by Jenna Pope

Created on: December 06, 2009

Most people think that the older they get, the harder it is to change. But this is not true. Age has very little to do with change - resilience does.

According to Merriam Webster, resilience is:

"the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress."

Doesn't that sound like life in this second millennium?

No matter what we go through, positive or negative, our degree of resilience determines our ability to change. If we remain rigid and oppositional, change may break us. If we are flexible and bending, we are like a warm, woolen coat on a cold, snowy day. Resilience envelopes us, conforming to our shape, preserving warmth - a perfect fit.

A critical life skill is the ability to roll with life, overcome adversity, and own success.

Here are some steps for developing resilience and the ability to change - no matter how old you are:

1. Ask yourself if your situation is fixable.

Are you in a situation that can be turned around for the better? Maybe you are facing a job lay-off at the company where you have worked for the past 50 years. You can see it on the horizon and don't know if you are going to be next.

If there is some way that you can preserve your job - If it is fixable - then ask yourself the following question:

2. Are you willing to do what it takes to fix it?

Maybe some extra training in management or some technical area of your job is in order here, or possibly some kind of cross-training. These days, businesses are laying off and doubling up. Though it is not the ideal situation, you may be able to save your job if you learn how to do the job of a co-worker. That co-worker may get laid off and his job duties dallied out to three different workers. Though this is not an ideal situation for you, it may be the best one available. The more valuable you are to the company, the less likely you are to be eliminated from the company payroll.

On the other hand, maybe you hate your job, and being downsized out of the company would be the best thing that ever happened to you. You could collect severance pay, some of your pension, unemployment benefits, and use this time to go back to school and finish your degree in business or take a master-jeweler's course and open that jewelry store you've always dreamt of owning. If you look at change as an opportunity to better yourself, instead of catastrophizing it, you can turn it into something good.

3. Even for resilient people, change

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