Resilience Is About How You Recharge, Not How You Push Through

The most common request I receive from HR leaders is to help employees build resilience. It's a well-intentioned ask, but it often misses a crucial point: you can't build resilience with an empty tank.

Resilience requires emotional energy, yet many employees are exhausted and depleted. They're expected to be resilient while running on fumes. It's an impossible ask.

I learned this lesson the hard way. My addiction to busyness, equating constant activity with productivity and success, led to severe burnout. It took two years to recover—time spent unlearning harmful habits and embracing a new mindset around work and what it actually takes to be sustainably effective.

The corporate world has a resilience paradox. We push people harder, reward those who work the longest hours, celebrate the ones who never disconnect—and then we're surprised when they lack the emotional reserves to be resilient in the face of challenges.

This approach isn't just flawed—it's counterproductive. True resilience isn't about how long you can push through; it's about how effectively you can recharge.

Here's what leaders and organizations need to understand:

1. Resilience requires energy: Emotional energy is the fuel for resilience. When people are depleted, resilience is not possible.

2. Overwork is the enemy of resilience: When we glorify overwork, we're actively undermining the resilience we claim to value.

3. Recovery is a skill: Employees need to be empowered with the skills to recharge effectively. Scrolling through social media during a lunch break doesn't count.

4. Organizational culture matters: If your culture values constant pushing over renewal and recovery, you're setting your people up for burnout, not resilience.

5. Leadership sets the tone: When leaders model healthy boundaries and prioritize recovery, it gives permission for everyone else to do the same.

As work demands increase, recovery periods during the work day, and outside of work, become more critical than ever in building resilience.

It's about quality, not quantity. Psychological detachment from work is key. Eight hours in bed with a racing mind isn't restorative—it's pushing through by another name. Nor is checking emails while on holiday considered recovery .

Building resilience happens when we create a sustainable cycle of purposeful work and effective recovery.

At the end of the day, it's not about who can run the longest without stopping. It's about knowing how to adjust the pace, recharge effectively, and go the distance without burning out.