An evaluating exercise, which promotes self-awareness and a better understanding about the meaning of resilience aiming to promote strong personal skills .
Number of participants: 5-12
Duration: approx 1h 15 min
Objective: The aim of this activity is for the participants to gain knowledge of the meaning of resilience and how they can increase this characteristic. They are also expected to enhance self-awareness skills by assessing their own resilience.
The trainer gives the participants the following questionnaire by telling them: As a rough initial guide, rate yourself in terms of the following ingredients of resiliency on a scale from 1 to 10.
Give to each participant 5 minutes.
The trainees should write their name in the top of the paper and put the 1st part of the questionnaire in a box.
The 1st part of the questionnaire is the following :
\1. I have plenty of support from other people in my life (_/10)
\2. I am able to accept myself for who I really am (_/10)
\3. I am confident in my ability to cope with adversity (_/10)
\4. I am good at communicating and interacting with others at times of stress (_ /10)
\5. I am good at facing challenging problems in life and solving them systematically (_/10)
\6. I cope well with my emotions in the face of adversity (_/10)
The trainer explains to the participants to consider each example/question individually (from the Step 1).
They should ask them : ‘’For each item above, if you rated it more than zero, ask yourself why. Also, what could you do to increase your score on each item, making it closer to ten?’’
Each participant should answer to these questions anonymously and then put them in a second box. After, the trainer collects all the questionnaires, he/she should read one the unknown answers in front of the team.
Reading the answered questionnaires:
For this phase of the activity, while the trainers are reading the anonymous 2nd questionnaires (one by one), the participants will suggest some solutions to the anonymous writer from their own point of view.(For the area: ’’What could I do to increase the score to make it closer to ten?’’). For example:’’ I suggest you to do…’’
This Step will finish after the trainers read all the anonymous answered questionnaires.
Step 4:
Debriefing/Feedback from the participants
-What actually is resilience?
-Do you believe that each individual has the characteristic of resilience? Is it actually an inherent feature?
-In what ways can you increase the level of resiliency?
-All these advices, from all the participants, did they help you to understand more clear the definition of resilience and how you can increase it, in order to recover from difficulties?
It is very important that the trainers can use this type of activity through all the training process. Especially, they can use the questionnaires every week and follow the progress of the participants’. Also, they should mainly focus on the personal needs of each participant and try to create if possible, in collaboration with them, an action plan that aims to strengthen and empower the element of resilience. Thus, every week the individual will be able to rate his/her progress and focus less or more to specific areas of her everyday routine, which have to empower. The element of resilience it’s a personality characteristic and it is very important for the trainers and the trainees to understand that its acquisition happens gradually.