Developing Mental Resilience: Proven Strategies to Overcome Stress and Thrive | Resilient by Design

In this episode of the Permission to Love Podcast, we continue the Resilient by Design series, focusing on three essential cognitive tools to help you build resilience, reframe stress, and create a healthier relationship with yourself. 

Stress can often feel overwhelming, but in this episode we look at the research-backed strategies that demonstrate how reframing stress and shifting our mindset can unlock personal growth and empowerment.

You will learn how to:

• Use the ABC model (Activating Event, Belief, Consequence) to identify and transform stress triggers.
• Develop a growth mindset through small, achievable goals and consistent celebration of progress.
• Rewire outdated schemas and limiting beliefs with positive self-talk to build confidence and resilience.

This episode is packed with actionable insights, stories, and research-based techniques to help you stop surviving and start thriving.

Key Takeaways:

1. Reframing Stress:
   • Stress is not inherently bad; how we interpret it determines its impact.
   • Research by Lazarus and Folkman shows that appraising stress as a challenge (rather than a threat) leads to motivation and empowerment.
   • The ABC model: Identify the Activating Event, the Belief about the event, and the Consequence. Shift the belief to change the outcome.
2. The Growth Mindset:
   • A fixed mindset limits potential, while a growth mindset encourages adaptability and learning.
   • Incremental goals and small wins build momentum.
   • Celebrating progress rewires the brain for optimism and resilience.
3. Positive Self-Talk:
   • Inner dialogue shapes how we view ourselves and the world.
   • Negative schemas, rooted in past experiences, can trap us in outdated narratives.
   • Neuroscience shows positive self-talk strengthens neural pathways linked to optimism and resilience.
4. Actionable Challenge:
   • Pick one cognitive tool—reframing stress, developing a growth mindset, or practicing positive self-talk—and commit to using it this week.

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction: Stress, anxiety, and avoidance
02:45 The power of reframing stress
04:19 The ABC model: Understanding activating events, beliefs, and consequences
07:11 Developing a growth mindset: Tips and tools
08:57 The importance of reframing stress and embracing challenges
10:44 Setting incremental goals and celebrating small wins
13:55 The imp

I am grateful you are here,
Jerry

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Transcript

Jerry Henderson: 0:00

Let me ask you a question. Do you feel like stress keeps you stuck in a cycle of anxiety and avoidance? Are you constantly procrastinating because you feel overwhelmed with the thought of engaging in the things that you need to do? Well, what if I told you that the key to breaking free from this cycle isn't about eliminating the stress, but learning how to work with it. Welcome to the Permission to Love podcast, where we discuss how you can have a healthier relationship with yourself by giving yourself the permission to love yourself.

Jerry Henderson: 0:34

I'm your host, jerry Henderson, and today we're continuing our series on Resilient by Design, and in this episode, we're diving into how to reframe stress, how to embrace a growth mindset and how to rewrite the narrative that's holding you back. And today it's my desire to help you see how cognitive tools can help you not just survive, but actually thrive. Now, if you've not had a chance yet to subscribe or to follow this podcast, I want to encourage you to take a moment to do that. You know, the research shows that 50% of people who listen to podcasts and consume the content of those podcasts never actually follow or subscribe to the podcast, and one of the challenges with this is, if you're not following a podcast, you don't get the updates on when new episodes come out, and one of the things about getting notified when a podcast episode comes out is it keeps you consistent with the content of that podcast, and the research shows that one of the key parts of change is consistency. So if this podcast is helping you on your journey of growth and you want to be consistent about that, take a moment to hit that follow or subscribe button on whatever platform that you're listening to the podcast on. So I want you to take a moment and I want you to imagine walking into a stressful situation. So, whether it's a big presentation, a tough conversation or even starting something new, I want you to imagine, instead of going into that with all that anxiety, all of that stress, your blood pressure going up, the heart racing or whatever it is, or simply avoiding it, I want you to think about, instead of all of that happening, what would it look like to feel grounded, confident and ready to engage? Well, that's exactly what we're going to be exploring today how can you use cognitive tools, the power of your mind and reframing to help you build more resilience, to help you see those things that were once so stressful that you wanted to avoid as things that you have the tools and the capacity to tackle and be successful at the tools and the capacity to tackle and be successful at. Okay, so let's get started.

Jerry Henderson: 2:45

And let's start by talking about the power of reframing stress, because the research is very clear on this. It's not as much about the stress that we're facing, but it's how we're seeing the stress, how we frame it. Are we framing it as something negative and bad, or are we seeing it as an opportunity for growth and expansion? Now, have you ever asked yourself or wondered, why do some people crumble under stress while other people rise to the occasion? Well, the research shows that a big part of it lies in how we interpret the stress that we're experiencing. So what is reframing stress? Well, it's about shifting our perception. Research by Lazarus and Folkman shows that how we appraise a situation whether we appraise it as a threat or as a challenge, a challenge to be engaged with will determine our emotional response and the actions that we take. So, to break it down a little bit when we start to see things as a threat or we get into threat appraisal mode, that's going to lead to feelings of helplessness and avoidance. On the other hand, when we start to see things as a challenge or a challenge to be accepted, not something that's impossible or a threat, but simply something that we can engage with, that challenge appraisal actually will create a sense of motivation and empowerment. And one of the key tools that you can use and I'll often use with clients to move from that threat appraisal to the challenge appraisal mode is Albert Ellis' ABC model.

Jerry Henderson: 4:19

So what is the ABC model? Well, the A stands for the activating event. What's the thing that is showing up, that's triggering the stress? The B of the ABC model stands for the belief that you have. So, for example, if public speaking is a big stressor for you, your belief might be if I mess up, everyone will think I'm a failure. Or if I mess up, everybody's going to think I'm stupid and that I don't know what I'm talking about, or I'm incompetent, whatever that belief is. And then the next step of the ABC model is the C, or the consequence. What might be the consequence in the example of public speaking? Well, you might get paralyzing anxiety, you might have a panic attack.

Jerry Henderson: 5:03

So in the ABC model, we have the A, the activating event, we have the B, or the belief. And then we have the C, which is the consequence. Now, when many people hear this, they think well, the consequence is related to the activating event. We had the event and because of that event I'm experiencing these consequences. But according to Albert Ellis, who is a prominent psychologist and psychotherapist who actually founded the rational emotive behavior therapy model, the ABC model isn't so much about the activating event, it's about the belief. The ABC model shows us that it is actually the belief that's causing the consequence, not the event. So in this example, just because you have to give a speech or a presentation is not the thing that's going to activate the anxiety. It's the belief about the meaning that you've assigned to what's going to happen if you mess up. It's then going to send your system into a bit of a spiral that's going to raise that blood pressure, that's going to get that heart going and it's going to cause all of the things that are a result of the actual belief.

Jerry Henderson: 6:15

Now here's the key and here's a part of what we're talking about today is that our beliefs can be changed. We can use cognitive tools, we can use cognitive reframing to change the beliefs that we have. And when we have different beliefs, guess what's going to happen. We're going to have different consequences in our life, and I want to note that consequences are not always bad. When we think about the word consequence, we think that it's something bad. Consequences can be very good. For example, if you crush the presentation, the consequence is going to be positive. Feedback might mean more responsibility, might open doors for you to do other presentations, which might set your career path on a whole different trajectory. So consequences can be negative or they can be positive. Now, another cognitive tool that we can use to build resilience is developing a growth mindset.

Jerry Henderson: 7:11

I've done some previous episodes on this topic, so I'm not going to do a deep dive in this one, and if you're curious about learning more about a growth mindset, you can go back and listen to some of those episodes or you can pick up Carol Dweck's book on growth mindset. So let me ask you another question what if failure wasn't the end but the beginning of growth? So let me ask that again what if your failure the failure of a marriage, the failure of a relationship, the failure at a career, the failure to change some of the behaviors that you're wanting to change what if that wasn't the end of the story, but it's just the beginning of your growth journey, and that shift in the way that you look at failure and the opportunity to grow is the key to having a growth mindset. And that's the power that a growth mindset can have to help us get unstuck and to help us create the life that we really want to live Now.

Jerry Henderson: 8:19

Dr Carol Dweck, who I just mentioned, her groundbreaking research in this area shows that people with a growth mindset, those who believe that they can improve their life through effort, that their intelligence isn't fixed, that they can learn how to grow, how to develop themselves, those individuals are better equipped to handle challenges. And why is that? Well, it goes back to what we talked about in the beginning of this episode that how we see stress is more important than the stress itself. That's a key thing. If you don't take anything else away from this episode, I want you to take that away.

Jerry Henderson: 8:57

How you frame stress, how you see it, is more important than the stressful event itself. When you see stress, do you think it's bad? Do you think you don't have the capacity to deal with it? Do you start to avoid it? See, all of that is going to cause the stressful event to be more stressful, have a greater impact in your life, but, on the other hand, if you start to reframe it, not see it as negative, see it as something that's a challenge, something that you have the skills to overcome, and, if you don't have those skills at the moment, that you can have a mindset that you can learn those skills so that you can overcome those stressors. And then that empowers you to stop avoiding the stress or procrastinate dealing with all the things that make you feel stressful and will actually give you the energy to approach it.

Jerry Henderson: 9:49

And all of that comes from how we see stress, and having a growth mindset is an essential part of reframing those stressors. Do we see them as things that are going to derail us? Do we see the fact that we're experiencing stressful events as a failure or do we see them as a challenge and an opportunity to grow? Now, if you struggle with having a growth mindset and you feel like you have more of a fixed mindset, here's a couple of tips that I want to give you as a part of developing that growth mindset. Once again, if you need more, you can grab her book or you can listen to some of the episodes I've done on this. But number one, I want to encourage you to start with reframing failure. See it as feedback, not a verdict. Okay, number two set incremental goals. Small wins build momentum.

Jerry Henderson: 10:44

When we set goals that are too high and we know they're too high and we're going to sabotage ourselves, what we're actually doing in that is setting up a situation where we can reinforce our beliefs about ourselves that we aren't the type of people who can change that. We're not the type of people who can meet our goals. That's what's going on when we overcommit to goals and set too high of a bar that we know subconsciously that we can't reach. So, instead of that, set micro goals. Does that mean I can't have a big vision for my life? No, not at all. Set the grandest vision for your life that you want, but what's going to have to happen is you're going to have to work backwards from that vision and break it down into micro goals that are achievable, that stack and build towards the life that you want.

Jerry Henderson: 11:35

I always encourage people in coaching 1%, 2%, 3% progress is better than no progress at all. You see, what happens is people often set these goals, they get fatigued, they get frustrated and then they bail out on them and they're not really making progress. They're actually making backwards progress because they're reinforcing in their nervous system that they can't accomplish their goals. And so if you take a different approach and say, what if I just got 1% better each week at the thing that I'm trying to accomplish? Just 1%? Well, at the end of 52 weeks, guess what just happened? You got 52% better. Now, I know I'm just playing with math here and it doesn't always add up that way, but I just want to help you frame it in that mindset, because for some people, they look at small incremental wins not as wins, because they're not thinking about change over time. And that's the important thing to think about. You're working on long-term change that is sustainable.

Jerry Henderson: 12:41

Now the third thing that can help you in a growth mindset is to celebrate your effort. Shift your focus from trying to get everything perfect to progress. Celebrate the 1% progress, celebrate the smallest of wins, why, as I've shared before, you're rewiring your brain and you do a really good job at beating yourself up when you don't do something. And what is that doing? That's reinforcing the avoidant side of your brain which is saying, hey, I don't want to even try, because when I try and I don't do it, I get an ass whooping from myself. No, we don't want that anymore. We want to shift towards. You know what, when I make any progress, I'm celebrating it, and that celebration is embedding it into your nervous system. You're building a healthier relationship with yourself. You're becoming your champion, and when you do that, everything starts to change. You'll actually have more energy to pursue the things that you want to do, because you're giving yourself the energy of positive feedback, positive reinforcement, and that's going to help motivate you towards accomplishing the things that you want to accomplish.

Jerry Henderson: 13:55

You know, as a small example of this, not too long ago, a client I was working with I'll call her Lisa believed that she was just bad at fitness. She's never going to be able to get in shape. Well, we worked on that belief system that she was bad at fitness and we started to work on reframing her approach and instead of focusing in on, like the end goal that I've got to get good at fitness and I've got to look a certain way and I've got to feel a certain way, those are all really good things to hold as a vision but she kept derailing herself from her vision because she held a core belief. I'm just bad at fitness. I'm not one of those like fitness people. Well, what we started to do and what we started to build for her was a celebration process where we celebrated the small victories, like walking five extra minutes each day.

Jerry Henderson: 14:48

Okay, doesn't seem like a lot in the beginning, doesn't seem celebration worthy, but what happened is, over time, she stopped labeling herself and then started identifying herself as someone who is capable of growth. And why was that? Because she saw the growth. She saw herself expanding and growing from a 10-minute walk to a 15-minute walk, and it wasn't long until that walk then started turning into a run. And then it wasn't long to where she started to meet the goals that she had. But what had to happen was, instead of her shaming herself for when she missed a day or that she wasn't doing it right and she just wasn't good at it, she had to be able to see that she was capable of growth. And the way that she saw that she was capable of growth was she was growing. From 10 minutes to 15 minutes that's growth. From 15 minutes to 30 minutes that's growth. But if we don't see it, we don't celebrate it. We're going to start avoiding pursuing our goals because we have no positive reinforcement to go after them, and celebration, as I mentioned, activates our reward system that causes us to approach the things that we want to do in our life.

Jerry Henderson: 16:03

All of this is about reframing beliefs. All of this is about using cognitive tools to see our challenges differently, and the way that we see our challenges is going to absolutely determine how we approach our challenges. Another tool that I want to talk about is rewriting the story that you're telling yourself by using positive, loving self-talk. Our inner dialogue is one of the most important things that shapes how we see ourselves, how we see others and how we see the world. But what happens when that dialogue that's going on in our mind is rooted in outdated, negative schemas?

Jerry Henderson: 16:45

What's a schema? Well, schemas are mental frameworks influenced by our past experiences, and while they can guide us, they can serve us and our brain uses them to help with efficiency. The challenge is they can also trap us. These schemas based off of our past experiences that are stored in our memory become our belief systems. They become that tape that's on autoplay running in the background. So, for example, if you've had negative experiences in your past where you've felt rejected or you've experienced trauma and you've developed a schema or a way of thinking that sees yourself as I'm not good enough. That is then going to frame how you see any challenge that shows up in your life, how you see stress, how you see opportunities. Because that narrative or that schema is running in the background that says I'm not good enough, I'm not good enough to handle this stress, I'm not good enough to be in this relationship, I'm not good enough to have this career.

Jerry Henderson: 17:48

And the research shows that one of the most powerful ways that we can start reframing that schema is to turn it into something powerful, to move it away from this absolute black and white narrative of I'm not good enough to something that is more empowering. And I want to let you know I want you to hear me on this you have the capacity, the ability and the strength to do this. You can reframe that old, outdated belief system that at one point was serving you, but now it's no longer serving you. You can change it, and where we start is by reframing it into something that we actually want to believe about ourselves. So, for example, instead of saying I'm not good enough, start to repeat a mantra or a phrase like I'm learning and I'm growing every day. Or another phrase is I'm lovable just as I am.

Jerry Henderson: 18:48

Now it's important to understand that there's some what I call bridge mantras. So if you're saying something like I'm lovable just as I am and that's fully bouncing off of your nervous system, using something like I'm learning and growing every day puts the focus in on I'm making progress, I'm beginning to advance, I'm growing, and you're putting your attention on what you're doing and the progress that you're making, which then can allow you to bridge to that feeling or that belief that I am worthy of love just as I am. And one of the keys to positive self-talk mantra or affirmation whatever your word is that you want to use is that we need to repeat it until it starts to feel natural. And, as I've shared before, that can take months. I mean, I've told you before that one of the things that I was working on took me six months before I actually felt it shift.

Jerry Henderson: 19:49

And why did I stay at it for six months? Why did I have that persistence? Well, because I realized that in six months from now, I could be carrying the belief that I was unlovable, or I could have made 1% to 2% to 3% progress towards believing that I was lovable just as I am, and I was willing to believe that it was a better future for me that in six months, I was 1% better at believing that I was worthy of love than to continue in a state where I felt like I wasn't worthy of love. So let me ask you a question how long do you stay at it? Well, it depends on how do you want to feel in six months from now. Do you want to keep doing exactly what you're doing and getting the exact same results, or do you want to take a chance that in six months from now, you might be 5% better, 20% better, 60% better at how you see yourself, what you believe about yourself?

Jerry Henderson: 20:44

Okay, so when you think about it that way, it starts to even reframe the reframing process. So, as an exercise, find one of those negative schemas that you have, one of those negative beliefs that are outdated, that aren't serving you anymore, and start writing down a phrase or a word that you want to use to help rewire that schema into a positive schema that can serve you. Listen, there's negative and there's positive schemas. You want positive ones that get embedded into your system and become a part of your nature, just like that old belief system feels like a part of your nature, which it's not, because that's not your nature, that's not who you are, even though it feels natural to you. Your true nature is worthy, is love and deserves the work from yourself towards yourself to begin to move into who you actually are.

Jerry Henderson: 21:45

Now the research in this area, around how we make these cognitive behavioral changes, is really powerful. It shows that positive self-talk can actually rewire your brain by strengthening neural pathways associated with optimism and resilience. It's activating a whole system of networks in your brain. So it's not just feel-good advice. Okay, guys, it's actually backed by neuroscience. It's proven methodology. You can rewire your brain by the way that you talk to yourself. So let's put all of this together today.

Jerry Henderson: 22:24

Today, we looked at three really powerful cognitive tools that you can use to help build your resilience. And remember, a big part of building resilience is how you see the challenges that you face and to help you with that reframing process that you face and to help you with that reframing process. In today's episode, as a quick review, we talked about reframing stress using the ABC model embracing a growth mindset by setting small, achievable goals and celebrating them, and then, finally, we talked about rewiring our limiting beliefs or those schemas by using science-based and backed positive self-talk. So here's my challenge for you this week pick one of these tools, just one, and start to put it into action. So, whether it's reframing a stressful event when it pops up and allowing yourself to see it a little bit different, or whether it's rewiring a limiting belief by writing that thing out and then beginning to ask yourself what would be a more positive belief, what would be a more positive schema that would serve you, or if it's taking steps towards a growth mindset by listening to the previous episodes on this or picking up that book on mindset by Dr Carol Dweck. So, whatever it is, take that one step towards building your overall resilience by using these cognitive tools.

Jerry Henderson: 23:50

And remember, as a part of this series, I just want to remind you that resilience is not about avoiding challenges. Okay, you cannot become more resilient without challenges. It's how we face those challenges that causes us to develop resilience, and then that resilience is going to give us a greater level of capacity to handle future challenges. So this is about navigating challenges and doing it with strength and adaptability, and reframing how we see them and then beginning to access the positive emotions that allow us to get through them in a way that's more life-giving, it's going to improve your overall well-being, it's going to improve your relationship with yourself, it's going to improve your relationships with other people and it's going to increase your self-esteem, the way that you feel about yourself. And so, guys, this is important work for each one of us to do, so give yourself the gift of diving into using one of these tools this week and seeing what it does to help change your life.

Jerry Henderson: 24:55

Now, if you need help on that journey, I'm going to remind you, as I always do, about my one-on-one coaching program. And why do I remind you about that? Because I believe in coaching. I believe in the power of having somebody to support you on the journey. I have my own coach and I have my own therapist. I have both, and they serve different roles in my life, and so if you need help and support, please get the support that you need. And the research is clear on this that individuals who work with coaches see improvement on achieving and sustaining the outcomes and the changes that they wanna make in their life. So if you'd like to learn more about my coaching program and working together.

Jerry Henderson: 25:36

Simply see the show notes in this episode, or you can go to my website at jerryhendersonorg. I'm looking forward to hearing from you. Now. If you found this episode to be helpful, I want to ask you a favor Share it with somebody who you know could benefit from this episode, because if it's making a difference in your life, guess what? It's going to make a difference in somebody else's life as well. You see, we often think about our own journey and what's helping us, but here's the truth the person that's in your sphere or your network. They're also struggling. So I want to encourage you take a moment, share this episode with somebody who you think could really benefit from it. And finally, I want to remind you, as always, that you are worthy of your own love.