Resilience is a Skill You Build Every Day

If there’s one thing I’d like you to take away from reading this, it’s that resilience is a skill. Like any skill, resilience can be strengthened over time, but only through intentional focus and deliberate practice every day.

There’s plenty of literature on how to build your resilience. Quite often, the focus is on how we can bounce back from setbacks. No doubt, our ability to get up and dust ourselves off after failure is a vital element of success. Thomas Edison who experimented with thousands of lightbulbs before succeeding best captured this spirit of tenacity in his quote “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”.

But that’s not enough. Imagine water dripping slowly onto a rock. Every day only one drop of water drips down. Not much at all. But over time, even solid rock gets worn down by the relentless dripping.

We have to think of resilience as more than just something that will help us recover from a significant setback. Even when things are smooth sailing, we are more stressed out now than ever. Work, family and even social pressures are closing in all around us. Burnout is on the rise as we struggle to keep up with the mounting demands on our time, energy and mental space.

Resilience helps us show up every day as our best selves.

It’s a resource that gives us strength during both good times and bad. 

If resilience is a resource, why would you want to wait until you’re faced with severe adversity to develop this skill?  Instead, learn to shore up your resilience on a daily basis.

Develop a learning program to build your resilience the same way you approach improving your leadership and influencing skills. That way, you will have the right mindset and daily habits in place when you need it most.