Retrospective
Even though my inner pagan knows that New Year is a totally arbitrary point in our trip around the sun, it still feels like the right time to pause and reflect on the past year — if only because everyone else is banging on about it (and come January, we’ll all be preoccupied with setting resolutions, goals and objectives, just watch). For me, it feels like 2018 has been a year of many losses, both in and out of work. Some of these have hit pretty hard, some I’m still coming to terms with, and some — well, they just needed to happen.That’s not to say it has been a bad year — my team and I have achieved a lot, despite it being tough at times. People have stepped up and proven themselves more capable than perhaps they realised, and we’ve collectively learned lessons from a manic Q4 last year, so that although we had similar pressures this year, we are now winding down rather than burning out, and taking a breather before next year rather than collapsing in exhaustion. I’m thinking about the possibilities for what’s next, and contemplating things I wouldn’t have thought possible just a year ago.This has all got me thinking about resilience, and how building resilience relates to building self-confidence.When I say ‘resilience’, I’m not talking about becoming utterly unbreakable — this isn’t about turning ourselves or our teams into hardened, flinty souls who can take any amount of punishment without flinching. That kind of “resilience” doesn’t stand up in the long run; it’s the huge, solid tree that comes crashing down when the storm blows hard enough. In fact, it’s not resilience at all, it’s resistance — inflexible, unyielding and unsustainable.True resilience is more like a sapling that bends in the wind, but doesn’t break. It’s not about never getting knocked down, it’s about building the muscles so you can get back up again when you have had the rug pulled out from under you. It still hurts, and it still gets exhausting sometimes — but just like any other exercise, the more you do it, the easier it gets. You learn how to break your fall, how to get up faster, how to dodge getting knocked over in the first place. That is the kind of resilience it is helpful to build, the kind that allows you to adapt, learn and grow.
If people sometimes misunderstand what resilience is all about, there are even more misconceptions around confidence and how to build it. Who hasn’t looked at someone and wished we had a tenth of their self-assurance? Wondered how they seemingly glide through life without a moment’s self-doubt? Waited for the day when we too will feel ready to have a crack at that thing we think we just might be capable of doing? Yeah… confidence just doesn’t work like that.
If you want to do it, do it — learn a new language, build something using a new framework, step into that lead role. Yes, you will undoubtedly fuck up. You will have failures. You will fall flat on your face, you will want to quit and you will wonder why the hell you ever got started.
But — every time that happens, you will survive it. You will find a way to pick yourself up and carry on. You might try a different approach or even switch to a completely different path, and that’s all absolutely fine.
Every time you stack it and struggle back on to your feet, you will carry with you a bit more knowledge. Knowledge of how not to do it, or what you don’t need to lean on, or who you can rely on for honest feedback. You’ll start to build the knowledge and the trust in yourself that you can do this, you have got it handled — and that even if you haven’t, it’s not the end of the world. You will develop the sort of resilient confidence that will carry you through any number of setbacks and mishaps until you realise that you always had it in you to overcome them — you just needed the practice at failing.
So please, take it from someone who learned the long, hard way — don’t wait until you’re ready. You are good enough just as you are. Go fall over a bit.
Originally published at kninki.wordpress.com on December 19, 2018.
