“I’M JUST BETTER” – MY UNINTENTIONAL LESSON ON RESILIENCE 

Some time ago, just a few years removed from law school, I was having a conversation with my then boss. Up to this point my early struggles were very well documented and I even questioned my career choice more than a few times. There were little to no easy moments in my first few years at the bar. 

My boss and I were having a casual conversation about some of the firm’s matters when he made a comment about my improvement over a particular period. After his compliment, he asked me if I found the work to be getting easier. I gave a very firm “NO” and said that if anything it was harder at some points, but that I found myself better able to handle the pressure. After explaining my views in some detail, I capped it off by stating,  

“…I guess what I’m saying is, it’s not that the work is getting easier, I’m just better” 

Without realizing it, I became my own example of resilience. Prior to that conversation, I often thought it would have just been easier to walk away and give up. And while my tenure at that job lasted only another year and a half, I think of that moment as a defining moment.  

THE IMPORTANCE OF THIS MOMENT TO ME PERSONALLY 

This moment was important for several reasons. The first reason is that, up to this point, I had never stopped to measure my performance or to acknowledge my improvement. I was always so busy trying to get things done and/or trying not to mess up, that I never took any thought of the fact that I was actually doing better. 

It was also important because as an adult who was in a new phase of life, it was initially difficult to admit that I needed to improve or that I didn’t have all the answers. The eventual improvement required a willingness to work harder. It also required the humility and self-awareness to see where I might have fallen short. 

Another reason why this moment was important was because it allowed me to give myself grace. In trying to overcome our perceived shortcomings, being hard on ourselves comes very easily. It was easy for me to find reasons to beat up on myself but realizing that I made the effort to improve made me realize that I had to be kind to myself. There were going to be so many other times where I would fall short, but after that moment I learned to give myself grace, particularly when I knew I was trying.   

LESSONS ABOUT RESILIENCE 

More generally, if I were talk about being more resilient and/or ways to be resilient, I would offer the following takeaways: 

Opportunity is often disguised as adversity – At a certain point, I realized that playing the victim was not going to take me anywhere. I had to see the difficult moments as opportunities to get better in some way. Either I was going to build or improve a skill, or I was going to learn something from the experience. Many of those tough moments gave me skills and/or lessons that would help me later in life and in my career. 

Some toughness is required – Being tough or brave doesn’t mean that you won’t feel pain or fear, but you still must proceed in the face of that pain or fear. This requires some level of toughness and determination. Simply put, you can’t allow yourself to be easily beaten. 

Get sh*t done – One of the mindsets I had to change along the way up to that point was to not just put what I considered sufficient effort and live with whatever results came out of it. I had to really care about achieving the result I was working toward. Whenever faced with a challenge I always thought to myself, “There’s a person who’d get this done. What would that person do?” Asking this question often exposed deficiencies in my approach and/or effort and helped me come up with possible solutions. 

FINAL THOUGHTS 

I would love to say that I am now at the point that nothing is too hard or that I have an answer for every problem that comes along, but that would be false. What I can say is that when these difficult moments or situations arise, I know to have grace with myself because there will be a point where, if I’m resilient, I can overcome these difficulties. And how do I know this? Well, I’ve been there before and when things didn’t get easier, I got better.