The past few years have likely felt like a nonstop cycle of pivoting, pressure, and unpredictability. From pandemic burnout to economic headwinds and climate anxieties, the terrain of work and life has been shifting beneath our feet.
In Singapore, businesses are grappling with a fresh wave of global trade disruptions, leading to the formation of a National Economic Resilience Taskforce to safeguard jobs and livelihoods. Resilience was also mentioned as one of the defining values of our national story in Singapore’s SG60 campaign. Whether in boardrooms or neighbourhoods, resilience has become widely recognised as essential for wellbeing and progress.
But what does resilience really mean, anyway? In this article, we take a closer look at the different layers of resilience, from how it shows up in individuals, to how it can be supported by communities and systems. Drawing from the field of positive psychology, we explore what makes resilience possible, why it matters, and how it can be cultivated in practical ways.
What is Resilience?
Resilience is more than simply “toughing it out”. In psychology, it is defined as the capacity to cope with challenges, endure hardships, bounce back from adversities, and sometimes even find a better path forward. It’s not about avoiding life’s storms, but about navigating them with flexibility, strength, and hope.
Resilience is a central topic in positive psychology because it reflects how strong we can be and how we can grow, even when life gets hard.
In her research, psychologist and recognised expert in resilience Karen Reivich highlights that we need resilience not just to overcome painful experiences from the past, but also to navigate through major setbacks and everyday stressors, and reach out to pursue goals and growth. It’s what helps us function, adapt, and flourish at every stage of life.
While definitions vary, researchers agree on two essential ingredients of resilience (Luthar, Lyman & Crossman, 2014):
1. Adversity or risk
Resilience doesn’t show up when everything is going smoothly. It’s in the hard moments that it comes to life. When something shakes our sense of stability or wellbeing, we’re pushed to dig deep, tap into inner strengths we didn’t know we had, and reach out to others for support. Whether it’s a personal setback, a community crisis, or a global disruption, adversity stretches us in ways that help resilience take root and grow.
2. Positive adaption
Resilience is not about mere survival or suppressing our struggles. It’s about maintaining, regaining, or even surpassing our previous level of functioning after the challenge. In some cases, this process leads to post-traumatic growth: emerging from adversity with new skills, deeper self-understanding, clarified priorities, and stronger relationships (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004).
The dynamic interplay between adversity and positive adaptation means that resilience manifests very differently depending on the context. Sometimes resilience is about mental flexibility in the face of stress; other times it’s about emotional steadiness in moments of loss, or collective action in times of crisis. Understanding the different types of resilience can help us better recognise our own strengths, identify where we need support, and take practical steps to build resilience in ourselves, our workplaces, and our communities.
Types of Resilience
Whether we’re managing daily work pressures, navigating interpersonal friction, or adjusting to a major crisis in life, resilience helps us respond with steadiness and flexibility rather than burnout or overwhelm.
Resilience operates at multiple levels, from the personal strategies we use to navigate life’s ups and downs, to the collective strength of communities and systems that support their members.
Individual Resilience
This is the personal capacity to adapt, recover, and grow from challenges. It draws on various dimensions:
Physical Resilience
Physical resilience is the body’s ability to endure and recover from demands like illness, injury, or prolonged stress. When we care for our bodies through rest, movement, and nutrition, we create a foundation that supports not just physical health but emotional and mental resilience too. For example, someone who maintains healthy habits is more likely to bounce back quickly after falling ill, and also better equipped to manage stress, regulate emotions, and stay focused under pressure (Neumann et. al., 2021).
Mental Resilience
Mental resilience is our ability to think clearly, flexibly, and constructively when under pressure. This could mean not getting stuck in one way of seeing things, but being able to consider different perspectives, challenge unhelpful thoughts, and adjust our thinking as situations evolve. For example, when facing a sudden work setback, mental resilience allows us to pause, explore what else might be going on, and identify possible next steps rather than spiraling into self-blame or panic. Practices like reframing, self-reflection, and setting healthy mental boundaries can help strengthen this area. Just like a muscle, our thinking patterns grow more adaptable the more we use and stretch them.
Emotional Resilience
Emotional resilience is the ability to acknowledge, make sense of, and respond constructively to intense emotions like grief, anger, or fear. It doesn’t mean pushing feelings aside or trying to “get over” them. Instead, it’s about learning to stay present with what we feel, recognise what our emotions are signalling, and choose responses that are caring and supportive. Over time, emotional resilience helps us move through difficult experiences, including past trauma, without becoming overwhelmed. It’s what helps us stay emotionally steady and connected even when life feels unpredictable.
Social Resilience
Social resilience is our capacity to rely on others and to offer support in return. It’s shaped by the strength of our relationships, as well as the diversity and accessibility of our social networks. Because humans are inherently social beings, and thriving communities depend on cooperation and trust, social resilience is foundational to wellbeing and recovery from stress. Relying on just one or two relationships can lead to strain and burnout, whereas strong social resilience means we actively build, maintain, and draw from a range of connections that help us feel seen, supported, and anchored during hard times.
Collective Resilience
Just as individuals can adapt and grow through hardship, so too can groups. Collective resilience is the shared strength that allows families, teams, neighbourhoods, or even entire nations to pull together in times of crisis. Whether it’s facing a natural disaster, navigating economic uncertainty, or responding to a public health emergency, collective resilience shows up in how communities care for one another, coordinate efforts, and rebuild stronger together.
Systemic Resilience
Systemic resilience refers to the ability of an organisation, community, or nation to create conditions that enable its members to withstand challenges and adapt effectively. In workplaces, this means having policies, leadership, and cultures that prevent burnout, encourage open communication, and promote psychological safety. A resilient workplace doesn’t just rely on employees to “be tougher”. It actively supports them through growth opportunities and a healthy work environment.
The Importance of Resilience
Resilience is important because it acts as both a protective shield and a springboard for growth in the face of life’s inevitable challenges.
From a wellbeing perspective, resilience protects our mental, emotional, and physical health by helping us manage stress more effectively, recover from setbacks faster, and reduce long-term distress (Southwick & Charney, 2018). Resilience has also been found to reduce hopelessness and depressive symptoms, and improve optimism (Brunwasser, Gillham & Kim, 2009).
In workplaces, resilience supports sustained performance. Employees who can adapt to change and cope with pressure tend to be more engaged, innovative, and able to collaborate productively. Studies show that resilience helps buffer the negative effects of stress and burnout, supporting job satisfaction and engagement, improving productivity, and reducing turnover intentions (Rodríguez-Sánchez et al., 2021; (Shatté, Perlman, Smith, & Lynch, 2017). Furthermore, organisational resilience enables companies to stay competitive, agile, and better prepared for future uncertainty (Rodríguez-Sánchez et al., 2021; Lengnick-Hall et al., 2011).
Resilience is also a cornerstone of social harmony, since socially resilient individuals and communities are more likely to share resources, collaborate, and sustain trust and cohesion during difficult times. In multicultural societies like Singapore, where diverse groups live and work closely together, such resilience is especially vital. It sustains trust, strengthens social cohesion, and helps communities recover and rebuild in ways that are inclusive, equitable, and united.
So, what shapes resilience? One of the most empowering insights from research is that far from being a fixed trait that some people (or groups) have and others lack, resilience can be cultivated through mindset shifts, skill-building, and nurturing social support systems. In the next section, we explore how to build resilience, and what it takes to turn challenges into catalysts for growth.
How to Build Resilience
Resilience is a process that can be strengthened, whether at the individual, group, or systemic levels. Here, we explore three foundational pillars for building resilience:
Deepen Strengths Awareness
Resilience starts with self-awareness, and one of the most empowering forms of awareness is recognising our character strengths. These are the positive traits that come most naturally to us, such as creativity, perseverance, kindness, or humour. In difficult moments, consciously drawing on our strengths can boost our confidence, lower stress, and remind us of our capacity to cope (Martínez-Martí & Ruch, 2017).
For individuals, this might mean reflecting on which strengths have helped them through past challenges and how they can apply them in the present. For example, someone high in curiosity might focus on learning through adversity, while someone strong in gratitude might find strength in appreciating support systems.
In teams and communities, collective strengths can be identified, explored, and actively leveraged during times of stress. Facilitated workshops, team reflections, or resilience training can help surface these shared capacities and create a language of strengths that enhances collaboration and trust. This kind of strengths-based awareness builds both personal and collective resilience from the inside out.
Reframe Challenges as Opportunities for Growth
Resilient people and systems aren’t defined by the absence of hardship, but by how they interpret and respond to it. One key ingredient in resilience is optimism, or the belief that our efforts can lead to improvement, even in difficult circumstances.
Psychologist Martin Seligman’s (2011) “3Ps” model describes three thinking traps that can erode optimism and, by extension, undermine resilience:
- Personalisation – “This is entirely my fault.”
- Permanence – “This will never change.”
- Pervasiveness – “This affects everything in my life.”
Becoming aware of these patterns and learning to challenge them helps individuals and groups respond more adaptively.
For instance, a resilient team facing a setback might reflect on lessons learned, identify strengths used, and adjust future efforts. This aligns with a growth mindset (Dweck, 2006) – the belief that abilities can be developed with focus, motivation, and application.
Reframing challenges in this way turns challenges into stepping stones and lays the psychological groundwork for long-term resilience.
Cultivate Supportive Relationships
Research increasingly shows that resilience is very much relational, shaped by the networks of support, trust, and empathy that surround us. Strong, supportive relationships are among the most reliable predictors of wellbeing and resilience, providing both emotional sustenance and practical help during difficult times (Southwick & Charney, 2018).
For individuals, this would involve maintaining close connections with friends, family, mentors, or peers. For organisations and communities, it means cultivating inclusive, psychologically safe environments where people feel seen, heard, and valued (Edmondson, 2019).
Killers of Resilience
Just as resilience can be nurtured, it can also be undermined. Certain conditions, whether internal or external, make it harder for individuals and communities to cope, adapt, or bounce back. Recognising these “resilience blockers” is the first step toward addressing them.
Isolation and Lack of Support
Loneliness and isolation not only increase stress but also reduce access to resilience essentials like emotional encouragement, perspective, and practical help (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2015). When people feel disconnected from others, they are less likely to seek support, share their experiences, or gain alternative viewpoints that can reframe a difficult situation. Without a trusted circle to lean on, even manageable challenges can feel overwhelming.
In communities and workplaces, just like how psychological safety, trust, and belonging can boost resilience, a lack thereof can quietly erode resilience. People may disengage, avoid sharing their struggles, or feel like they’re carrying burdens alone. Fostering connections is therefore not just a nice-to-have, but a resilience essential.
Unresolved Trauma and Hurt
Past wounds that remain unacknowledged or unhealed can quietly influence how we respond to new stressors. For example, someone who experienced rejection in early life may struggle to cope with workplace feedback.
At a systemic level, communities that carry collective trauma, such as discrimination, displacement, or violence, may be more vulnerable to burnout, polarisation, or mistrust.
Trauma-informed approaches, whether in therapy, education, or workplace policy, are essential to restore safety and support recovery.
Lack of Meaning and Purpose
Resilience doesn’t only depend on how we manage stress, it also depends on our “why”. When individuals or groups lack a sense of purpose, challenges can feel meaningless and defeating. On the other hand, even severe adversity can be endured and transformed when people feel connected to a deeper purpose, whether it’s family, faith, service, justice, or growth (Frankl, 1984). In workplaces and communities, clarity of values and mission helps people persevere through uncertainty and reconnect with hope.
Neglecting Self-Care and Wellbeing
How we care for our minds and bodies is very much tied to how we face challenges. Everyone has unique physical and emotional needs. Without understanding one’s own signs of depletion and ways to genuinely recharge, people may unintentionally drain their resilience reserves.
In today’s fast-paced world, people may either neglect self-care entirely or follow trends that don’t actually replenish them. For example, pushing through exhaustion with intense workouts or numbing stress by doom-scrolling social media might offer short-term distraction but ultimately deepen fatigue. Real self-care requires tuning in, identifying what is truly nourishing, and creating sustainable routines that support wellbeing, energy, and adaptability.
A Resilient Singapore
In Singapore, resilience has long been forged by necessity, with limited natural resources and shifting global landscapes. Over the decades, Singapore has had to develop its own distinctive flavour of resilience after weathering economic shocks, public health emergencies, and geopolitical shifts.
This is visible in a governance style that emphasises meticulous planning and pragmatism, as well as a strong focus on social harmony. It may also be seen in the kampung spirit that surfaces during crises, where neighbours check in on one another and volunteers mobilise swiftly.
But as Singapore enters a new chapter, it will become increasingly important to cultivate resilience with intention. The country’s demographics are shifting, becoming more culturally diverse while also aging rapidly. These changes bring new complexity, especially since relationships are core to our collective resilience.
So how can we nurture resilience on the road ahead?
As we’ve explored in this article, strong networks of trust and support are essential for thriving through adversity.
On an individual level, this could mean building the skills, mindsets, and habits that help us manage stress, access our strengths, and seek support when needed. It’s also about recognising that our resilience is deeply intertwined with the people and systems around us.
In workplaces, this might mean fostering psychological safety, and perhaps preparing leaders to serve as Chief Resilience Officers. On a societal level, cultivating resilience requires more than just infrastructure or preparedness. It involves creating safe, open spaces for dialogue, reflection, and connection across differences. This includes embracing multiculturalism not just as coexistence, but as active inclusion, where diverse cultural values, languages, and identities are respected, represented, and engaged in decision-making. It means designing communities and schools to be welcoming for people of all backgrounds, including neurodivergent individuals who may experience the world differently.
Want to Build Resilience Around You?
In this article, we’ve explored how resilience shows up across individuals, communities, and systems, and why it’s so essential in navigating today’s complex world. From psychological flexibility to social support and meaningful leadership, we’ve seen that resilience is as much about relationships and environments as it is about individual grit.
If you’re a people leader, educator, coach, or changemaker seeking to foster resilience within your team or community, our part-time Graduate Diploma programme in Applied Positive Psychology and Wellbeing includes a specialised module on Resilience.
Our Resilience Training for Practitioners module equips learners with evidence-based tools to build psychological resilience in non-clinical settings, using the SPARK framework developed by Dr. Ilona Boniwell and Dr. Lucy Ryan. It blends theory and practice to help you break down complex situations, support others through adversity, and cultivate the conditions for growth. Graduates will be certified as SPARK Resilience Workplace Trainers, empowered to create ripple effects of resilience across the people and systems they lead.
Ready to deepen your understanding of resilience and lead change from the inside out? Get in touch to learn more about our courses, and take your next step towards building a more empowered, resilient future for yourself and those around you.
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