Becoming Anti-fragile

Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. 

The resilient resists shocks and stays the same.

The anti fragile gets better.  

Things that are anti fragile benefit from randomness, uncertainty and variation.  

As we increase our ability to thrive as a result of stressors, shocks, mistakes, failures or attacks, the more Anti-Fragile we become. 

There’s actually proof of this, for instance when we are doing basic needs activities such as learning to walk the more times we fall down, the stronger we are when we get up and the better we become at walking. 

We don’t I think to ourselves “oh no don’t fall” every time we stand up and start walking. 

I play ice hockey and the more often I play hockey the better I am at it, when I first begin playing I did not know how to skate, there is a lot to learn but now years later ice skating is effortlessly, done without thinking about it. 

When we start back at the gym we get sore from working out but that’s because our muscles are anti fragile, the more you work out, the heavier weights you left, the more you break them down, the stronger they get.  

So how do we actually live an Anti-Fragile life?

One way I have experienced becoming more Anti-Fragile is beinge willing to put myself in situations where I am exposed to the opportunity of feeling negative emotion and experiencing it and thriving from it. the more we do that the less afraid we are and the more anti fragile we become.  

When I was younger and I was in social situations and someone would ask me to speak in front of a group, I almost felt traumatized by the possibility of embarrassment or failing…every single time I felt embarrassment, and every single time I failed…But the more times I did it the more Anti-Fragile I became.

As we grow and become willing to embrace our feelings of fear, embarrassment, failure, knowing that some people think negatively of us, being willing to do anything and feel any emotion, we’re going to show up for ourselves and know that our failures will only strengthen us. 

There is always going to be situations and circumstances out in the world happening that we have no control over, these things are an opportunity to help us practice building our Anti-Fragile responses that help us get stronger and smarter about our life so that we can thrive in moments of adversity, moments that challenge us and cause us to feel emotions such as embarrassment and fear. 

The point is to become anti fragile we just need to keep practicing, keep trying, fail along the way and now that it’s part of the strengthening process… The more often we experience all of our feelings the faster we become Anti-Fragile. 

What are some of the ways you experience becoming anti fragile in your life? Let’s connect and continue this conversation together! Please join me on my Facebook page and let’s talk some more. 

https://www.facebook.com/jacquelin.finnicum.3