On Resilience – the 7 C’s

In the wise words of Forrest Gump, shit happens. Life’s full of challenges and difficulties, and without resilience, without the ability to bounce back, life will kick your ass.

Resilience is defined by the Oxford dictionary as the ability for people or things to feel better quickly after something unpleasant, such as shock, injury, etc.

The 7 C’s model of resilience breaks resilience down into 7 critical areas.

The 7 C’s are:

1. Competence:

People need to be recognized when they’re doing something right and to be given opportunities to develop specific skills. If your child shows a love or aptitude for a specific skill, activity or sport, let them know you’ve noticed and encourage them to keep practising.

Obviously, training in fighting sports and martial arts is focused on skill development. Our trainers guide, motivate and encourage our clients, and competence develops.

2. Confidence:

This comes from building real skills. Confidence can be easily undermined, but also bolstered by tasks and activities that push learners without making the goal feel unachievable.

Fighting is a very primal, deep-rooted part of human nature, and so the development of fighting skills has a direct and meaningful impact on confidence. Added to that, the aesthetic benefits of exercise also boost confidence and self-esteem. The way we build the programs for our clients involves setting progressively more challenging goals. Challenging, but not impossible, and specifically designed to foster an appetite for facing and overcoming challenges.

 Connection:

Being part of a community helps people know they aren’t alone if they struggle and that they can develop creative solutions to problems. Teams and clubs can provide this.

Our training is all community orientated, whether it’s semi-private training or class training. You’ll be a part of a team, and you’ll know the battles that you fight you’re not fighting alone.

4. Character:

We all need an understanding of right and wrong and the capacity to follow a moral and ethical compass.

Fighting sports forge character. Development of fighting skills and fitness demands discipline, determination, delayed gratification and mental toughness. Fighting sports very quickly teach humility and respect.

5. Contribution:

The experience of offering our own service makes it easier for us to ask for help when we need it. Once we understand how good it can feel to give to others, it becomes easier to ask for that same support when it’s needed. And being willing to ask for help is a big part of being resilient.

Almost every single one of our clients is new to fighting sports, and every one of our clients feels the support from the rest of the group. Everyone was new once, and no-one is allowed to forget that, and to pay it back when a new member joins. You’ll learn that it’s okay to get help from others, and you’ll learn how intrinsically satisfying it is to contribute to another’s development.

6. Coping:

Everyone needs to learn mechanisms to manage their stress by learning methods to both engage and disengage at times. Some strategies for doing this include breaking down seemingly insurmountable problems into smaller, achievable pieces, avoiding things that trigger extreme anxiety, and just letting some things go. After all, resilience is about conserving energy to fit the long game. So we need to know, realistically, what we can change and what should be let go.

Our clients learn how to focus on the critical components. They’re taught to not get distracted by irrelevant “noise.” They learn to pace themselves for the long haul, and to keep pushing when it gets difficult. They learn not to fixate on mistakes, but rather adapt and adjust. They feel the value of focusing on what’s important and ignoring what’s not.

7. Control:

We need to feel like we have a degree of control over our lives and environment. Control is one of the major factors in stress, and so understanding that we are in control is vitally important.

Ultimately, whether you achieve the results or not is almost entirely in your control. You can come to train, or not. Eat healthily, or don’t. Get enough sleep, or don’t. You can make the decisions that’ll bring you closer to your goals, or not. You aren’t a play-thing being tossed around by life. You’re in control of what you do with the cards you’re dealt.