So I was in class yesterday at "Intro to Psychology" class and our topic of the day was, stress. We learnt the types of stress, different stages of stress and how we react to it and lastly, stress management. There was one bit under the "Stress Management" part that caught my attention.

We discussed about problem-focused strategies to handling stress, where you take control of the stress or seek information about the cause of your stress and learn about it, and emotional-focused strategies where you basically distract yourself or seek comfort in others. These were stress management strategies. There was a third section, and it was not a stress management strategy but rather a personality characteristic, and it was called the "Hardy Personality". Let’s call it THPC (The Hardy Personality Characteristic) for short.

THPC makes the person perceive stress in a different manner than those around them. They find jumping off a bridge with a slender rubber attached to them a challenging and fun-filled activity while others freak out at the thought of bungee jumping. If you find yourself being calm and collected while those around you are tense and anxious, it could mean you have THPC or that you simply are aloof or being callous about the situation. So how do you separate THPC from ignorance or being indifferent? Well there are three components to the THPC.

1.\tCommitment: Tendency to throw ourselves into whatever we are doing with a sense that our activities are meaningful. (How we assert ourselves in any situations is meaningful)

2.\tChallenge: Believe that change rather than stability is the standard condition of life. To them, the anticipation of change serves as an incentive rather than threat to security. (Viewing everything as a chance to improve ourselves. Every adversity is a chance to increase our capacity)

3.\tControl: The perception that people can influence the events in their lives. (We control ourselves, and through that we control the events around us)

And this is THPC broken down. But how is this linking to Maintaining Frame? Our frame is the way we present ourselves. Different people may maintain and present their frame differently, but what breaks our frame is a situation that forces us to resist and react, namely, a stressful situation. It breaks our concentration, thus breaking our frame. By understanding and making the THPC a part of you, you perceive these stressful situations differently and thus your way of handling these situations will change. You will be able to handle stressful situations better and will be able to maintain your frame in almost any situation.

This is what I learnt and feel is applicable to practicing and maintaining frame. I have to stress that this is only a perspective at looking at frame and not a go-to answer to handling stressful situations as there are two other methods of handling stress but I will not digress into them as they are just strategies and not a personality characteristic like the THPC.

Write down your thoughts under the comment section and we could have a constructive discussion.

Edit made on 30th Jan 2015: My understanding that frame was 'a way we present ourselves' was naive. Frame is a mindset that we must maintain as it is shows that we are always in control of ourselves and through that we have control over our lives and all aspects of it.