Building Personal Resilience: A Practical Guide for Thriving in Challenging Workplaces
In our first article, we explored how organisations often place undue emphasis on individual resilience rather than addressing the systemic issues that create workplace stress. We argued that building truly resilient workplaces is a shared responsibility, with organisations needing to create environments that don’t systematically break their people. But what about the individual side of this equation? While organisations certainly bear responsibility for creating sustainable workplaces, developing personal resilience remains an essential skill for navigating today’s complex work environments. Even in the healthiest organisations, challenges, setbacks, and periods of intense pressure are inevitable.
This second article introduces practical strategies for building personal resilience – not as a substitute for organisational changes, but as a complementary set of skills that empower you to thrive amidst life’s inevitable challenges.
Understanding Personal Resilience: Beyond "Bouncing Back"
Resilience is often mischaracterised as simply “bouncing back” from adversity or maintaining a stiff upper lip during difficult times. But true resilience is far more nuanced and powerful.
Resilience is not:
- Emotional suppression or pretending challenges don’t affect you
- Working harder or pushing through exhaustion
- A fixed personality trait that you either have or don’t have
- Facing difficulties without support from others
Resilience is:
- The ability to adapt effectively to stress and adversity
- The capacity to recover relatively quickly from challenges
- A set of skills and practices that can be developed over time
- Knowing when and how to draw on support resources
- The ability to find meaning and growth opportunities in difficulties
Research consistently shows that resilience is not an inherent quality but a set of capabilities that can be systematically developed through intentional practice.
The RISE Resilience Model: A Framework for Personal Development
The RISE Model provides a comprehensive framework for developing personal resilience across four essential dimensions. Let’s explore each component with a key concept and practice to get you started.
R – REFRAME: Mastering the Mindset Shift
Resilience begins with perception. How we interpret events, not just the events themselves, determines our response. By developing the ability to reframe challenges constructively, we build the foundation for resilience.
Key Concept: Cognitive Reframing
Cognitive reframing involves consciously shifting your
perspective on challenging situations. Rather than viewing problems solely as
threats or barriers, resilient individuals develop the habit of finding
constructive perspectives that enable effective action.
The most resilient professionals regularly ask themselves:
- What
can I learn from this challenge? - How
might this situation benefit me in the long run? - What
strengths can I develop through this experience?
This shift isn’t about toxic positivity or denying reality, it’s
about finding genuine constructive perspectives that enable forward movement.
Quick Practice: The Challenge Reframe
When facing a difficult situation:
- Pause and acknowledge your initial reaction
- Ask yourself: “What opportunity might be hidden in this challenge?”
- Identify one specific action you could take to leverage this opportunity
This practice trains your mind to automatically search for constructive perspectives, even during difficult circumstances.
I - INTEGRATE: Aligning Resilience with Daily Life
Resilience isn’t just for crises, it’s built through consistent practices integrated into everyday life. This dimension focuses on
embedding resilience-building habits into your daily routines.
Key Concept: Boundaries & Energy Management
One of the most critical yet overlooked aspects of resilience is effective boundary-setting, which is the ability to protect your
time, energy, and attention in service of your priorities and wellbeing.
Resilient professionals:
- Establish clear boundaries around their time and availability
- Identify and protect their peak energy periods for important work
- Recognise their personal warning signs of depletion
- Proactively schedule recovery time rather than waiting until exhaustion
Remember that boundaries aren’t selfish, they are essential for sustainable high performance and service to others – after all you can’t
pour from an empty jug.
Quick Practice: Energy Preservation
- Identify one activity that consistently drains your energy without proportionate return
- Design a specific boundary to limit this energy drain (e.g., time limits, delegation, elimination)
- Communicate this boundary clearly and consistently to relevant stakeholders. Remember no can be a full sentence – you don’t have to explain yourself to everyone
This practice can significantly increase your available energy for high-priority work and recovery.
S – SUSTAIN: Strengthening Endurance & Long-Term Well-Being
True resilience must be maintained over time, not just in moments of crisis. This dimension focuses on practices that sustain your resilience through prolonged challenges and over your entire career.
Key Concept: Stress Recovery Practices
Just as physical training requires recovery periods for adaptation and growth, psychological resilience requires intentional recovery after stress exposure. Without adequate recovery, even the most resilient individuals eventually deplete their resources.
Effective recovery involves:
- Recognising that recovery is as important as effort
- Understanding your personal recovery needs and preferences
- Scheduling regular recovery periods rather than waiting for breakdown
- Using different recovery strategies for different types of stress
Quick Practice: Recovery Rituals
Develop micro-recovery practices for workday implementation:
- Identify 2-3 brief activities (2-5 minutes) that help you reset mentally (this could be going for a quick walk, spending a couple of minutes meditating, taking a lunch break – whatever works for you).
- Schedule these activities between meetings or work blocks
- Treat these recovery periods as non-negotiable appointments with yourself
Even brief recovery periods can prevent stress accumulation and maintain cognitive performance throughout the day.
E – ELEVATE: Thriving Beyond Survival
The highest expression of resilience isn’t just returning to your previous state, it’s emerging from challenges stronger, wiser, and more capable. This dimension focuses on practices that transform difficulties into sources of growth and meaning.
Key Concept: Purpose Connection
Purpose is the sense that your work and life contribute to something larger than yourself, and serves as a powerful resilience resource. Research consistently shows that individuals who connect their daily efforts to meaningful outcomes demonstrate greater persistence when experiencing difficulties.
During challenging periods, reconnecting with your sense of purpose can provide the motivation to persevere when tasks become difficult or outcomes are uncertain.
Quick Practice: Purpose Reminder
- Identify the specific positive impact your work has on others or the world
- Create a brief statement that captures this impact
- Keep this statement visible during your workday
- Review it specifically when facing setbacks or challenges
This simple reminder can transform how you experience and respond to workplace difficulties.
Conclusion: Resilience as a Shared Responsibility
As we conclude this two-part series on resilience, it’s important to return to our central premise: building resilience is a shared responsibility between organisations and individuals.
Organisations must create environments that don’t systematically break people—workplaces with sustainable demands, supportive leadership, psychological safety, and meaningful work. Individuals benefit from developing personal resilience practices that help them navigate the inevitable challenges of work and life.
The most powerful outcomes occur when these efforts align. When organisations prioritise creating healthy work environments AND support employees in developing personal resilience capabilities, they create the conditions for both individual and collective thriving.
Remember that resilience isn’t about enduring toxic conditions or pushing beyond healthy limits. True resilience involves knowing when to persist and when to step back, when to adapt and when to set boundaries. It’s about developing the wisdom to navigate challenges in ways that sustain your wellbeing and effectiveness over the long term.
By implementing the practices introduced in this article alongside the organisational approaches outlined in our first piece, you create the foundation for sustainable performance and wellbeing—regardless of what challenges arise.
Taking the Next Step: The Leadership Resilience Toolkit
While this article introduces key concepts and quick practices from each dimension of the RISE Model, developing comprehensive resilience capabilities requires more in-depth resources and exercises.
We are developing a Leadership Resilience Toolkit which provides a complete system for developing robust resilience across all four RISE dimensions, including:
- A leadership resilience quiz
- Detailed exercises for each resilience component
- Step-by-step implementation guides
- A structured 30-day resilience challenge
- Stress management protocols for high-pressure situations
- Team resilience-building activities
- Decision-making frameworks for uncertainty
- Setback recovery processes
This comprehensive resource will transform resilience from an abstract concept into concrete practices that serve you through all leadership challenges.
The toolkit is currently in development – sign up to the waitlist to be the first to find out when it is available
This article is the second in a two-part series on resilience. The first part addresses the organisation’s role in developing sustainable resilience. You can find it here.
