The Palm Tree Model of Resilience

ARE YOU RESILIENT LIKE A PALM TREE?

Have you ever noticed how palm trees can withstand hurricane-force winds better than other trees? After a storm passes, trees are down, and fences blow over, but palm trees are often still standing. They get just as much wind as other trees, but palms know how to bend and flex. In fact, a Royal palm tree can bend 40 to 50 degrees and not break. Because it doesn’t have branches like other trees, it’s not as rigid.

Palms are built with tools for survival. A hurricane will still beat them up. They can lose their fronds, but they are often the last ones standing out of all the trees.

My question to you is, “Are you resilient like a palm tree in a hurricane?” Can you bend and flex and adapt? Or are you rigid and breakable and unwilling to sway with the wind? When something isn’t going your way or something beyond your control is thrown in your path, can you come to grips with the fact that the world doesn’t always work the way you want it to?

You have to decide how you will react in your situation. Do you try to wrestle control away from the power at work or do you try to adapt to the change and rise above the challenge?

Resilience doesn’t take pain or hurt away from life, but it can improve our ability to handle challenges. So let me ask you again, are you resilient? If not, what can you do to build your resilience?

Feel free to share ideas in the comments. Let me know what you do to build resilience against life’s hurricanes.