Psychologists have discovered that human resilience, the capacity to persevere, is like an emotional muscle. That is, we build stronger resilience through the right “exercises,” particularly these three: showing gratitude, being altruistic, and exhibiting a strong sense of life purpose.
Do you want to make today matter? If so, you will need to persevere. Some of your plans won’t work out; people will disappoint you; you’ll disappoint yourself. You’ll transcend setbacks only by building your resilience, by learning to put one foot in front of the other, up the hills and down the hills of your life journey. You’ll build the needed resilience by acquiring the habits championed throughout these pages: living for a purpose that matters greatly to you, for example, and becoming an altruistic person dedicated to giving away your sneakers, and being grateful always.

In good times, this “virtuous circle” of mutually reinforcing habits will make life feel like riding a bicycle on level ground: Momentum keeps building, and each crank of the pedal comes more easily than the previous one. And on life’s bad, uphill days? Your good habits will generate the fierce willpower needed just to stay on the bike, to keep going.

- Excerpted from Make Today Matter by Chris Lowney