“Resilience:
1 : the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress
2 : an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change ”
Find me an athlete or former athlete who doesn’t have a story about the age old athletic toughness advice “Rub some dirt on it”. A storied component of that toughness is to never show weakness either physical or mental. My over 25 years of experience in sport demonstrated to me that physical and mental toughness are the differences between a starter and someone who doesn’t see the field, the difference between conference champions and middling teams who don’t make the conference tournament, between athletes who play hurt to aid their team’s path to the championships. That’s the toughness, but what happens when toughness isn’t enough? What happens when you need to deal with the emotional gravity of not just a loss, but an injury that threatens your career or identity as an athlete? Our paradigms as athletes taught us that emotions were a weakness. They were liabilities, were dismissed and basically stigmatized in the world of athletics. But why weren’t we looking at these vulnerabilities like we did training a weaker skill? Why don’t we see these moments not as emotional weakness, but instead as an opportunity to assess the weakness and grow stronger by practicing and processing that emotional information?
Personally, I modeled my resilience and toughness on guidance from my coach about what mental toughness physically looked. In those moments of adversity, I would think about lofty, heroic quotes – like the ones from Jim Valvano, Muhammad Ali or John Wooden. (Enter Jimmy V's heartbreaking "Don't give up. Don't ever give up." mantra.) One in particular moved me. It felt physical, mental and spiritual. I had it posted on my locker for all 5 years of my DI Field Hockey career at the University of Michigan:
“The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
These dramatic phrases served me in those moments when I used to scrape my body up off the turf after getting my bell rung in the 15th minute of overtime, when I would stumble forward and then take a deep breath to release my physical fatigue in order to enter a different dimension and rise back to the intensity and pace that I needed to to match and push through. The bounds that we as elite competitive athletes surpassed are feats that we admire in each other and frankly that other folks, non-athletes, admire and applaud too.
For that kind of admiration, I always wanted to believe the schpeel that I was fed about the character and life lessons I learned through sport being marketable and advantageous. But that sound byte just never felt exactly accurate. I felt like it was missing something. As an athlete, I was tough – mentally and physically. I was hit in the face with a ball, a blow which broke my jaw, and I re-entered the national championship game to anchor a defensive shut out for a national title. I could persevere. I had spinal surgery after my freshman year to return to action and become a two-time All-American. I could put failure in my rear view mirror and find success again. I came back for a fifth year after our team lost in the first round of NCAAs as the defending national champs to co-captain our team to the National Semi-final once again.
Now in my decade plus since retiring from athletics, I’ve learned that resilience is a hell of a lot more than just the buzzwords around character like grit, mental toughness, mental health, personal leadership, emotional intelligence, determination. Now I think that I’ve got a better grasp on why that sound byte just didn’t seem completely applicable. It didn’t because resilience is not just the ability to recover from or adjust easily to physical misfortune or change. It’s the process of learning what contributes to that ability and practicing it. It’s acknowledging the strain, stress and misfortune and synthesizing it so that you can recognize it again the future. It’s accepting that you are not alone in these struggles and learning that you can be vulnerable in service of the goal of getting stronger. But even more than that, it’s accepting that struggles will happen, that they are opportunities to learn about ourselves and others through our related struggles and to share those lessons in service to others. I’ve come to believe that true resilience is not just falling and rising, but is falling, rising and recovering so you have tools to prevent a future fall.
As of today, this space is an exploration of my interests around this topic. I'm sharing to acknowledge and credit ideas and thought leaders who have served me in hopes of serving maybe even just one other person who has grappled with these topics. If you're interested in a certain topic/idea or want to share your experience of developing resilience in athletics or as you transitioned from your athletic identity to the next phase of your life, contact me or leave a comment below.