Is resilience just suffering with better branding? A question I’ve posed to myself upon reflection of this single word: resilience.
We admire those who endure. Who push through. Who carry the weight without complaint. We call it strength. We call it resilience. But we rarely stop to ask: At what cost?
For much of my life, I believed resilience was about holding it all together. I prided myself on being the person who could manage anything. I led meetings, made difficult decisions, and kept my emotions in check. I moved through the world with an unwavering exterior, mistaking endurance for strength. And for a time, it worked.
Until it didn’t.
The problem with resilience—at least, the kind we glorify—is that it creates an illusion of self-sufficiency. People assume you don’t need help. And eventually, you start to believe it too.
I remember stepping offstage after a keynote, the applause still ringing, yet feeling nothing but disappointment. I was unprepared, disjointed, unsure. The weight of it sat heavy in my chest, and later, behind closed doors, it broke me open.
I cried—not just from exhaustion, but from the quiet grief of a moment I had built up in my mind, only to feel like I had failed myself. I had put so much pressure on that talk, convinced that my worth as a professional, as a thinker, as a designer, could be measured by how well I performed in that single moment.
And yet, no one would have known.
On the outside, I looked composed. I smiled and thanked people for their kind words. I performed resilience, as I had so many times before—appearing steady even when I was completely unraveling.
And in doing so, I upheld the same illusion that had trapped me: that success means effortlessness, that struggle is weakness, that we should suffer quietly and alone.
Because that’s what I had been taught resilience was: never letting them see the cracks.
Another moment that reshaped me was the shift from peer to leader—a transition no one really prepares you for. The moment I stepped into leadership, I felt the space widen between myself and those I once worked alongside. Conversations became more careful. Invitations became fewer. I wasn’t just another person in the room anymore—I was the one people looked to for decisions, for direction.
And yet, despite being surrounded by people, I had never felt more alone.
I would watch my team—my former peers—laugh together, confide in one another in ways they no longer did with me. I understood it, logically. But emotionally? It stung. I had spent my whole career belonging, and suddenly, I felt like I was hovering outside of something I used to be part of.
For years, I wore resilience like armor. I had learned early on that vulnerability could be used against you. That if you were strong, you wouldn’t be left out, overlooked, or hurt. So I mastered the art of self-reliance. I did not ask for help. I did not show when I was struggling. I believed that resilience meant absorbing the pain and moving forward, untouched.
But that kind of resilience doesn’t set you free. It isolates you.
Because endurance without reflection isn’t resilience. It’s survival.
And for women, survival is often mistaken for strength.
One of the greatest acts of resilience is simply existing as a woman—moving through spaces where we are scrutinised more, interrupted more, doubted more. We are taught to endure before we are taught to expect better. To hold it together, to take on more, to absorb what others cannot. And when we succeed, it is rarely framed as ease or expertise—it is framed as resilience.
We call women resilient when what we really mean is they have learned to live with less. Less support. Less safety. Less permission to be anything other than unshakable.
So, fuck resilience.
Or at least, the version of it we’ve been sold.
I used to believe resilience was about never breaking. Now, I see it differently.
Resilience isn’t about proving how much you can take. It’s about knowing what’s worth carrying—and what isn’t.
A younger version of me would have swallowed that keynote failure whole, carried it like a quiet burden, and pushed forward as if nothing had happened. But I don’t do that anymore.
Through years of therapy, I’ve learned to recognize the weight I was never meant to hold—the expectations, the self-imposed pressures, the belief that I had to endure everything alone. I’ve learned that strength isn’t measured by how well you hide the struggle, but by how willing you are to be seen in it.
Now, I say the things I once buried. I share my fears, my failures, my moments of uncertainty—not just when I’ve neatly packaged them into lessons, but while I’m still in the thick of them. I don’t mistake silence for composure or suffering for resilience. And I don’t wear self-reliance like armor anymore.
Because real resilience isn’t about enduring. It’s about demanding something better. It’s about healing so you can be stronger. And, more than anything, it’s about knowing you don’t have to carry it alone.
I think it’s time for resilience to have a rebrand.