TO BE RESILIENT IS NOT TO BE RESISTANT

It is common for the human sciences to adopt terminologies from other fields that can symbolize a psychological or behavioral state or conception. Fundamentally, the term “resilience,” derived from the Latin “resiliens” (past participle of “resilire,” meaning “to bounce back, to leap back,” from “re-” meaning “back,” plus “salire,” meaning “to jump”), gave rise to the word resilience. Used in physics, specifically in the field of materials resistance, it has become one of the key words in the vocabulary of the corporate world.

In the 21st century, the term “resilience” has indeed become a buzzword and is considered a major asset for professionals. Increasingly demanded, this adjective is now imperatively applied as another fundamental and necessary quality for any candidate seeking employment. Resilience has not only become prevalent in almost all environments but is also a fundamental part within corporations as a necessary and integral aspect of any team.

If you delve deeper into the topic, you will find many nuances of its meaning, as well as thousands of literary works addressing the subject in various forms. Disregarding the misinformation proposed by self-help, it is a fact that theories of resilience, based on the human sciences, such as social psychology and neuroscience, play a significant role in the development and behavioral understanding of the human being.

Studying Social Psychology, I observed connections that could effectively translate the essence of resilience uniquely. One point that particularly caught my attention is the importance of understanding that resilience has nothing to do with resistance.

Resilience, in physics, specifically in materials science, is the return to the normal state or the ability to absorb energy in the elastic region. Even considering the existing perspectives on the topic today, its conception, in general and symbolically, revolves around the very meaning of physics, which is the predisposition to recover from some impact or to collide and return to what it was before the collision. Unlike resistance, it is basically the physical concept of elasticity that relates to resilience in psychic terms. In other words, elasticity is the characteristic of materials to deform and return to their original form after the end of the cause of deformation. To deform without breaking, resilience is necessary, implying the absorption of the impact’s energy. From this metaphorical principle, the main emphasis lies in the capacity given as the power of recovery. The basis of human contextualization of resilience, therefore, makes sense in recovery.

It was around the 1970s that the first studies dedicated to understanding why some people remained healthy and others did not when exposed to severe human and behavioral conditions, even subjected to constant pain and suffering, emerged. The initial research treated this subject as invulnerable people and the phenomenon as invulnerability. Norman Garmezy, a university psychology professor, was one of the pioneers in researching the subject, working with high-risk children and their vulnerability. His studies began by noting that many children of schizophrenic parents did not suffer from any psychological illness because they were raised by them. From there, he advanced by examining the strategic models used by people to adapt to adverse circumstances, pain, suffering, or stress (called coping). Growing evidence showed that in the development process, there were always resilient children, considered invincible, among those at high risk. He made the topic a fundamental objective of his studies, translating it more broadly, and it spread throughout the academic and scientific world. Initially, in the 1980s, he referred to these people as resilient humans. The term was later replaced only by resilient. Studies on resilience quickly multiplied worldwide, and lines of study and new proposals emerged in different fields of human behavior, and to this day, they have great relevance in scientific research.

The initial foundation of the research was precisely to understand the relationships and bonds that resilient people have among themselves. Even in the same space and at the same time, some people respond to certain conditions very differently from others. Not only considering the sense of recovering from damage but also the intrinsic ability of the individual to overcome and their potential to not only be what they were before but also to be adept at personal growth through experience.

Studying the common relationships that are pertinent to resilient people, it can be considered that a resilient person possesses some relational qualities. When we converge studies on the subject, some standard points are noticeable. In practice, these are skills that can be developed and/or enhanced. One of the most important points that generate many misconceptions is understanding how to differentiate resilience from resistance.

One of the first misconceptions I found in some texts is the comparison between resistance and resilience. In physics, unlike resilience, the resistance of a material is the ability to withstand a force applied to it. In other words, it can be said that having resistance involves considering a force that, opposing another, maintains its structure without yielding, rigidly counteracting it. However, when it cannot withstand the opposing force, it breaks, unable to return to the previous state. Dubiously, there are those who understand that this law is also applied to the resilient. As part of this confusion, many conclude that the more capable a human being is of enduring, the more resistant they are, and therefore, the more successful they will be in life, making them a resilient person. But it’s not quite like that. To understand the difference, it is necessary to understand the fundamental characteristics that make up a resilient individual.

Dealing with one’s own problems, overcoming obstacles, and not succumbing to pressure actually requires a much more complex cognitive ability that consumes a lot of our physical and mental energy.

A resilient person is considered one who deals with stress and consciously seeks to minimize actions regarding risk factors, in addition to the ability not to be shaken by the unforeseen or difficulties. Not because they are rigid, but because of their flexibility, their ability to adapt. After all, resilience involves being prepared to recover as an act of overcoming, not resistance. A resilient person becomes better with experience, whatever it may be. They strengthen themselves with the challenges of life, allowing them to learn from both mistakes and successes.

Resilient individuals are not optimists. In fact, they are realists with the competence to see possibilities. Far from bringing truths and certainties, they are excellent observers with a great sense of reality. Necessarily, one can only be resilient when it becomes possible to perceive the present reality without fear of facing it. Being aware of reality is what allows one to understand it, and only by understanding it can one be prepared to do the best for that situation. The lack of awareness of reality is the absence of clarity in the steps we must take to find possibilities to face life as it really is—part of which we control and part of which we do not, what we call chance.

“We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality.” (Ayn Rand)

Not recognizing reality is the same as living based on limiting beliefs, which in turn represents an obstacle to growth. Being unable to reflect on the world around us often leads to living in resistance to a world that is in full transformation. Resistance lies then in stubbornness, inflexibility, and in creating many difficulties in accepting changes. Resistant people create their own obstacles precisely because of the difficulties in accepting and recognizing limits, both in others and in themselves. Over time, they end up isolating themselves from people, creating a barrier in social life, school, work, relationships, and family. It is always necessary to remember that we are free beings and at the same time responsible for our own choices, and personal growth is part of this.

In the face of this brief and succinct summary of resilience, it becomes possible to identify a fundamental point that differentiates the resistant from the resilient, and this point is precisely related to the cognitive clarity of the individual.

According to current studies, this occurs because the human body handles these two issues differently. One of the proposals on the subject is based on the studies presented by Jim Loehr, James Loehr, and Tony Schwartz, which demonstrate that managing your energy, not just your time, is the crucial factor for good performance at any time in your life and this favors being resilient. Working with high-performance athletes, these three authors noticed that over time, the skills and disciplines of athletes also applied properly to competitive corporate and business environments. In their observations, they found that in all our relationships with the world, whether through thoughts, emotions, or behaviors, there is an expenditure in terms of energy. Based on this premise, for them, the issue is not only focusing on the amount of time we have but on the quantity and quality of energy we are capable of investing during that time.

Our health, good performance, and joy are highly impacted by good management of our energy. This is because when we spend too much time in the effort zone, engaging, we necessarily also need more time in the recovery zone, otherwise, we run the risk of breaking down. When we feel tired, the body automatically becomes demotivated so that we can slow down and then recover that energy by resting. This process is called infraregulation. A lot of energy is needed for a phase of low motivation to be overcome and to be able to muster the strength to commit enough to feel stimulated again. This is called supraregulation. This process requires energy and necessarily, if there is not an adequate period of rest, we continue to amplify the energy imbalance, which increases the level of mental and physical exhaustion and, with it, stress. In addition to the health hazards caused by increased stress, over time, we lose logical sense, the ability to concentrate, perception, and clarity of thought.

The greater our imbalance caused by excessive effort, the more relevant are the activities that allow us to return to a state of equilibrium. The importance of a recovery period increases proportionally to the amount of effort and resistance we propose to impose. If you’re trying to build resilience at work, you necessarily need satisfactory periods of rest, both internally and externally, to achieve them. This is also the proposal of researchers Zijlstra, Cropley, and Rydstedt. In a 2014 article: “Internal recovery refers to shorter periods of relaxation that occur during working hours or in the workplace in the form of scheduled or unscheduled short breaks, shifting attention, or switching to other work tasks when the mental or physical resources required for the initial task are temporarily reduced or depleted. External recovery refers to actions that take place outside of work – for example, in the free time between working days and during weekends, holidays, or vacations.”

When referring to rest, it is necessarily about pausing, relaxing, and resting. If after work, you lie in bed and carry with you the stress of your day, bad mood, or even if you lie down worried about the next day, your brain has not understood the break for rest and will continue active, starting from the previous condition of strong mental stimulation. Our brain needs real rest as much as our body. Therefore, the secret to resilience is to “commit enough” and then pause, recover, and then engage again. This conclusion is based on human biology itself. It is part of homeostasis, a fundamental biological concept that describes the brain’s ability to restore itself and maintain well-being continuously.

The positive line neuroscientist, Brent Furl, from Texas A&M University, coined the term “homeostatic value” to describe the value that certain actions have in creating balance and, therefore, well-being throughout our body (both physical and mental). When the body is out of alignment due to overwork, we waste a large amount of mental and physical resources trying to return to balance before we can move forward. With this, the main condition of the resilient is lost, which is awareness of the present state. Very resistant people have a lot of difficulty in controlling the consumed and recovered energy, become reluctant, and, therefore, have more difficulties in clear and structured actions and, therefore, are more unfavorable to respond adequately, efficiently. Being more reactive in daily life, reality is then distorted. It is precisely the lack of a recovery period that hinders our cognitive ability to be resilient and successful. Failing to recover, rest properly reduces the ability to think, reflect, and the very perception of the present reality. Many actions start to be carried out automatically and unconsciously.

Current studies clearly point out that there is a direct correlation between lack of rest and an increase in the incidence of health and safety problems. And the lack of rest – whether it be impaired sleep due to work-related thoughts or continuous cognitive stimulation when using our phones, for example – is costing American companies $62 billion a year (billions, not millions) in lost productivity. Therefore, if you really want to develop resilience, you can start by taking strategic breaks. Give yourself the resources to resist more, creating efficient internal and external recovery periods, proportionate to your reality.

There are two ways that can help us increase our resilience: one is talking to yourself, and the other is reprogramming the brain, generating changes in our daily behaviors to respect our own limits, giving the body the condition to rest properly and sufficiently.

The brain has a very different mechanism of recovery from the cumulative load of daily annoyances. And, with a little effort, it is possible to improve the ability to recover from life’s misfortunes by knowing how to balance life.

Whenever we get upset to the point of saying or doing something we later regret (and who doesn’t do that from time to time?), it is a clear sign that we need to stop, breathe, and rest, to avoid making life a meaningless burden.

We see our work as a demonstration of skills and attitudes for life. Since finding meaning in your environment is such an important aspect of resilience, it should not be surprising that the most successful people and companies have mastery over life and value well-being. Awareness of our limits inspires an environment with meaning because it offers ways to interpret and shape events transparently that only with balance can we perceive. Lastly, never forget that everything that is resistant runs a serious risk of breaking at some point, shattering and not being able to return to the previous state.

“We must never forget that we can also find meaning in life even when faced with a hopeless situation, when facing a destiny that cannot be changed” (Viktor E. Frankl).

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