- keeping a journal; and
- thinking about the big picture.
Strengthening resilience
Resilience enables you to better cope with challenging situations and helps with your mental wellbeing. You can build your resilience by:
- building your self-esteem and having confidence in your abilities and the positive things in life;
- building healthy, supportive relationships with friends, family or a partner;
- playing to your strengths;
- knowing when to ask for help;
- managing stress and anxiety levels;
- learn from your mistakes and failures;
- working on problem-solving skills and coping strategies; and
- develop a growth mindset.
Getting support
If you’d like to speak to someone about developing resilience or coping with tough times, Deakin's Counselling service and Deakin Medical Centre are available to help you.
More help and advice
The DeakinWELLBEING app can help you to develop and maintain healthy habits. Our website has a range of study supports available to you.
Read this ReachOut article on What Stan Lee taught us about strength, resilience and being true to ourselves.
The SuperBetter app is a tool created by game designer to help you build resilience and get stronger, healthier and happier.
headspace provide information on how you can develop your own positive ways to handle tough times.