Soft and squishy or armour plated? What’s the best way to be resilient? In this article I want to show you how different definitions of resilience are creating confusion and preventing you from setting off on a journey of growth and fulfilment.
First off, what do we mean by the word resilience?
Meanings
A quick survey of friends and clients suggests that most people think resilience means an ability to be unmoved by whatever adversity life throws at you. Perhaps the image in their minds is the rock in the stormy sea, withstanding all that the elements can bring to bear.
Or does it mean “bouncebackability”, a word coined by the English football manager Iain Dowie some years back? If so, perhaps it means more the ability to return to where we are, perhaps after a period of recovery from whatever challenge we’ve faced.
What I didn’t know was that originally it’s a term from physics describing “the ability of a substance to return to its usual shape after being bent, stretched or pressed”. However, increasingly, it’s used in psychology to describe “an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.”
My Own Experience
While accepting those definitions of resilience, my understanding of resilience is different. It’s based on my personal experience of adversity and that of other people.
In my case, I’ve realised that after many years of ill-health, I’m not the same person I was. Yes, I’ve suffered but I’ve also changed, developed and grown. If I think too what one of my clients said recently, then mine is clearly not an unusual experience. In a moving exchange, she said that her experience of life-changing disability has made her a better person, that she’s more compassionate to others as a result. And this experience of growth is emphasised by Aimee Mullins, actor, athlete and model, who grew up without shin bones.
She said in her very popular TED talk that “We are marked … by a challenge, whether physically, emotionally or both and I’m going to suggest that this is a good thing. Adversity isn’t an obstacle that we need to get around in order to resume living our life. It’s part of our life.”
The Phoenix and The Hydra
But isn’t personal growth something different from our normal understanding of resilience? The philosopher Nassim Nicholas Taleb thought that conventional understanding of resilience doesn’t allow for growth. He therefore invented the term antifragility to describe the process of actually benefiting from shocks and adversity.
The term, it’s fair to say, hasn’t really caught on but he does have a point. He describes a spectrum of fragile-robust-antifragile with robustness probably nearer to most people’s understanding of resilience. He compares the difference between robust and antifragile to the mythical phoenix and the hydra. The phoenix rose intact from the flames, while the hydra needed one head cut off to grow back two.
His contribution notwithstanding, we only really have the word resilience in common usage. So where does this leave us?
I would suggest that we should get comfortable with all these definitions of resilience because all are possible responses to adversity. Resilience is therefore an umbrella term for unmovable, robust, “bouncebackable”, flexible and adaptable but also, and very much, for the ability to grow and develop from adversity. The latter is the part that has been missing and it means that, just like the cactus which thrives in the desert, we can also grow and flower in the adverse situations we find ourselves in.
Armour Plating Only Takes You So Far
So, how do we get to grow? Answer? By being soft and squishy rather than armour plated.
The thing is, soft and squishy helps you to absorb the shocks, to be adaptable and give you space to grow. With armour plating you might remain the same shape but you’ll feel the shocks more and have no room to develop.1
But how do we become soft and squishy: to adapt and grow?
My suggestion is that determination to grow is the most important factor. Challenging yourself will then help you to develop as will learning new skills and learning from the experiences of others. Self-reflection will build your awareness of change and you can use a habit such as journalling to record your development.
The question isn’t whether or not you’re going to meet adversity or not, but how you’re going to meet it
Aimee Mullins
My take on resilience is that growth and a better future are possible. In the middle of difficult circumstances, I’ve not often felt armour-plated. Life’s slings and arrows have not just bounced off me. In the words of Aimee Mullins, I have not been left unmarked. However, using skills I learned to help other people, and reflecting on how other people negotiated their own challenges, I was obviously soft and squishy enough to adapt to my circumstances and welcome whatever change they brought into my life.
How This Can Help You
So, how can you use this understanding of resilience?
- If growth is possible, then your adversity is not the end of your story. But how you meet your challenges will help you write your next chapters.
- Become soft and squishy by trying new things, learning new skills and challenging yourself. According to Darwin, it wasn’t the strongest who survived. It was the most adaptable.
So, don’t be put off when you don’t feel resilient to whatever misfortune is happening. It’s not about being left untouched. It’s about accepting change and realising that it provides an opportunity for personal growth. Good luck on your journey.
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Photo by Ray Bilcliff
- A nod of thanks to my friend Kev Wyke who gave me the idea for the idea of armour plating.