Why do engineers use steel and not iron as a structural frame for buildings? Iron is really strong, after all. But steel has one crucial advantage – it’s flexible. It doesn’t snap because it can bend. Indeed it can be quite disconcerting being at the top of a tall building as it sways in a high wind, but that swaying is the reason it doesn’t break. Steel, you see, is resilient.

In scientific terms, resilience in materials means their ability to spring back into shape, their elasticity. And we’re no different – we need a degree of elasticity to help us to bounce back in the face of adversity or high winds.

When you’re buffeted by metaphorical storms, you have to have a bit of give. You might think that standing firm and giving no ground is the best approach but, if it doesn’t work, your ability to recover will suffer. Suppose you’ve set your heart on buying a particular house. You’ve been saving up for a deposit for years and you’ve found the house of your dreams, your offer has been accepted and you’ve started planning it all out in your head – how you’ll use each room, where your furniture will go, how you’ll decorate. And then – disaster – the sale falls through. Maybe the chain breaks, or your own buyer pulls out, or you get gazumped.

How you cope with the fallout from this will be down to how resilient you are. Almost anyone will find this stressful, but how stressful and how long before you recover? If you can’t imagine any other house but that one, you’ll be more stressed and take far longer to get over it than you will if you are flexible enough to recognise there are other options. Either way, you’re going to end up somewhere other than this dream house. The only difference is how you adapt to that idea. The more elasticity there is in your thinking, the sooner you’ll be out there househunting again, getting excited about a new house, and the quicker you’ll finally be ensconced in a lovely new home.

This is a skill you can practise frequently on smaller issues, ones that are frustrating rather than devastating. You’ve planned a lovely meal out with friends and then discover at the last minute that the restaurant you wanted to go to is closed. Do you get upset or do you think ‘Hey, it’s the people that matter, let’s eat elsewhere, or stay in, or go to the movies’? Next time the shop has sold out of the item you wanted, or you just miss the train, or you come down with a bug just as you arrive on holiday, think flexibly and be prepared to adapt. What have you got to lose? If you can take the minor upsets in your stride by rewriting the script a little bit, you’ll be far better placed to do the same thing when life’s big dramas come along.