The Resilience Rant: Reclaiming and Reframing Part 2 – Resilience Isn’t Victim Blaming

Introduction

Let’s start with one of my favorite catchphrases from the feedback side of my coaching work:

Any feedback that can be restated as “Stop sucking, be more better” is of limited value.

That, in a nutshell, is what gives resilience such a bad name in some circles.

When people hear “resilience,” they don’t always think of capacity-building or recovery support. Instead, they hear a judgment—an implication that they’re not coping fast enough or well enough for someone else’s comfort. In those moments, “resilience” sounds less like a lifeline and more like a rebuke.

And I agree—that version of resilience should make us uncomfortable. In fact, it should set off alarm bells. But like so many things in life, discomfort doesn’t always mean “throw it out.” Sometimes it just means “we need to reframe it.” Baby, Bathwater….totally a thing.

---

Resilience Can Be Misused—But That Doesn’t Make It the Enemy

In my Seven Dirty Words series, I wrote about how words like “always” and “never” betray an absolute-thinking trap—a kind of mental rigidity that flattens reality into black-and-white caricatures. The idea that resilience is victim blaming falls squarely into that trap.

Is resilience sometimes used as a tool to silence, dismiss, or shame people? Absolutely. Have some managers, institutions, or family members misused the term to avoid accountability? Without question.

These are classic tactics by toxic leaders and organizations to weaponize a virtue against those that live by virtue. 

But does that mean the concept of resilience itself is toxic? Bollocks.

Resilience doesn’t mean someone should have done better. It is a means to increase the chances that they will do better next time—with the right support, skills, and environment. That’s not a critique of their past; it’s an investment in their future.

Confusing “growth is possible” with “you’re to blame” is like confusing therapy with guilt. It’s a false equivalency. And worse—it keeps us from offering tools that could help. If you’ve read any of this blog, you have been served several cups of my “nuance and grace” Kool-Aid. Keep drinking, it’s good stuff!

Two things can be true at the same time: the pain was real, the trauma wasn’t their fault, and healing is possible.

---

Resilience Is Strength Gained by Strain

Here’s a hard truth that isn’t harsh: Strength doesn’t come from avoiding hardship. It comes from working through it. Hell, it actually comes by looking for hardship and engaging with it intentionally. 

Think about forging steel. You don’t strengthen it by keeping it cool and untouched. You heat it, hammer it, quench it, repeat. That process doesn’t deny the metal’s value—it unlocks it.

Or take the gym. You don’t build strength by staying comfortable. You train to failure—literally pushing to the point where your body says, “No more.” And then, in recovery, your body adapts. It rebuilds. It grows.

Tired of physical metaphors? Here’s another. Go put “marathon training plan” into Google… I’ll wait. Did any of the millions of results suggest that you should avoid hard running and long distances for weeks and months? Did they suggest that avoidance of running is the best way to get good at running?

At the same time, with all 3 examples, did any of them suggest that because you use some stress to gain strength, that “more is better” without limit? Using a nuclear weapon to forge steel, lifting a weight that is so massive it results in immediate injury, or running so far/fast that you are injured on your first day is a lousy way to make a sword, improve your bench press, or finish a marathon at goal pace. 

Resilience follows the same principle. It’s not about denying stress to conserve all our capacity, or pretending we’re unbreakable and starting with a dangerously outsized goal. It’s about recognizing that struggle, when paired with rest, support, and time, can lead to strength we didn’t know we had.

The research backs this up. Positive psychology pioneers like Martin Seligman and Barbara Fredrickson have shown that resilience isn’t an inborn, binary trait (check out Frederickson’s Broaden and Build Theory as a published paper, or a video explanation.) It’s a process—one that evolves over time and across contexts. It’s a toolkit, not a verdict.

If someone is suffering, it doesn’t mean they lack value or worth. It means they’re in the middle of the process—and they need scaffolding, not scolding.

---

Humility: The Foundation of Real Resilience Work

Let’s name what often goes unsaid: if someone is struggling in the face of adversity—physically, mentally, emotionally—then by definition, there is a mismatch between their available internal resources and the external demands being placed on them.

This isn’t weakness. It’s a reality check.

Humility begins when we stop arguing with reality. When we stop saying, “You should be fine by now,” and start asking, “What’s still missing from your recovery environment?”

Real resilience work isn’t just about cheerleading someone to “push through.” It’s about pausing long enough to acknowledge pain, ask honest questions, and meet the need.

Dismissing someone’s struggle with “be more resilient” is a denial of reality—and as I like to say, reality is undefeated.

We are all vulnerable. We are all capable. And we are all sometimes overmatched. Let’s be completely real—if you aren’t ever overmatched, you are not challenging yourself sufficiently.

In sales, there is a principle that if you sell 100% of your inventory, you haven’t found the optimal price and optimal supply. When I head to my local bakery, and their special Friday morning savory scones are sold out, they actually could have sold four more if they had produced them (since that’s why I walked down the hill into town in the first place). And that’s just for me! What about the other folks that got to the bakery after the last scone was sold? It’s the very threshold when you don’t sell 100% of the inventory that you know for sure you have made enough for your market. 

In pricing, the same principle applies: Until someone says “no, that’s too expensive,” you can’t be certain you are optimally pricing your product or service. In these economic examples, failure is the sign that you are successful.

Sit with that for a minute.

The sign of success is at the threshold of failure. With the balance of challenge, failure, and success, resilience is built and utilized. We don’t have as exact a target as price or inventory production. However, the extremes illustrate the point. If you never fail, you’re not stretching. If you always succeed, you’re playing too safe—or aiming too low.

An example from my beer league hockey days: If you have played adult recreational sports, you know that player who could be in the B league and be a solid performer, but signs up for the C league and dominates. No growth opportunity, and they impede the growth of other C leaguers aspiring to the B league, but there they are nevertheless. On the other side, the B-leaguer who insists that they can play in the A league… with no acknowledgement that they are so over their head they constitute a danger to self and others. 

Right sizing is somewhere in the middle in rec league sports. So it is with personal and career risk taking and challenge. The work of resilience is the work of finding our footing again—ideally, with help.

---

Reflection: What Would Have Actually Helped?