Resilience, Confidence, and Positive Thinking

2Get Social Support

Build Quality Interpersonal Relationships

In order to deal with negative assumptions as described in the previous section, you need to accept yourself and form relationships with people who are able to sympathize with your feelings.

I call them supporters. They will become your allies and support you, and even scold you at times.

In soccer, it's said that “there are 11 players on the field, but the cheers from the 12th player, the supporter, help the team achieve victory.” In fact, teams that are playing on their home field have a higher win rate compared to when they are away.

Finding supporters and building quality interpersonal relationships on a regular basis will show their effect when you face adversity. According to research on resilience, the more people someone has around them who can provide emotional support, the faster that person recovers from mental depression.

We call this social support. In tough times, the help of others becomes a necessity.

Supporters within a workplace are not limited to superiors and coworkers. They may include your best friend from school, your college teacher, your parents and siblings, your trusted counselor, and so on. For example, the president of a small and medium‐sized enterprise I know finds his certified public accountant as an important supporter. He consults her about issues that cannot be discussed at the ...