Does Resilience Help You Change?

I am sometimes asked whether change fitness is a similar concept to resilience. 

Resilience is defined as “the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance, re-organise, and keep functioning in much the same way as before”.  Think about that for a moment:  “in much the same way as before”. Does that sound like change?

In one sense, it doesn’t. After all, if you keep going “in much the same way as before”, you’re never going to create anything new. Change is partly about giving up.  It’s giving up on what you’re changing from to arrive at what you’re changing to.  So being resilient and “functioning in much the same way as before” is much more like resistance than change fitness.

But that’s not the full picture about resilience. You also need to be resilient to succeed.  You need to be resilient to deal with the set-backs and disappointments that will surely come your way.  

So resilience is no friend of change fitness if it stops you from changing what you really need to change.  But it’s a necessary companion once you have decided to change and you’re already on the journey.

Dr Steve Barlow