Resilience is not created in crisis; resilience is revealed by crisis.

Resilience is being tested in Southern California right now.

I know people who have lost their homes in the wildfires. You may, too. Like many of you, I am watching with horror, sorrow, and helplessness from far away.

It’s devastating. Recovery and rebuilding will take years. Perhaps decades. Some things will be lost forever.

Resilience is being tested in Southern California right now. But resilience is not being created in Southern California right now.

As much as we love to say, “That which does not kill me makes me stronger,” resilience is not created in crisis. Resilience is revealed in crisis.

Crisis is not a time for building resilience

When you’re in the middle of a crisis, you are simply trying to get through it. Crisis is not a time for research, skill-building, or investing. Crisis is a time for survival.

After the crisis is over, you can study what happened, learn from it, and prepare better for the next crisis. This is how “that which does not kill you” can “make you stronger.”

The time to build resilience is in the quiet times. The times when everything is going well. The times when life is easy, threat is low, and coffers are full.

Because resilience is not just about grit, determination, and fortitude.

It’s also about preparation, infrastructure, support system, and knowledge.

Disasters provide a good analogy for personal resilience

I am not in Southern California. In fact, the city where I live is rated as a relatively low wildfire risk. (Check your city’s risk here: https://wildfirerisk.org/)

This is not a surprise. It rains all the time here.

In fact, fire danger is particularly low right now. Does that mean I should wait until a wildfire is on my doorstep to prepare myself? Hmm… probably not.

The time to prepare for surviving a wildfire is before the wildfire starts. You don’t prepare for an earthquake after the earthquake hits. Before the waters rise is the time to prepare for a flood.

While you may get through a natural disaster on grit, determination, and fortitude alone, your chances will be much, much higher if you prepare for it beforehand.

So it is with any crisis in life.

How to build personal resilience

Career coaching is one of the many things I help people with. Often, they come to me when they’ve just been laid off. I am never surprised when they tell me their first action is “probably update my résumé.” Then they tell me they should probably reconnect with former colleagues they’ve lost touch with.

This is kind of like buying a generator for your house and sticking it in the back of a shed. Then one day, when the power goes out, you drag it out, dust it off, evict any rodents that took up residence inside it, go out and buy fuel (because you used it all for the lawnmower), and see if it starts.

Having the generator is a good start. Keeping it ready for use is equally important. Having fire trucks is a good start for a city. Keeping them ready for use is equally important.

So, what should we all be doing to make sure we have personal resilience in our lives? Here are five suggestions:

1. Maintain strong relationships

Interpersonal relationships are the fabric of community and the most important part of resilience. We all need to rely on others in times of crisis and disaster. And we can all help when disaster hits the people we know.

2. Keep your documents up to date and safe

Whether it’s a résumé for your career, a POLST for your healthcare, a trust for your estate, or something else important for your life, make sure it (a) exists, (b) stays up to date, and (c) is kept in a safe and accessible place. Like changing the batteries in your smoke detector, this is often best scheduled twice a year, even though it’s a major bore for most of us.

3. Know where your landing zones are

When crisis hits and you have to flee, you need to land somewhere. Whether that’s a wildfire evacuation, a major layoff at your company, or a marriage gone bad, it’s a lot easier to get back on your feet if you already know you have somewhere you can land safely. Or, at least know what your options might be. In a crisis, it’s easier to try known options than to have to research what might be available.

4. Identify the technology you take for granted

When I moved to a new city last spring, I made a point of trying to wean myself off Google Maps as quickly as I could. It’s so easy to take our phones and their capabilities for granted, we often forget how much we rely on them. Study yourself for a week or two and take note of the ways in which you take technology and infrastructure for granted. The internet is not guaranteed. Clean water is not guaranteed. Electricity is not guaranteed. How prepared are you, really, to deal with their absence?

5. Support infrastructure development and community resilience

In your community, support the people who are focused on building community, fostering inclusion, and funding infrastructure. Individual resilience is dramatically affected by community resilience, and community resilience is built by the steady, thoughtful, intentional application of planning, investment, and infrastructure maintenance. Support the organizations, politicians, and individuals who are investing in these critical parts of our social fabric, not the ones who would defer critical infrastructure maintenance to win a few political points in the short term.

Build resilience during the peaceful times

If you are not currently affected by a disaster, commit to getting things in order now. I know I have other things I want to do instead (like writing this blog post, promoting RELIT, working on my next book, coaching clients, preparing for SFWC, etc.).

But I think I will block time on my calendar this week or next week to make sure my trust is up to date, to reach out to colleagues I haven’t heard from in a while, and take stock of where I am less prepared than I should be.

Because the middle of a crisis is not the time to build resilience. The middle of a crisis is survival time. That’s when you take advantage of all the preparation you’ve done, or suffer from not having done it.