I find it fascinating how resilience works and doesn’t work in different people (including myself). I have met people who have faced incredible challenges and obstacles and they push forward when others would crumble. I have also met others that make a crisis out of every minor challenge they face.

Personally, I have not endured life challenges that I’ve seen others face, from severe disabilities, to tragic abuse or family losses, or drug addiction, or PTSD. And when I see people deal with these challenges with poise, grace, and a positive attitude, I find it inspiring.

But resilience is a tricky thing. It can shine through in one aspect of someone’s life and be absolutely lacking in another. One issue that I might consider small can feel especially large to someone else and vice-versa. A perfect, personal example is that I can get on a stage to deliver a presentation to 1,000 plus people and I’d have no problem. But put me on a stage with only a dozen people watching, and give me ten lines to memorize and act in a scene or a play and I’m a nervous wreck.

The challenge with resilience is in improving it. Some things might seem easy, like for instance, give me only 2 lines to say, and an audience of 4 friends and I could probably build up my resilience to stage freight over time… but I’d hate every minute of it, avoid practicing, and not want to keep trying. Essentially, my lack of resilience will keep me from doing the work I need to do. While this is a simple example, it outlines the challenge, the paradox, of resilience… lack of resilience leads to not working on being resilient, while having resilience fosters more resilience.

We can work to build resilience only as long as there is a willingness to do the work… a willingness to show resilience. That said, it does happen. I see it in the students we teach. Students who feel they can’t, who feel they are ‘too dumb’, who achieve more success than they expect. We can help people be more resilient, but there is a metaphorical line that can sometimes be drawn in the sand, where lack of resilience prevents resilience. And when someone hits that line, they just aren’t ready to grow.

It could be fear of failure. It could be a lack of faith in ability, it could simply be that the small step seems insurmountably large. And yet from the outside looking in it looks fully attainable. Sometimes a cheerleader is all the is needed. Sometimes there is a way to break the challenge down to an even smaller and easier task… and sometimes the lack of resilience is such that the person simply isn’t ready.