You will find this at the heart of resilience.

A Scenario:

You're in a light aircraft flying over the Pacific, headed to see your family on a neighboring Fijian Island. 

You had to join the gang on the fam vacay a little later than you would've liked. Work has a habit of intruding on what really matters; we all know that, but no big deal. 

You're almost there. 

The little inter-island puddle jumper, single prop, room for six passengers, max, is empty except for you and the pilot, an older guy probably on the last leg of his aviation career. 

Suddenly, he slumps over the wheel, the control stick, whatever it's called. 

Heart attack. 

The plane goes into a dive. 

A terrific splash, a cracking of wings and smashing of glass, and then nothing. 

As you gradually drift back into consciousness, you realise you're in a sinking plane in the middle of the ocean. 

The pilot is dead. 

You're alone. Happy to be alive, sure, but you quickly realise the gravity of the situation. 

There's a small inflatable life raft in the back of the cabin, that was one thing the pilot told you before you took off from Nadi, and you grab it, throw it into the ocean, pull the toggle to inflate, and climb inside. 

You have no food, no water and no idea which way land is. 

If you stay where you are, no one will find you, and you'll die in a few days of dehydration. 

Paddle in the wrong direction, same result. 

You do a little maths in your head, fifteen minutes flight time before the accident and realise that if you point your raft in the right direction, you figure you can make land in a day, maybe two. 

It'll be challenging, but you'll survive to see your family again.  

You have a 25 percent chance of getting the direction right. 

Which way are you going to choose? North, south, east or west? 

You choose west and start following the trajectory of the afternoon sun. At first, you're excited by the possibility of survival; I mean, you just lived through a plane ditch into the Pacific. Get through this and you'll have a story to tell that'll never get old. 

Three hours into your journey, water starts to foam beside your raft. It's a tiger shark, a big boy, three or four meters long, its size dwarfing your flimsy boat. It circles you, checking you out, deciding whether or not it should attack.

It lunges, jaw open. For a split second, you're impressed by its velocity, but your survival instinct kicks in and, letting out an involuntary scream, you belt the shark in the head before it can sink its rows of teeth into the boat. 

The shark spins back around, and in the blink of an eye it vanishes into the deep blue below. 

You breathe a sigh of relief, and it takes a while to get your breath back and to compose yourself. Eventually, you pick up the paddle, now with a chunk out of it, and you start to paddle. 

The next six hours are filled with a dread that the shark will return. And as day turns into night, you realise you've been paddling for almost ten hours and there's still no sign of land. 

Slowly, you're consumed by overwhelming angst and uncertainty about the direction you have chosen to paddle in. With every stroke you take, you second-guess your decision. As the hours pass, fatigue sets in. Your shoulders ache and your eyes are sore from using the sun as your guide. 

You've never been this thirsty. You start to imagine what it feels like to die from dehydration. Terminal dehydration they call it. First the headaches, then the leg cramps, finally the delirium, then, hopefully, a little euphoria before death. 

The thought of never seeing your kids and partner again fills you with a sadness so profound it's beyond any despair you've felt before. 

Your brain is going a thousand miles an hour: should you turn around, should you paddle towards this star, that star? 

Every negative thought sucks away the little remaining energy you have. 

At this point, you are being consumed by an array of different stressors - fatigue, dehydration, hunger and the fear of that giant tiger shark returning. 

Do you know what would radically change your ability to deal with all those stressors? What would boost your energy, help stave off your dehydration your hunger, and steel you against the return of that serrated toothed foe? 

Well, probably lots of things, food, water, a shotgun for the shark and an outboard motor for starters. 

But aside from those things. One simple piece of knowledge could make a whole lot of difference. 

Direction. 

Simply knowing what direction to head in. 

Just think what relief that little piece of knowledge would bring to you. 

Imagine that constricting sense of dread fuelled by your uncertainty, being replaced with profound confidence that builds with every strong stoke of your paddle, every meter of forwarding motion toward your goal.

Pain? What pain? Hunger, thirst? Not tonight. You're too busy focusing on the excitement and relief on your loved ones' faces, the tears of joy and warm embraces. 

Sure, the trip would be arduous, maybe even impossible, but knowing which way to go, having that sense of direction and replacing your fears and uncertainty with a level of confidence and purposeful progression towards what's meaningful to you. That could be the difference.  

In life, we're all paddling. 

You have to choose what sort of paddler you want to be. 

Do you want to know the direction you're travelling in and have all the energy, power and resilience that brings? 

Or do you want to paddle blindly into the night?

Choose a direction, and that vulnerable little raft, able to be sunk by any of life's problems, turns into an unsinkable, luxurious speed boat. 

And those exhausted, cramping and pain riddled shoulders into Thor's giant hammer-throwing weapons. 

Why? 

Because the very foundation of fear, anxiety and stress, is uncertainty. 

And life is riddled with uncertainty; it can hit us at any angle. Does my partner love me? Is that pain in the guts cancer? Will some terrible disease or accident befall my kid?

If the basis of fear and stress is uncertainty, then the most beneficial thing you can do to be resilient in the face of life's challenges is to build in as much certainty as you can. 

And the best place to start is with yourself.

What do you want from life? 

What do you want to avoid?

Where are you now and where do you want to go? 

What do you have now, and what would you like to have in the future? 

What principles, values and character traits do you admire?

Importantly, 

Who is valuable to you?

Now. 

Dig that paddle in deep.