The Resilience Paradox: Why Bouncing Back Doesn’t Work and What to Do Instead
Resilience is the cornerstone of every successful professional’s journey. Yet, the prevailing notion of resilience as a skill to “bounce back” to a prior state of normalcy is misleading and stalls problem-solving. It’s a paradox: The intention to bounce back sounds inspirational after a big client is lost, a key team member resigns or disaster strikes, but the premise fails to deliver. It’s impossible to reestablish the past. What was , no longer is . The situation is different; you are different. Looking to the past for benchmarks of success wastes the very resources needed to adapt to the present. Understanding this is essential. Even so, there’s a deeper contradiction woven into the mainstream resilience narrative. We’ve been taught to think of resilience as a singular, one-size-fits-all skill to overcome a myriad of challenges. The truth is that stressors exist on a continuum; thus, it stands to reason that resilience must as well. By adding critical context to problems and resp...