The Best Project You’ll Ever Work on Is You!

The past three weeks have marked an unexpected turning point in my life—a chance to dive deep into mental health recovery and to see, more vividly than ever, just how intertwined personal resilience is with professional skills. We talk about the “oxygen mask” principle, but it takes on a whole new meaning when you’re the one gasping for air. If you don’t take care of yourself first, how can you be there for others, let alone bring your best self to your work?

I believe several musical choices could accompany this article. Still, I will choose Phil Collins's "You Can’t Hurry Love". This choice emphasises the importance of taking our time and collaborating with others, personally and professionally, as we reflect, grow, and face new challenges and risks. We can support one another as professionals in the risk and resilience sector. Together, we are more robust and don't have to face our traumas and pain alone. By helping each other navigate periods of change, uncertainty, and complexity, we can draw on our strengths in risk assessment, lessons learned, horizon scanning, capability building, and partnership approaches.

When Personal Breakthroughs Feel Like Major Incidents

Two weeks ago, I had a long-awaited mental health triage appointment. I was unprepared for the traumas that resurfaced as a result, and I lacked the coping skills and tools to respond constructively in the following days. A few days later, I experienced what I can only describe as a "black swan" event—an incredibly unexpected situation I never thought would happen. The experience did not go as anticipated or planned. I was not ready or prepared, yet I pursued it anyway. The result was inevitable pain and distress. Over the coming days this poster in the gym and its message would become increasingly important to me, and I became open to the message of change.

Consequently, I had to declare a "major incident" concerning my personal well-being—an incident that required me to learn important lessons. New plans, policies, and procedures must be adopted to reduce future risks, with adequate prevention and mitigation strategies. Now, I had to begin the process of debriefing and adaptation. I was forced to confront several uncomfortable truths about my thoughts, feelings and behaviours during this process. I had to reflect on how I was coping (or not coping) and how certain things in my life I had clung to had become the chains holding me back. In the simplest terms, I had to acknowledge that I was responsible for my suffering. It was my choices, decisions and actions to stick with these negative influences that caused me repeated exposure to traumas and self-harm.

Through deep, painful reflection, I began to see what needed to change. And that’s when I realised something surprising: many of the tools I use professionally—decision logs, after-action reports, risk assessments—could help me rebuild personally. This was my breakthrough: to stop viewing my professional skills and personal resilience as separate and instead integrate them to forge a path forward.

The Healing Power of Psychological Safety

Healing is messy, not the “wave a magic wand and be done” sort of thing. I knew I needed psychological safety—a space free from judgment, stigma, and the weight of external expectations. Here, I could start treating my experiences, even the darkest corners, with curiosity instead of shame. I could allow myself to explore, observe, and try things that might feel counterintuitive and see where they’d lead.

One resonating approach was kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with gold. It dawned on me that I am both the potter and the broken vessel and that perhaps my cracks and fractures could become sources of resilience and strength. For once, I could start seeing myself as?capable of transformation rather than resigning to my struggles.

One issue, though, is dealing with setbacks; during this time away, my psychological safety was violated and has since?resulted in night terrors. Severe night terrors, I can only sleep for 20 minutes before being violently jerked awake, in some instances quite painfully if I accidentally bite my mouth. This has meant that for much of the week, I have effectively been operating in a drunken state of sleep deprivation. I now hope all the work I have done and the articles I have written make sense to others and are not total gibberish!!

Dealing with setbacks like this has been challenging. Kindness to self, compassion, curiosity, and a willingness to let has been essential. I need not hold onto anger, resentment, or fear to move forward. Journalling, meditation, talking with trusted friends, and professional services have all been exceedingly helpful in enabling and empowering me to continue moving forward with this.

?

Applying Professional Tools to Personal Resilience

That’s when I began experimenting with using my professional toolkit—risk assessment, decision logs, and?after-action reviews—in my personal life. Have you ever written an after-action report about your own decisions? It’s unexpectedly cathartic and constructive, helping you examine your thoughts and behaviours with the same critical eye you’d use in a work setting. Applying these methods to something so personal felt strange but liberating, yet it brought a welcome structure to my healing process.

Building resilience also required me to face my compulsions, the patterns that had helped me cope in the short term but sabotaged me over the long run. I started setting daily intentions and small challenges, like going to the gym or swimming alone, which reignited a sense of independence and accomplishment.

Designing for Sustainable Change

I’ve experienced a similar period of change before, but as I reflected in another article, it proved to be unsustainable. This time, I want it to be different. I want this change to be meaningful and lasting, signalling a shift towards continuous reflection and growth. This time, I realised that pacing and support systems were essential to ensure that any transformation would stick. So, I leaned into my professional experience again, creating a “risk assessment for change” to identify potential setbacks and craft contingency plans.

I realised I needed a support network of diverse people, each bringing unique strengths without one person carrying the weight of my journey. I needed this safety net to face risk with courage and curiosity?and?to create resilience that adapts and evolves.

With this in mind, I established a new daily battle rhythm, one no longer based on performance metrics but on values and outcomes. Shifting to this mindset was freeing. I began to see my growth as authentic and fulfilling rather than something to tick off on a to-do list. I crafted a set of daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly goals for the next 12 months and committed to taking action on these – for example – travelling internationally to Geneva next year is a substantial commitment for me; progress has been positive so far.

Embracing Future Risk with Openness

As I look to the future, I feel a renewed sense of purpose, but I know the journey is far from over. There will be setbacks, and I expect there will be days that challenge every bit of progress I’ve made. But now, I view resilience not as the elimination of risk but as the flexibility to manage it.

For the first time, I can face what lies ahead without needing to control every outcome. This experience has taught me to embrace the discomfort that comes with growth, to meet it with the same curiosity I’d show in a professional crisis, and to extend myself the compassion I strive to offer others. I want to give up the need for control and empower others to share this burden with me to face future risks together because we are more robust and?capable of anything; we are experts in risk and contingency! ?

Final Thoughts: The Journey is the Project

As I continue this path, I aim to apply these methods to foster ongoing personal and professional growth. I know there will be setbacks, but I now understand that resilience isn’t about eliminating risk—it’s about adaptability to manage it.

My journey is far from over, but for the first time, I feel empowered to face the future with confidence. This process has taught me to welcome discomfort as an opportunity, treat myself with the same compassion I extend to others, and fully embrace my capabilities.

We often say it takes a disaster to drive change in risk and resilience. I hope that by sharing my experience, I can inspire others to examine their patterns and pursue personal growth with the same rigour and passion they bring to their professional lives.

After all, the best project you will ever work on is yourself.