The world has felt especially heavy of late…
Wars. Mass shootings. An unpredictable economy. Layoffs. Xenophobia. Geopolitics. Natural disasters. Racism.
Now, more than ever, I’m seeing a need for resilience – in ourselves, our kids, our families, our leaders, teams, and organizations, and in our broader communities.
In a nutshell, resilience is the ability to adapt and bounce back from adversity, stress, trauma, misfortune, or simply change – not by avoiding discomfort or anguish, but by developing effective coping skills, building connections, and growing from the experience.
Resilience isn’t about just gritting and grinding.
And it’s definitely not about toxic positivity or “just getting over it.”
Effective resilience requires:
📈 Awareness and honest assessment
✅ Accountability
⛈️ Emotional regulation
❤️ Values identification and alignment
🛠️ Active interventions and strategies
💡 Finding purpose and meaning in discomfort
💪 Learning and growing through these experiences
Closely tied to resilience is burnout — which can happen when we’re unable to access or employ our resiliency skills.
Many of us have developed (not-so-healthy) ways to navigate a complex world. It’s easy to turn to distractions (hello, doomscrolling and Netflix binges), rationalization (social feed echo chambers sound familiar?), and defensive blaming and shaming. (Anyone notice an uptick in horn honking of late?)
Culturally, folks are trying to make sense of things by naming them. Raise your hand if any of these burnout-adjacent phrases or terms sound familiar:
– quiet cracking
– quiet quitting
– bed (or brain) rot
– trauma-informed leadership
– the “she-session”
– the Great Exhaustion
– the Great Resignation
– job hugging
– the Sunday scaries
– bare minimum Mondays…
I think this is all stemming from a collective struggle to define and manage today’s constant pressure, anxiety, uncertainty, exhaustion, and overwhelm.
As a leader, coach, and champion of others, I feel an urgency and responsibility to unpack resilience and burnout and to share what I learn — because while it’s crazy out there, perhaps we can all manage the chaos a little better.
I’ve been diving deep into the topics of both burnout and resilience – reading, listening, and watching everything I can get my hands on. I’ll be sharing what I uncover here, along with some practical tools and guidance as I continue to connect dots from the experts.
So…stay tuned if you’re looking for ways to help yourself, your loved ones, your teams, or your organizations get better and faster at bouncing back, adapting, learning, and growing, while also acknowledging and validating that yes…life can feel exceptionally tough these days.
With more than two decades of communications experience spanning agencies, Fortune-100 organizations, non-profits and academia, Kristi Hinck Mills brings her passion for communications to CommsLede Consulting, where she delivers strategic communication solutions and executive coaching for her clients. Visit the CommsLede blog for more tips.
