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The Real Truth About Bouncing Back: What They Don't Tell You About Resilience
The biggest load of rubbish I hear in corporate Australia is this myth that resilient people never fall down.
I've been running leadership workshops across Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane for the past eighteen years, and let me tell you something that'll probably ruffle a few feathers: the most resilient executives I know are the ones who've spectacularly face-planted. Multiple times. The difference isn't that they avoid failure – it's that they've learned to fail better.
Why Most Resilience Advice is Complete Garbage
Here's what drives me mental about the resilience industry (and yes, it's become an industry). Everyone's peddling this sanitised version where you bounce back stronger, better, and with a motivational quote tattooed on your forehead. Bollocks.
Real resilience isn't about bouncing back. It's about stumbling forward.
I learned this the hard way when my first consultancy went belly-up in 2009. All those business books I'd read, all those seminars I'd attended – none of them prepared me for the grinding reality of picking yourself up when you can barely afford your mortgage payments. The advice was all sunshine and rainbows, but my reality was Weet-Bix for dinner and explaining to my kids why we couldn't afford a holiday that year.
You know what actually got me through? Not positive thinking. Not visualisation.
Stubbornness.
Pure, bloody-minded Australian stubbornness and a refusal to let the bastards grind me down.
The Three Lies About Resilience Everyone Tells
Lie #1: Resilient people don't get emotional about setbacks
This is perhaps the most dangerous myth floating around our workplaces. According to research from Melbourne University (though I suspect they've updated these figures since I last checked), approximately 78% of business professionals believe that showing emotion after a setback is a sign of weakness.
What absolute nonsense.
The most resilient people I know – and I'm talking about CEOs who've rebuilt companies from the ground up, managers who've turned around toxic teams, entrepreneurs who've survived multiple business failures – they all have one thing in common. They feel everything. Deeply.
The difference is they don't get stuck there.
Lie #2: You need to bounce back quickly
Society has this obsession with speed. Get back on the horse. Don't dwell. Move on. But here's the thing nobody wants to admit: sometimes you need to sit in the muck for a while.
Some setbacks aren't meant to be bounced back from quickly. Some require a complete restructure of how you operate. I've seen too many good people destroy themselves trying to rush the recovery process because they thought slow meant weak.
Lie #3: Resilience is a personality trait
This one really gets my goat. How many times have you heard someone say, "Oh, Sarah's just naturally resilient" or "I'm not a resilient person"?
Resilience isn't something you're born with like blue eyes or an ability to whistle. It's a bloody skill set. And like any skill set, it gets better with practice.
Unfortunately, you get practice by getting knocked down. A lot.
What Actually Works (Based on Real Experience, Not Theory)
After watching hundreds of professionals navigate major setbacks – redundancies, business failures, health crises, relationship breakdowns that affect work performance – I've noticed some patterns in those who not only survive but eventually thrive.
They get genuinely angry first. Not bitter angry. Not victim angry. But righteous, "this is not how my story ends" angry. This anger becomes fuel.
They ask better questions. Instead of "Why me?" they ask "What now?" Instead of "How do I get back to where I was?" they ask "Where do I actually want to go?"
They rebuild differently. Here's where most resilience advice goes wrong. It assumes you want to return to your previous state. But smart people use setbacks as renovation opportunities. They don't rebuild the same house; they build a better one.
The Adelaide Airport Revelation
I was stuck in Adelaide Airport last year (delayed flight to Perth, naturally) when I witnessed something that perfectly encapsulates real resilience. A businessman – expensive suit, probably mid-forties – was on his phone dealing with what was clearly a work crisis. His company had lost a major contract.
But instead of the typical corporate panic, I heard him say this: "Right, so we're starting fresh. What do we actually want to build this time?"
That's resilience. Not bouncing back to the same spot, but using the momentum of falling down to launch yourself somewhere better.
The Permission to Rebuild Slowly
One thing that consistently surprises people in my workshops is when I give them permission to take their time. We've become addicted to quick fixes and instant transformations. But meaningful resilience – the kind that lasts – isn't built overnight.
Some setbacks require you to fundamentally rethink how you operate. Your communication style, your business model, your career trajectory, even your definition of success. This isn't weekend workshop material. This is deep, sometimes uncomfortable work.
I've seen executives take two years to properly rebuild after major setbacks. Not two years of wallowing, but two years of strategic reconstruction. And they're stronger for it.
The pressure to "bounce back" quickly often prevents people from doing the necessary work of figuring out what actually went wrong and how to prevent it happening again.
The Accountability Factor Nobody Talks About
Here's something that'll make some people uncomfortable: resilience requires brutal honesty about your own contribution to the setback.
Yes, sometimes terrible things happen that are completely outside your control. But more often than we'd like to admit, our setbacks have at least some element of our own poor decision-making involved.
The resilient people I work with don't waste time on blame – including self-blame – but they also don't shy away from accountability. They ask: "What did I miss? Where did I make assumptions? How did I contribute to this situation?"
This isn't about beating yourself up. It's about learning. Because if you can't honestly assess what went wrong, you'll probably repeat the same mistakes.
I made this mistake with my first business failure. I spent so much energy blaming external factors – the economic climate, unreliable suppliers, difficult clients – that I missed the real lessons about cash flow management and client diversification. It took failing again (smaller scale, thankfully) for me to get honest about my own role.
Building Your Personal Resilience Toolkit
Based on what I've observed actually working (not what sounds good in theory), here are the practical tools that make a difference:
The 48-Hour Rule: When something significant goes wrong, give yourself 48 hours to feel whatever you need to feel. Angry, disappointed, scared, frustrated – feel it all. But set a timer. After 48 hours, you switch into problem-solving mode.
The Three-List System: After any setback, create three lists:
- What was outside my control
- What was within my control that I managed well
- What was within my control that I could have done better
The Reconstruction Question: Instead of asking "How do I get back to where I was?" ask "Given what I know now, how would I build this differently?"
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Why Some People Never Recover
I've also worked with people who never quite bounce back from major setbacks. It's not because they're weak or lacking in character. Usually, it's because they get stuck in one of these traps:
The Perfectionist Trap: They can't move forward until they've figured out how to avoid all future failures. Spoiler alert: you can't.
The Victim Trap: They get so focused on the unfairness of their situation that they never transition into problem-solving mode.
The Comparison Trap: They measure their recovery against other people's highlight reels, forgetting that everyone's timeline is different.
The Quick Fix Trap: They keep looking for the magic solution instead of doing the slow, unglamorous work of rebuilding.
The Uncomfortable Truth About Growth
Here's what I've learned after nearly two decades of helping people navigate professional and personal setbacks: growth is uncomfortable. Not "challenging" uncomfortable or "character-building" uncomfortable.
Actually uncomfortable.
The most significant periods of growth in my life have been deeply unpleasant while they were happening. It's only in retrospect that I can appreciate them. At the time, they felt like everything was falling apart.
This is normal. If your setback feels overwhelming and your recovery feels impossibly slow, you're probably doing it right.
The companies that excel at supporting their employees through setbacks understand this. They don't rush people back to full productivity. They don't minimise the impact of major changes. They create space for the discomfort of genuine transformation.
Moving Forward Without the Motivational Garbage
Real resilience isn't about positive thinking or fake-it-till-you-make-it mantras. It's about developing a practical, sustainable approach to navigating the inevitable challenges of professional and personal life.
It's about building systems that help you survive the impact, assess the damage honestly, and reconstruct more intelligently.
Most importantly, it's about understanding that setbacks aren't character flaws or signs that you're not cut out for success. They're data. Sometimes expensive, painful data, but data nonetheless.
The question isn't whether you'll face setbacks – you will. The question is whether you'll use them as stepping stones or let them become roadblocks.
And that choice, frustratingly and empoweringly, is entirely up to you.
Remember: resilience isn't about becoming invincible. It's about becoming antifragile – getting stronger from the things that don't kill you. But first, you have to survive them. And sometimes, survival is enough.