The Top 10 Things We Learned About Resilience from Zombies
If you can’t beat em, eat ‘em
It’s happening — the zombie apocalypse! The world is turning upside down, and you can only depend on yourself and a tiny band of other survivors. In this scenario, you really want to practice your resilience.
Why? Because resilience is a skill. It’s the reservoir of strength we summon to overcome adversity and confront difficult challenges with energy and enthusiasm. It’s a key determinant of confidence and success—and the stakes for succeeding are high!
There are few times humanity needs more resilience than when faced with the zombie apocalypse. But when it comes to resilience, zombies may also be our best teachers.
Here are ten things we’ve learned from them about true resilience and true dead-ication:
10. Keep taking care of yourself, no matter what’s going on with your head
When our physiological and psychological resources are depleted (for example, heads being blown off), we feel less energy and motivation to practice resilience. But those of us who’ve kept our literal heads can embrace self-care to up our performance in the future.
9. Keep on moaning until they understand you
Controlled and purposeful breathing is perhaps the most practical skill we have to boost confidence and resilience before a challenge. So whether your challenge is tackling a tough presentation, or forming words for the first time since you became undead, breathing is your friend.
8. The world’s your stage, break a leg….and take time to have fun
We tend to get so wrapped up in the stress of our challenges, both big and small, that we don’t think we have time to take breaks. We couldn’t be more wrong about that. In fact, NOT taking breaks when we need them can make our challenges even tougher to surmount. So even if you’re a dance troupe of zombies, make the time to appear on Britain’s Got Talent.
7. When you feel like you have no legs left to stand on, keeping crawling toward your goals.
When we dwell on factors out of our control, we feel helpless and confused. But when we take a breath and strategize ways to overcome obstacles, we feel energized, determined, and resilient. Take a breath — and crawl toward your prey!
6. Never lose sight of what you’re chasing
Expressing gratitude for the people and things in our lives that fill us with joy makes us happier and fosters lasting resilience. Whether it’s a daily practice, or in the last moments before you transform into a zombie yourself right in front of your beloved daughter, make sure to let the people who matter know what they mean to you.
5. Count on those around you to build you up!
When adversity strikes, the important people in our lives are like stress shock absorbers — protecting us with a sense of belonging and perspective that boosts our resilience and confidence. For zombies, this manifests as climbing on each other’s backs to breach a massive wall to get at pesky survivors!
4. If you see an opening, take it — even if you lose a limb along the way
The more in touch we are with our “why” — our purpose — the more motivated we are to persevere. Taking action that’s driven by purpose increases our self-worth, and in doing so, empowers us to act resiliently. Linking our goals to our values can boost our motivation to keep fighting — even when we’re down a few limbs.
3. Stumbling is a part of the journey
A healthy, resilient approach is to process adversity as “specific,” meaning specific to the here and now and therefore surmountable in the here and now. The specific adversity here? Zombies on the road. Is it surmountable? Watch this clip from The Walking Dead to find out!
2. A good attitude is infectious
When we’re resilient, we have a way of viewing ourselves as ongoing experiments. We’re able to step outside of ourselves, assess our actions, and make changes where necessary. It can be learning revolutionary choreography, or bouncing back from a bad review—others will notice how we continue to change and grow.
1. If you can’t beat em, eat ’em. And if you can’t eat em, join ‘em.
There’s substantial research showing that when we have a greater “internal” locus of control — meaning, we attribute our outcomes to our actions — we are more resilient and successful over time. So betting your life on pretending to be a zombie is a great way to build resilience (and your chance of successfully escaping their jaws).
While we can’t always control the adversity we face (like going into a coma and waking up 28 Days Later to a totally messed-up London), we DO have control over how we respond.
And that’s an uplifting thought even during the zombie apocalypse.
Written with Isabella Leon!
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