The Secret to Resilience
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14 people had breakthroughs this week. Will the next one be you?
Two things for you to think about
You don’t build resilience by feeling good all the time.
You build resilience by getting better at feeling bad.
To deny pain is to deny our own potential growth.
Reflect: Then consider sharing this thought with others.
Two things for you to ask yourself
How good are you at feeling bad? What pain might you be denying?
Recommended: Use these as journaling prompts for the week.
One thing for you to try this week
Pick one thing you’re willing to feel bad about, and decide how this pain will help you grow. Let me know what you find.
Remember: Small changes lead to lasting breakthroughs. Reply to this email and let me know how it went for you.
New Podcast: Resilience, Solved
Resilience isn’t about pretending you’re fine or never feeling pain—it’s about learning how to act in your best interest despite the pain. In the latest episode of Solved, Drew and I dive deep into the science, psychology, and real-life examples of resilience—from Ernest Shackleton’s crew surviving two years stranded in Antarctica to my own slightly insane decision to run an endurance race with basically no training. Spoiler: I didn’t die.
We cover it all: the biology of resilience, why some people are “dandelions” and thrive anywhere while others are “orchids” who need the right environment, the mindsets that let you push through hardship without losing your mind, and why humor and community might secretly be your best survival tools. And of course, we deliver the real, practical, evidence-based strategies you can actually apply when life inevitably decides to kick you in the teeth.
If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed, stuck, or like you can’t take one more setback, this episode is for you. And if you’re one of those psychos who enjoys doing hard sh*t just to see what you’re made of… well, you’ll feel right at home here.
Prefer to Read About Resilience?
I know a 3.5-hour podcast isn’t for everyone. So my team and I also created a free companion guide for the Resilience, Solved episode above.
In this Resilience, Solved Guide, you’ll get all the important lessons and insights from the podcast, without the lame jokes and awkward silences. We also included practical exercises and tools that will help you build your mental resilience, so you can start to approach any challenge as an invitation to evolve, instead of just another obstacle to overcome.
Oh, did I mention it’s free? Let me know you want in on the episode page at the button below.
Last week’s breakthroughs
In last week’s newsletter, I asked you to choose one area of your life where you’ve been living for others, and do something just for you.
Shruti is reclaiming her Sundays:
I realized that I have been living for the emotional scraps of approval—not from strangers, but from my husband. He loves slow, lazy Sundays; I love Sundays that feed me—meditation, a run, reading, a workshop. To keep the peace, I’ve been bending toward his rhythm: cramming ‘me’ into Saturday and then drifting through Sunday beside him. The cost has been a low-grade guilt and the quiet ache of self-abandonment; I end too many weekends disappointed in myself.
So I’m recalibrating. I’m not asking him to change; I’m choosing to keep one promise to myself before I keep any to anyone else. ‘Me-First Sundays’ start now: 7–11 AM are mine—long meditation, a run, a chapter, and one learning block—then shared downtime together. I want my weekends to end with pride, not apology. I choose aliveness over approval.
Amy unmasked herself:
Your prompt to reflect on ‘one area of your life where you’ve been living for others,’ really hit me this week.
Like many folk in the NGO sector, I was hit by the USAID cuts. The job market feels so brutal. As the rejections fly in, it’s hard not to take it to heart. There’s days you feel completely adrift, and others where you feel a failure.
Initially, I tried to remain optimistic and positive about it all. I come from a family that hides emotion. When times were tough, my parents would mask their emotions and present a perfect idyll to friends. The image of ‘success’ had to be maintained at all costs. To be emotional equated to being out of control and weak. I don’t blame them. It’s a view they inherited from their parents.
Recently, I hit a real low and felt it too. In the past, I’d just bottle the feeling and mask it. That feeling would then creep up 8-12 months later and I find myself uncontrollably crying for no reason. Rather than mask the feeling, I decided to share it with my mum. I just broke down and cried. I could see she felt uncomfortable, and I still felt shame allowing that emotion out, but it also felt freeing. It felt healthy to just normalize and express what I felt. It also prompted my mum to share her unemployment story from when I was little—feelings I never knew she’d experienced. It made me realize how much we all mask from others, even those closest to us.
As I write this, I still feel low but I know this one act was a small but significant step in the right direction. To anyone going through the job hunt right now, just know it’s OK to not be OK. Sometimes just expressing that emotion and sharing with those you trust can be cathartic and moving, in and of itself.
This too shall pass.
Finally, I asked members of our Solved Membership community what “shame story” they’re keeping, and what story they’re choosing to let go. Here’s Emily deciding to live for herself:
It took me most of the morning to figure this out, but I have it now. The story I need to let go of is, ‘It is my responsibility to make everyone happy.’ While one of my core values is connection, it is not within my control to make everyone happy. It is not my responsibility to make everyone happy. And even if I could make everyone happy—if that was something that was even possible—it isn’t my job.
One of my other core values is personal responsibility. It is my job to make me happy, and it is the job of everyone else to make themselves happy. What I will keep is helping others when they ask for it and trying to be supportive of people in this community and in my day-to-day, but I can’t beat myself up if I miss something or worry if I ‘fail’ to live up to my unreasonable expectations of myself.
If Emily’s lightbulb moment above has inspired you to take a closer look at yourself—your values, your emotions, your happiness, your shame, even your procrastination—you might want to check out our Solved Membership community, a.k.a. my labor of love.
With a single subscription, you’ll get both the support of a like-minded community and the structure of daily learnings and exercises that I and my team put together, plus more perks you won’t find anywhere else. Learn more or join The Solved Membership here.
As always, send your breakthroughs by simply replying to this email. Let me know if you’d prefer to remain anonymous.
Until next week,
Mark Manson
#1 New York Times Bestselling Author
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