Why HR Can Make or Break Your Series B Funding Round
23rd April 2026Articles
Series B funding requires more than growth. Discover how HR, compliance and people strategy impact investor confidence and business scalability.
Posted on 24th November 2020News
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Resilience is often heralded as an essential skill to have in your toolkit. Being able to develop and expand your resilience has never been more relevant than now – both personally and professionally. We’re in unchartered waters with all of us having to operate in new contexts across all areas of our lives.
The purpose of this blog is to explain what we mean (and don’t mean) when we talk about resilience, why it’s important and how you can cultivate it.
Resilience is your ability to:
Ultimately, it’s about not letting setbacks, set you back.
Resilience is not:
“The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived.” Robert Jordan, The Fires of Heaven
A common mistake is to confuse endurance with resilience. Whereas endurance means you ‘get your head down’, plough on, get stuff done and never give up. Resilience is about looking up! Learning and adapting to help you find an alternative way to keep moving forward.
A useful way to visualise the difference is surfing! Yes, stay with me…
Just like in the ocean where the waves keep coming; in life, challenges will continue to appear.
An endurance approach when surfing would be to keep on attacking the waves the same way, every time. When you fall off, you jump straight back on, determined to beat the next one. The cycle continues and although you may manage to hang on to your board for the last few waves, when you do finally walk back onto the beach you’re battered and bruised and have not made a huge amount of progress.
A resilient approach to surfing would be to first take stock. Reflect on what you can learn from your last attempts and potentially what others are doing around you. Observe and learn as much as you can about the waves. This insight will help you to adapt your approach, for example by changing your timing or altering your stance on the board. It is also essential to take a break between the waves to recharge your energy – an important resource (we’ll come back to the importance of personal resources shortly). When you’re back on the beach you’ll be tired but also energised as you’ve been learning to ride the waves.
Building resilience is an important part of growth and change. When you increase your capacity to cope with the demands of life, you will increase your happiness and performance. It will also help you maintain balance during difficult or stressful periods whilst playing an important role in protecting your mental wellbeing.
Resilience in the workplace has never been so critical for helping individuals, teams and organisations to thrive. Cultivating a flexible and positive approach within the work environment enables:
Know Your Resources: Resilience is a dynamic state, it is constantly in a state of flux depending on two factors:
and
Think of it as a seesaw. The more challenges that you face, the more resources you need to draw on to address the balance. With that in mind, developing your resources will help increase your resilience.
Your resources are physical and mental and include how you take care of body, how you manage your emotions and mood, what you do with our thoughts which dictates your outlook. Your support network such as friends, family, colleagues, mentors and managers as well as your environment and nature are also important resources to consider.
Here are three specific strategies to increase your resources…
Focus on what is in your control: Write down everything that is filling your headspace. Then ask yourself, what things can you control or influence? By focussing on what you can control, your actions will have an impact. It is simply a waste of your time and energy to focus on things that you can’t control which will leave you feeling demotivated and no further forward in dealing with your challenges. Remember the surfing analogy, it makes sense to focus on your tactics and approach rather than focus on when the next wave will come and how big it will be – this is totally out of your control.
Always choose your response and attitude to an event: Although it can sometimes be difficult to see, you always have a choice about how to respond to an event. Practise being less reactive and nurture a response that will be helpful. Ask yourself the question, how will this serve me? Another useful technique for enhancing your positive voice is to write a gratitude list, spend a few minutes each day focussing on the things that you are grateful for.
So, what can you do to help build resilience for you and, your people? As times continue to challenge us both at work, and at home, it’s worth considering what additional resources could be out there to help. At SYLO | Beyond HR. we offer a wide range of services that can help both your people, and yourself, to build your resilience such as, coaching, at all levels, either 1-2-1 or in groups. Our experts in Wellbeing are also available to advise on building positive and helpful habits that support physical and mental wellbeing and good mental health at work (whether working from home or in the office). Please contact us on: 01844 216290 or email for more information.
About the Author – Roo Davies
As one of the team of Coaches at SYLO | Beyond HR. I enjoy helping leaders and the wider workforce realise their potential. After training at Oxford University, I completed my Post Graduate Certificate in Coaching at Goldsmiths, London and a coaching qualification with The Institute of Leadership & Management. My coaching expertise is combined with strategic marketing know-how and mentoring skills as, upon graduating from University with a Marketing degree, I worked for 15+ years in both corporate and agency marketing.
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