19 Resilience Activities & Training to Overcome Adversity

Resilience is more than bouncing back from adversity; it’s about growing by learning from life’s challenges. Resilience activities help develop the capacity to adapt, recover, thrive, and flourish during hard times.

This article expands on the science behind resilience training, exploring evidence-based resilience activities and strategies that support the development of psychological flexibility and wellbeing. We’ll explore how resilience training helps people navigate life’s difficulties and how it enhances overall life satisfaction, meaning, and purpose.

By identifying character strengths and using them to embrace vulnerabilities, resilience training helps transform setbacks, losses, and even disasters into opportunities for personal growth.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our five positive psychology tools for free. These engaging, science-based exercises will help you effectively deal with difficult circumstances and give you the tools to improve the resilience of your clients, students, or employees.

What Is Resilience Training?

Resilience training is designed to develop our capacity to recover from setbacks, navigate adversity, and adapt positively to life’s challenges (Ambrósio & Adiletta, 2021). Key components include the development of psychological strengths and the cultivation of wellbeing (Scheuch et al., 2021).

Resilience is not a fixed personality trait but a dynamic process that can be cultivated by learning new skills and wellbeing practices (Ang et al., 2022a).

Resilience activities are built on evidence-based techniques that help develop psychological flexibility, including cognitive-behavioral strategies, mindfulness practices, and strengths-based interventions. Resilience activities promote emotional regulation, challenge negative thinking, and help build supportive social connections (Ang et al., 2022b).

For instance, the Penn Resilience Program integrates cognitive-behavioral and positive psychology techniques to teach skills that enhance optimism and reduce anxiety and depression when facing life difficulties (Brunwasser et al., 2009).

Similarly, our own Resilience X© program offers a comprehensive framework for practitioners to deliver science-based resilience activities in various contexts. We will explore Resilience X© more below.

Resilience training also emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and the practice of self-compassion during hard times (Nelson et al., 2023). Too many of us indulge in self-criticism and harsh judgements of our own vulnerability when we ourselves are struggling.

Resilience activities like self-compassion teach us to be gentle and kind to ourselves during the inevitable challenges life throws our way.

Additionally, values clarification and learning to navigate problems and challenges in line with personal values maintain a sense of purpose and meaning amid adversity (Niederhauser et al., 2022; Nelson et al., 2023).

Practices like gratitude journaling and mindfulness meditation foster resilience by encouraging appreciation of positive life events, however small, thereby enhancing emotional wellbeing (Ang et al., 2022a). All these resilience activities serve as a buffer against stress.

In essence, resilience training equips us with the skills required to withstand adversity as well as grow and thrive in its aftermath.

Resilience training programs support the broader goals of positive psychology by building the psychological resources that promote positive emotions (Ang et al., 2022a; Niederhauser et al., 2022; Nelson et al., 2023).

In this way, resilience training empowers people to face challenges, overcome setbacks, process loss and change, and lead more fulfilling lives.

Why It Matters More Than Ever

Resilience training has never been more essential in a world facing a surge in mental health challenges, especially anxiety, depression, and substance abuse (Brassington & Lomas, 2020).

As people worldwide navigate increasing uncertainty, stress, and social fragmentation, the ability to adapt and thrive amid adversity is vital.

Crucially, resilience activities are not just reactive; they are preventive. By cultivating coping strategies before a crisis hits, people are better equipped to navigate challenges without becoming overwhelmed (Martin & Murrell, 2020).

This proactive approach can reduce the likelihood of developing mental health problems during difficult times and support recovery in those already affected (Martin & Murrell, 2020).

For those struggling with chronic stress, addiction, or trauma, resilience activities offer strategies for engaging with life rather than shutting down in the face of pain (Ang et al., 2022b; Prakapienė & Markelienė, 2024).

Moreover, resilience training develops a mindset that understands that challenges, setbacks, losses, and tragedy are an unavoidable part of the human experience, not a personal failing (Ketelaars et al., 2024; Zhai et al., 2021). This shift in perspective helps people meet loss and change with steadiness and compassion rather than fear or avoidance.

As human beings continue to face collective and individual hardships, from global crises to personal loss, the ability to navigate life with psychological flexibility is more important than ever (Ang et al., 2022b).

Resilience is more than just bouncing back; it involves developing the capacity to accept difficult thoughts and feelings while acting in ways that align with our values (Ditta & Bham, 2020). This flexibility underpins mental wellbeing and enables people to respond to setbacks, trauma, and change with courage and dignity (Ketelaars et al., 2024).

Resilience training empowers us to thrive despite life’s ongoing uncertainties.

What Are Resilience Exercises?

Resilience exercises are practices that can build resilience skills. As an example, the following simple resilience exercises are grounded in applied positive psychology research and designed to help practitioners and clients face challenges, overcome setbacks, and acquire the coping skills needed to navigate loss and change (Ambrósio & Adiletta, 2021).

Three good things

Martin Seligman et al. (2005) recommended this simple exercise to overcome the human mind’s inherent negativity bias and redirect attention to positive events that occur throughout the day, however small.

Exercise: Each night for a week, write down three things that went well that day and why they happened.

The goal of the exercise is to develop emotional resilience by focusing on gratitude and hope. Positive emotions help offset stress (Brunwasser et al., 2009).

Strengths spotting and use

This exercise is based on Peterson and Seligman’s (2004) original research on strengths spotting and application as the foundation of resilience.

Exercise: First, take the free survey VIA Character Strengths survey to identify your top three character strengths (e.g., curiosity, honesty, perseverance). Next, think back on your day. What did you handle well? Spot a strength in action by identifying how you used it to solve a problem, manage stress, or overcome a setback.

The goal of this exercise is to enhance self-efficacy and a sense of meaning by recognizing existing sources of resilience.

Growth mindset reflection

The following is a short reflection exercise based on Carol Dweck’s (2007) mindset theory, which contrasts a fixed mindset with a growth mindset. Someone with a fixed mindset responds to setbacks by getting stuck in negative feedback loops, while one with a growth mindset reframes failure as a learning opportunity.

Exercise: Recall a challenge you’ve faced recently where you struggled, made a mistake, or felt like giving up. Identify any fixed mindset thoughts that arose, such as, “I’m just not good enough.” Next, rewrite that thought.

For example, “I’m not very good at this yet, but I can learn and improve.” Reflect on what you learned from changing your mindset and how it could help you grow.

The goal of this exercise is to reframe adversity as a growth opportunity that can help develop resilience.

6 Activities to Build Resilience

In this section we’ll explore resilience-building activities for adults, groups, teams, and workplaces that support the exercises mentioned above.

For adults

1. Resilience journaling: Stress as a challenge

Resilience journaling is a powerful way to focus attention on our personal resources, strengths, and coping skills (Lohner & Aprea, 2021). This brief journaling activity is based on cognitive reframing, a cognitive behavioral therapy technique.

The idea is to reframe a stressor as a positive challenge that we can learn from.

When facing a stressor, write down:

• The event (what happened and where)
• Your automatic reaction (e.g., anger, anxiety, avoidance, or distraction)
• An alternative, more adaptive interpretation (taking a mindful pause to regulate emotions before solving the problem)

Viewing stress as a positive challenge enhances psychological flexibility and helps reduce anxiety and emotional overwhelm (Lohner & Aprea, 2021).

2. Self-compassion breaks

Self-compassion can be defined as being your own best friend during tough times (Neff, 2011). All too often, we judge and criticize ourselves when difficulties arise, which is not how we’d respond to a good friend who was struggling.

Self-compassion breaks entail taking some time out to self-soothe and do something nice for yourself, like writing a compassionate letter to yourself in your journal as if you were writing to a best friend. Treating ourselves kindly helps us to bounce back quickly.

3. Best possible life

The best possible life exercise is another way to reorient attention toward our personal and social resources, based on Laura King’s positive visualization research (King, 2001; King & Raspin, 2004).

Using a resilience journal, visualize a future where everything has gone as well as it possibly could, in detail. Spend 15 to 20 minutes describing your best possible life in writing to help develop optimism, goal-directed thinking, and emotional resilience.

For groups

4. Challenge-and-growth story swap

Storytelling helps to build resilience by normalizing struggles as opportunities for personal growth. Hearing others’ journeys reduces the isolation we can feel during hard times and reminds us that adversity can contribute to personal growth and wisdom (East et al., 2010).

Break a group into pairs and ask them to share a personal story about a challenge they’ve faced and a lesson they learned from it. Then, each person reflects on how the experience made them stronger and wiser.

For teams

5. Shared gratitude wall

Collective gratitude boosts team morale and positive emotions. It can also support a shared sense of meaning. It strengthens emotional bonds that serve as a buffer during challenging times (Ambrósio & Adiletta, 2021; Ang et al., 2022a; Brassington & Lomas, 2020).

On a physical or virtual wall, team members post notes expressing gratitude for other team members and team experiences or qualities. This could be performed as a periodic check-in.

For the workplace

6. Mapping micro wins

Focusing on small successes builds resilience by nurturing optimism and forward momentum. It reorients attention to progress despite setbacks and helps teams bounce back with a sense of competence (Ketelaars et al., 2024).

Consider weekly check-ins to reflect on workplace team micro wins — small victories or positive moments from the week. Each person shares one win and what it meant for them.

How to Design a Training Program for Clients

Designing a resilience training program for clients involves a combination of practical group exercises and resilience coaching, using evidence-based positive psychology strategies.

A resilience training program would typically last six to eight weeks, with weekly sessions of around 60 to 90 minutes each. These sessions should include education, experiential exercises, and group discussion. Sessions should be mostly interactive, experiential, and emotionally safe. Using real-life examples helps bring resilience theory to life. Finally, encourage reflection and continuity through weekly homework exercises.

We have everything you need in our Resilience X training template. Here are some tips if you’d like to design your own.

Orientation and foundations

A resilience trainer should emphasize that resilience is a skill set, not a personality trait. An orientation session would explain resilience theory and key components of resilience, including optimism, a growth mindset, psychological flexibility, and meaning making (Ambrósio & Adiletta, 2021; Ang et al., 2022a).

Participants can complete a self-assessment worksheet to measure resilience at the beginning of training and establish a baseline.

Strengths and self-awareness

Help participants identify their signature strengths using tools like the VIA Survey mentioned above. Then guide them in a reflection about how they have applied strengths to past challenges to help build confidence in their ability to cope and a resilient self-image (Peterson & Seligman, 2004; Scheuch et al., 2021).

Managing thoughts and emotions

Teaching cognitive reframing skills and mindfulness techniques enhances emotional regulation (Brassington & Lomas, 2020; Nelson et al., 2023). You can also include acceptance-based strategies from acceptance and commitment therapy to help clients navigate discomfort and build emotional resilience.

Cultivating positive emotions

Cultivate positive emotions by introducing clients to gratitude journaling, savoring, and self-compassion practices. These build emotional resources that buffer against stress and support recovery from setbacks (Ambrósio & Adiletta, 2021; Ang et al., 2022a; Brassington & Lomas, 2020).

Social support and connection

Social support and connections with others are baseline social wellbeing needs and crucial for building resilience. Facilitating group resilience activities like appreciation circles or resilience storytelling enhances empathy, active listening, and vulnerability and helps strengthen interpersonal resilience (East et al., 2010; Scheuch et al., 2021).

Meaning and purpose

Making meaning out of difficult experiences is important because it builds resilience and fosters post-adversity growth. Use exercises like values clarification and goal setting to help clients align actions with what matters most to them (King, 2001; Ang et al., 2022a).

Real-life application and maintenance

Apply what clients have learned from these resilience activities by setting goals and creating a personal resilience plan. The plan can include reflections on changes since week one and reinforce commitment to ongoing resilience-building activities (King, 2001; Ang et al., 2022a).

Conclude a well-designed resilience program by emphasizing that developing resilience skills takes time and is not just about coping but thriving, especially in the face of adversity.

3 Resilience Workshop Ideas

These three resilience workshop ideas have been tailored to meet specific needs.

Each workshop can be delivered as a half-day or full-day experience and customized for virtual or in-person formats.

1. Resilience for helping professionals

This workshop idea would target all types of helping professionals to help prevent compassion fatigue and burnout. The objective would be to equip participants with self-regulation, boundary setting, stress-management techniques, and self-care skills.

Key activities could include:

• A compassion fatigue self-assessment
• A guided practice: taking a self-compassion break
• A group reflection: “What sustains you in service?”
• Creating a personal resilience plan to maintain energy and purpose daily.

2. Resilience for life transitions

This workshop idea would support those experiencing major life changes such as job loss, relocation, or retirement. The focus would be on cultivating psychological flexibility, agency, and a stable sense of identity in the face of uncertainty.

Key activities could include:

• Narrative therapy: “My resilience story so far”
• Strengths spotting and reframing setbacks as opportunities for growth
• Peer coaching circles for shared insight and motivation
• Creating a values-based resilience plan to support next steps

3. Resilience for workplace teams

This workshop idea aims to cultivate resilience in workplace teams under pressure. The focus would be on establishing psychological safety, connection, and collective resilience through positive communication to build morale and adaptability in the face of challenges.

Key activities could include:

• Team-based values alignment activity
• Mapping micro wins and a gratitude wall
• A group discussion about resilient role models and shared team identity
• Cocreating a resilience charter that the team can refer to post-workshop

More Resources From PositivePsychology.com

We have a great selection of fantastic resources to share on resilience, as it’s a cornerstone of positive psychology. First, here are some blog articles packed with links to free resources.

• What Is Resilience & Why Is It Important to Bounce Back?
• Resilience Theory: A Summary of the Research (+PDF)
• How to Measure Resilience With These 8 Scales (+PDF)
• Resilience Examples: What Key Skills Make You Resilient?

Next, we have some free worksheets that can help you support clients building resilience, and finally, several paid options to enhance your skillset.

The It Could Be Worse … worksheet guides the client through a cognitive reframing exercise based on a practical real-life example of their choosing.

Next, the Exploring Past Resilience worksheet explores the client’s previous experiences of overcoming adversity to help them identify coping skills that can be used to face present life challenges.

Finally, our Solution-Focused Resilience Template further explores how to apply what you’ve learned from overcoming past challenges to a current situation.

If you’d like to invest further, you can purchase our 17 Resilience & Coping Exercises designed to support your practice with a mix of tools to develop resilience and coping skills.

A must-have is our Realizing Resilience Masterclass© for practitioners, which awards you with eight continuing education credits recognized by the International Coaching Federation and provides all the essentials you need to offer a resilience training workshop to clients.

Finally, you might also be interested in our ready-made Resilience X© training template. The format includes a science-based train-the-trainer program that prepares you to offer personalized, six-session resilience training programs to those you help.

A Take-Home Message

Resilience is not a personality trait, as many might think, but a set of skills that can be learned and developed with practice.

Engaging in resilience training activities such as mindfulness meditation, gratitude journaling, and cognitive reframing can support our ability to navigate tough times. Including physical exercise like yoga, workouts, running, hiking, or dancing also builds psychological resilience and grit (Brassington & Lomas, 2020).

Better still, participating in these practices in a group boosts personal wellbeing and builds social connections that are essential to human flourishing. Resilience training equips participants to adapt, recover, and thrive amid life’s inevitable challenges, transforming adverse experiences into opportunities for growth and development.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our five positive psychology tools for free.

ED: Updated Oct 2025