What is resilience
The word ‘resilience’ refers to our bounce-back ability in the face of difficulty or challenges. Resilience is the ability to adapt and grow following adversity.
The word ‘resilience’ has been given a bad reputation, as some have often focused heavily on individuals and their resilience levels, rather than the individual in their team and organisation. To be able to bring our best selves to work, we want to re-balance the conversation about resilience so we can recognise:
- What is in our own gift to focus on when it comes to caring for our wellbeing
- The impact of having a strong team and organisation to support us
Resilience is innate
- As human beings we are capable of amazing things even in the face of dire adversity
- Resilience is the ability to adapt and grow following adversity
- Feeling intense negative emotions and knowing how to manage these, not just push them away, is key to growth
- Getting up to try again another day is the core of resilience
Not showing emotion is not the same as managing well or being resilient.
Our mental health and wellbeing is like our physical health and wellbeing. We know our physical health may fluctuate due to many varied factors. Similarly, it’s normal for there to be experiences of distress or difficulty following adversity, change or challenge that impact our resilience.