Resilience and Personal Growth - go together like a horse and carriage...
By Nadja Conaghan
Not long ago, I had an interesting conversation with a leadership consultant friend about resilience and (personal) growth. He’s just attended a webinar where the facilitator said that resilience is simply not enough nowadays and that personal growth would be the key. Of course, he was keen what my views were on this topic.
As a resilience advocate and expert, I feel very strongly about resilience. I agree that (personal) growth is important for success and wellbeing. However, I find that the statement is a bit misleading as I believe that resilience and growth go hand in hand. Without resilience there is no growth and vice versa.
I had a general understanding of what personal growth means. Then I’ve had a closer look into the definition and realised quickly that “personal growth” (also referred to as “personal development”) is not really well defined.[1] This may be because personal growth applies to so many different areas of life, such as professionally (i.e. development of specialised and technical skills and knowledge to succeed in the workplace), socially (i.e. development of interpersonal skills to create more successful and meaningful relationships at and outside of work) and personally (i.e. intrapersonal skills to succeed in life and achieve self-fulfilment). In fact, the current literature shows that the term personal growth often used as synonym for “resilience“. The definition for (personal) resilience that most psychologist agree upon is:
I prefer this definition because it enable us to think of resilience as a process that we can influence and adjust according to our needs. Resilience is not so much a trait; but rather a dynamic process to deal with and overcome challenges and adversity. We can enhance our resilience through life experiences, personal behaviors (i.e. applying skills, strategies and tools) and mindset.
Broadly, personal development can be described as the the process continually developing yourself to reach your full potential. [2] In other words, the ambition and the process of a becoming a better version of yourself.
My personal conclusion, personal growth in the context of resilience means developing new skills and enhance capability to become more resilient; whilst at the same time being resilient under stress in order to gain and practise new skills.
Relationship between stress and growth
Yerkes and Dodson (1908) looked at the relationship between arousal or stress (i.e. the amount of demands/challenge someone is facing) and performance - showing a reversed u-shaped relationship between stress and performance level. In other words, we need a certain level of stress to perform at an optimal level - where our capabilities is perfectly matched to the demands and we experience a feeling of “flow”. Beyond this zone, we start to experience a real challenge and stress, i.e. our autopilot does not work anymore and we need to do a “bit more” to do the job. That is where growth and learning is happening. It is that state where you are pushed out of your comfort zone and you feel challenged. However, not everyone is necessarily experiencing growth. Some struggle, are unable to cope and experience negative stress related consequences, whilst others thrive and come out stronger and more competent and confident. So what makes the difference? Resilience – only if you are able to cope and apply your process to overcome adversity and bounce back to a ‘normal state’ where you can think clearly and actively problem solve, you will be able to grow.
Yerkes-Dodson Law (1908)
Growth mindset and resilience
Growth mindset is one of the most powerful strategies you can have in your “Resilience Toolkit”.
When we talk about growth mindset, we also need to talk about the fixed mindset. Both are belief systems about success and failure (Dr Carol S. Dweck).
A “fixed mindset” person assumes that our character, intelligence, and creative ability are crucial for success and are fixed, i.e. we cannot really change them. People with a fixed mindset are striving for success and avoiding failure at all costs.
People with “growth mindset” thrive on challenge and sees failure not as evidence of unintelligence but as an opportunity for growth and for stretching our existing abilities. They believe that skills can be built rather you are born with. Consequently, they view failure and setbacks as a learning opportunity.
Growth mindset embraces the flexibility of mind and abilities which is aligned to the concept of resilience being a dynamic process. Growth mindset is a powerful resilience strategy:
Having a growth mindset enables you to view stressful situations and challenges as less threatening but rather as an opportunity. Instead of avoiding the situation, you seek the opportunity to test yourself (and your skills, knowledge and strategies) and learn in order to reach your full potential.
People with a growth mindset view and treat setbacks, negative feedback and failures as an opportunity to learn and grow. They actively reflect and use the lesson learned to develop new skills and strategies to overcome adversity, solve problems and move on.
Final thoughts
In times of adversity and new challenges, personal growth and resilience are crucial for personal wellbeing, (mental) health, success and self-fulfilment. Trying to separate them and put one above the other is almost impossible. Resilience and personal growth are connected and influence each other.