At the gym, personal trainers will remind you that strengthening your core is the foundation of any successful fitness program.

According to Dr. Paul Stoltz, strengthening your CORE is also essential for improving your resilience.

But in Dr. Stoltz’s vernacular, CORE is a helpful acronym for describing how you interpret and process adversity.

Control: This is the degree to which you believe you can influence whatever happens next.

Ownership: This is the likelihood you will take action to make a situation better.

Reach: This is the degree to which adversity spills over into other aspects of your life.

Endurance: This is your staying power to outlast a negative set of circumstances.

In simple terms, your resilience muscle gets stronger when you learn to proactively recognize and reframe the adversity coming your way.

Training your mind to reframe circumstances (in real time) sets you free to take the appropriate actions needed to address the situation and reduce your negative stress.

From the outside, this looks like resilience in the face of adversity.

But from the inside, this way of thinking makes you feel centered, focused, and less stressed.