For much of my life, I’ve felt an almost constant need to prove myself—convincing others, and perhaps more so myself, that I was worthy of the opportunities given to me. Instead of recognising these chances as earned, I often dismissed them as luck, something I should simply be grateful for. That feeling of questioning my worth and belonging lingered for years, shaping how I navigated my career.
I remember listing out my accomplishments during contract negotiations, not just to managment of my value to the company, but to also silence the relentless chatter of my Monkey Mind—the voice feeding my doubts and fears. Though deeply uncomfortable at the time, those moments became powerful exercises in resilience. Even today, despite all evidence to the contrary, I catch myself questioning my abilities. But what I’ve learned through these experiences is that resilience isn’t about never doubting yourself—it’s about finding the strength to keep showing up, even when that doubt lingers.
Each of us faces challenges that test us in unique ways, and every experience—no matter its scale—is valid. The strength it takes to navigate your own hardships is no less significant simply because someone else’s struggles might look different. Resilience is deeply personal; it’s about how we rise, adapt, and continue moving forward in the face of whatever life throws our way.
The image I have used for this post captures me as a young anchor at CNN, during one of the most demanding periods of my life. I was navigating a steep learning curve in a highly pressurised job, working overnight shifts that tested my physical and mental limits. At the same time, I was starting over in a new city—living alone, working unsociable hours, and trying to build a sense of connection in a life that felt unbalanced. All of this unfolded against the backdrop of personal struggles and the relentless belief that I wasn’t good enough. Yet, every day, I worked hard to silence that inner critic. I showed up to the world as calm, competent, and credible—a woman capable of communicating with clarity and intelligence. Looking back now, I realise that this wasn’t just me holding fort amidst chaos; it was me quietly and steadily building my resilience.
What's The Difference Between Courage and Resilience?
Courage is the ability to confront fear, uncertainty, or challenges head-on, often involving a conscious choice to take action despite potential risks or adversity. It's about stepping into the unknown or difficult situations with bravery, even when the outcome is uncertain.
Resilience, on the other hand, is the capacity to recover, adapt, or bounce back after facing difficulties, setbacks, or stress. It’s an ongoing process of building emotional, mental, and sometimes physical strength to endure and grow through challenges.
In essence, courage is about taking that first bold step, while resilience is about sustaining yourself and thriving through the journey. Both are interconnected, as resilience often requires moments of courage, and courage can build resilience over time.
We build resilience every single day.
What Does It Mean to Be Resilient?
Resilience doesn’t mean ignoring fear, sadness, anxiety, or depression. It doesn’t mean pretending that everything is fine. Nor does it mean blindly accepting, like I did back then, that that's how it is and I just needed to suck it up and pay my dues. It’s about reminding ourselves that we are human, and part of being human is experiencing difficult emotions and learning to navigate our way through them. It means we know life happens but we will get through it and find ways to come into our own where we will flourish.
The motivational speaker and mentor Leland Van Der Wall said, “The degree to which a person can grow is directly proportional to the amount of truth he can accept about himself without running away.”
The first step to building resilience is being honest—with ourselves and others—about our struggles. The reason why that's important is because our struggles aren't ours alone. The stories and characters may be different but the underlying emotions felt will be the same.
When we share our struggles, we ease the burden of isolation. This openness creates space for empathy and understanding, strengthening relationships and allowing meaningful conversations to flourish. Vulnerability isn’t a weakness; it’s a strength that leads to greater connection, growth, and resilience.
By sharing what we feel with those closest to us we not only tear down walls that keep us hidden, we build bridges with others so they can share their vulnerabilities too. The strength we derive from knowing others have our back and we have theirs enables us to keep moving forward towards our goals in life. It enables us to feel that resilience we need when challenges arise.
Resilience Is Within Reach
You don’t need to have an innate ability to cultivate resilience. As the American Psychological Association puts it, “Resilience is ordinary, not extraordinary.” It’s something we can all build over time.
The APA highlights four core components: connection, wellness, healthy thinking, and meaning. I’d add another: resilience grows from doing hard things. It’s feeling those challenging emotions and still choosing to move forward, even in small ways.
It's what the American psychologist Carol Dweck calls having a "growth mindset". She writes in Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, "Why hide deficiencies instead of overcoming them? Why look for friends or partners who will just shore up your self-esteem instead of ones who will also challenge you to grow? And why seek out the tried and true, instead of experiences that will stretch you? The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives."
I learned about resilience by watching my mother. I didn't understand it as a child but today I know everything she did was based on the resilience she developed through the cards that life dealt her. Her and her family were forced to leave China with just the belongings they could carry. They landed in Hong Kong in the late 1950s and had to find work to sustain their lives. There was no time to even worry or blame anyone for their situation. Amidst it all they made friends who were in similar situations and with whom they built a community. By the time my brother and I were born some 15 years later we were surrounded by laughter during the family and friends gatherings. There were anxious moments too. Many of them. But through it all my mother kept wanting to grow and learn; never allowing anything or anyone to defeat her. Through it all my mother had faith and believed everything would work out. And at the heart of that belief was gratitude.
Gratitude: The Power Behind Resilience
Gratitude has often been seen as one of those 'woo woo' sentiments. However being able to see, acknowledge, list out everything in your life no matter how small that you feel lucky to have especially when you're feeling like crap to begin with--that is a true act of resilience.
What gives me a sense of resilience today is looking back at all the times I did the hard things (both serious and light) and still being able to looking around at the life I have today and feeling so utterly grateful for everything, even every experience.
Your Resilience Résumé
You can think of resilience as a life experience résumé—a collection of the moments, lessons, and skills we gather from navigating life's challenges. Just like a traditional résumé highlights professional growth and achievements, our resilience résumé reflects the ways we’ve adapted, grown stronger, and found meaning in adversity.
Each setback we face is like a new 'job'—an opportunity to develop skills like problem-solving, emotional regulation, or seeking support. The lessons we learn become transferable, helping us handle future difficulties with greater confidence. And just as a career résumé evolves over time, so too does our resilience résumé, reminding us that resilience, like our mindset, is not fixed but something we continuously build.
If you were to look back over life even to when you were a kid, I bet you would be able to see all the ways you developed resilience--whether it was:
getting up after you fell in the playground
moving to a new country
dealing with heartbreak by talking it over with a friend
going in for a job interview despite the nerves and the feelings of not belonging
failing at a test or getting fired but learning from it and moving on to greater things with insight.
dealing with the loss of a loved one
surviving any form of trauma
figuring out how to pay your bills when the answer isn't clear
wanting to get healthy
waking up every day to go to a job you hate because you need to feed your kids
going after your dreams
The list goes on.
We are resilient in a million different ways but we have never been taught to see ourselves that way. We just assume that that's the way we're meant to show up in life--to just get on with it. And while to some extent that is true for most of us, what helps us when the chips are down is remembering all the times we did get on with it when we really felt we couldn't. What helps us when the chips are down is remembering that sometimes it's ok to lay low for a while because there is a part of you that knows you will slowly get up when you're ready.
Resilience is about wanting to learn about yourself in deeply profound ways so that you don't carry that baggage with you forever. It’s about building self-awareness so you can take greater control of your life. It starts with the micro-habits—the small, intentional choices we make every day and the commitments we make to honour ourselves.
In testing times your mind can be your best friend or your worst enemy. It can comfort you and pick you up or it can hurt you and drag you down. When under pressure resilience is not only knowing you have a choice, it's making the choice to keep showing up as the most honest version of you and to know that you are enough and you are worthy.
Monita xo
*Why not choose a photograph of you from a pivotal time in your life and use as a screensaver on your phone for a few weeks? This will act as a reminder of how far you have come in life and how far you know you can go.
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