How resilient are you, really?

Resilience is a measure of patience, not toughness.

I planned to write about resilience last week. Then I ended up not writing the newsletter at all…

Ironically, my week started off with hard decisions and disappointments. Things felt heavy. On Monday, I had to ask myself the question:

Am I going to push through and write the thing for tomorrow, or set everything aside and let myself feel down?

I chose the latter. Because if there’s anything I’ve learned about resilience — through my personal development, and as a coach — it’s that resilience is a matter of patience, not toughness.

I’ll explain.

For most of my life, I believed resilience was the ability to push through adversity to get to a goal.

Resilience required:

• Toughness: withstanding a ton of pressure without breaking.

• Inflexibility: getting a job done, whatever the circumstance.

• Masking: appearing unfazed, faking confidence to others and myself.

I was well into adulthood before admitting that my lived experiences as a minority, working in intense environments, and views of success played huge roles in how I thought about resilience.

Plus, the world had validated my definition of resilience by rewarding me with opportunities or praise when I proved that I could push through anything.

Thankfully, things have shifted.

I believe now that resilience is less about moving through a challenge, and more about moving through your reaction to it. Rather than centering the challenge, center yourself.

This new definition of resilience requires:

• Patience: being present with a circumstance that you can’t fully control, and non-judgmental about your reaction to it. You sit with it, and have self compassion.

• Acceptance: receiving the truth that your desire can’t be fulfilled right now, and choosing to move on from trying to fight reality. You’re ready to let it be.

• Trust: having faith that a person or a path will fulfill its commitment or purpose, even without evidence that it will. You have certainty despite unknowns.

The more you practice this form of resilience, the more you grow your capacity for it, and the faster you get at moving through your reaction so you can keep going.

I felt back to myself by Tuesday because I gave myself what I needed on Monday.

I get it - this was a low stakes situation. I’d lose momentum and disrupt my commitment to my subscribers, but in the scheme of things… this newsletter could wait.

Sometimes the stakes are high, or you receive bad news moments before you’re expected to show up as your most confident self.

Even in these situations, you can flex the muscle to move through patience, acceptance, and trust in seconds: acknowledging your reaction, accepting that what’s happened has happened, and trusting your commitment to your purpose.

The next time you face adversity, turn inward. See what becomes possible from here.