🧭 Resilience Explained by the Experts

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Here’s Where We Are Headed Today:

• David Goggins on Resilience

• How To Build The Muscle of Resilience

• Favorite Posts I Found This Week

• Free Mental Fitness Links 👇

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How To Build the Muscle of Resilience

Today’s post dives into resilience because it’s more relevant than ever as we step into a new year with fresh goals and challenges. 91% of people are going to fail to stick with their new year’s resolutions and goals as Wednesday starts.

What you need to know: Resilience isn’t just about bouncing back; it’s about bouncing forward. It’s the ability to face adversity, adapt to change, and grow stronger through the process.

As we step into a new year - a season filled with goals, hopes, and uncertainty - resilience becomes more than a buzzword. It’s a skill we must intentionally develop to navigate life’s inevitable challenges.

Why it matters: Resilience matters because life is unpredictable. Goals get delayed, plans fall apart, and adversity strikes when we least expect it. Without resilience, challenges become roadblocks. With resilience, they become stepping stones.

How the experts view it:

1) Dr. Michael Gervais - The 3 C’s of Resilience (00:25 - 3:44)

Dr. Michael Gervais, a high-performance psychologist, emphasizes that resilience isn’t just about enduring hard times—it’s about leveraging them. He highlights three key principles (the 3 C’s):

• Commitment: Stay anchored to your purpose or, if that’s unclear, stay committed to seeing the challenge through.

• Challenge: Reframe adversity as an opportunity to grow and test your character.

• Control: Focus on controlling what you can control instead of fixating on what you can’t.

Dr. Gervais also stresses that resilience isn’t only built in moments of crisis. You can intentionally train it every day by doing hard things - whether it’s having difficult conversations, being honest with yourself, or stepping outside your comfort zone.

“You don’t just build resilience by surviving hard times - you build it by seeking out hard things on purpose.”

2) Dr. Becky Kennedy - Choosing Teaching Resilience over Happiness

You can’t be happy or have happiness as the goal if you don’t know how to regulate your emotions. Parenting through this lens isn’t about eliminating frustration or sadness - it’s about teaching kids that those feelings are normal, survivable, and even valuable.

Dr. Becky Kennedy reminds us that this insight isn’t just for parenting - it’s a universal life skill. Resilience is a skill - a practice - that’s built one moment at a time. Whether it’s preparing for travel delays, career setbacks, or a challenging conversation, resilience is built by reminding ourselves, “I can cope with this.”

At its core, resilience isn’t about preventing struggle - it’s about teaching ourselves and our children that struggle isn’t the enemy. It’s an opportunity to build confidence, self-awareness, and emotional agility. Her actionable advice is:

1. Regulate your own emotions because your kids and team will follow your lead.

2. Your capabilities grow when you go through tough times. Reframe that some things in life are hard.

3. Label your emotions and what you are feeling.

4. Give yourself space and time to feel what you are feeling.

For premium members, we are doing a further deep-dive into raising resilient children this week. If you are a free subscriber and interested, you can sign up here.

3) Justin Su’a - Bounce, Don’t Break

Justin Su’a is a mental performance coach that works with athletes in baseball, football, golf, and other sports. He uses the metaphor of a rubber ball versus a glass ball.

• The Rubber Ball Mindset: The resilient individual absorbs adversity and bounces back, often stronger than before.

• The Glass Ball Mindset: The fragile individual shatters under pressure.

Justin outlines three key strategies to build resilience:

• Conduct a Pre-Mortem: Identify potential pitfalls before they happen. Prepare for them mentally and emotionally.

• Create a Bounce-Back Plan: Have a plan in place for how you’ll respond when adversity strikes.

• Know Your Color (Traffic Light Method): Label how you are feeling based on the colors in the traffic light. Recognize when you’re in the ‘yellow zone’ - when frustration is creeping in - so you can course-correct before spiraling into the ‘red zone.’

“Resilience isn’t about avoiding failure; it’s about preparing to respond effectively when failure happens.”

How can I make this actionable?

Did you notice the commonalities across all of the experts? Resilience thrives when you take time to step back, be present, plan, reflect, and have emotional awareness. Whether it’s identifying obstacles in advance, reframing challenges as opportunities, or mastering emotional regulation, resilience is a skill built through intentional actions.

By preparing for adversity, understanding ourselves deeply, and embracing the discomfort of growth, you equip yourself to not just bounce back - but to bounce forward, stronger and wiser.

1. Ask yourself these questions

   • How can I reframe this as an opportunity?

   • What parts of this challenge are within my control?

   • Let’s take a step back and ask - What would “bouncing forward” look like?

   • What obstacles am I most likely going to face?

   • What is my plan for when challenges arise?

2. Remember the 3 C’s - It means write down your purpose and remember why you this is important to you. Focus on what you can control and continually reframe the positive side of the challenges that you face.

3. Improve your emotional regulation - It means take time to give yourself space to process your emotions. Work on your self-awareness whether it is through meditation or labeling your emotions.

4. Create a plan - Don’t just wait for resilience to hit, but choose to be resilient.

   • Have a list of potential setbacks before they occur.

   • Create a plan for how to handle adversity.

   • Have a plan for how to handle tough emotions.

Bottom Line: Resilience is about bouncing forward, not just back. It’s a skill built daily through intentional effort, emotional regulation, and strategic preparation. By committing to growth, embracing challenges, and focusing on what’s within your control, you can navigate life’s inevitable obstacles with strength and purpose.

Favorite Posts I Found This Week

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