Resilience is your ability to adapt to a variety of situations. It’s the strength you have to cope with physical and mental obstacles. When you’re resilient, you’re more likely to face a challenge and bounce back from it.

Your daily workouts create situations where you face one challenge after another. As you learn how to overcome these challenges, you develop a variety of skills, including resilience.

Here are four ways to develop resilience through your workouts:

1. Increase physical fitness.

Increasing your physical fitness builds strength, endurance, power, speed, and agility. And when you feel physically fit and healthy, your brain is likely to feel strong and fit as well. As you train your body to be more functionally fit, you’re also training your mind to stay healthy and resilient.

2. Focus on learning.

No matter what skill you’re learning, mistakes are part of the process. Rather than wondering if you’re going to make a mistake, a better question is how you will respond to a mistake? The more resilient you are, the more likely you are to focus on what you can do differently the next time. Resiliency increases the chance that you’ll bounce back, move forward, and grow as an athlete.

3. Create short term objectives.

Some training or fitness goals might take several months or even years to achieve. Whenever you’re working toward a long term goal, you need to find a way to stay motivated and committed to your training. Without setting and achieving even small goals, it can feel like you’re not making any progress. You might be tempted to give up on your training altogether. Setting short term objectives for long term goals helps you be patient and develop resiliency. Achieving your mini-goals provides a sense of success and motivates you to keep going.

4. Take time to rest.

In your training, make sure that you’re balancing hard work with proper recovery. If you’re on the edge of overtraining, it affects you mentally and physically. When your body and mind are overstressed, it’s hard to be resilient. Poor sleep and muscle soreness make it a challenge, too. So eat quality nutritious foods, get quality sleep, and pay attention to your body. Taking a rest day is not the same as giving up. It’s how you’re able to keep going.

Contact us at MagMile CrossFit in Chicago to learn more about how to get started with the programs we currently have to offer.