Resilience at work: how to regain mental balance without falling into toxic endurance

Resilience at work: what it really is and why it's lacking

Resilience isn't about “hanging in there” or taking more. It's the process that allows you to get through a difficult situation without losing your mental energy.
According to the Lazarus and Folkman model¹, our stress comes mainly from the gap between what we think we can handle and what the situation demands. Basically, when we overestimate our abilities. And when this gap repeats itself, our resilience decreases.

Typical signs of a lack of resilience include:

• ruminating at night,
• hypervigilance to the unexpected,
• irritability in relationships,
• feelings of helplessness,
• unexplained fatigue.

What causes your resilience to plummet is not a “major crisis,” but the repetition of daily micro-annoyances: an ambiguous email, a meeting that goes off track, an unexpected change in priorities. Without a method, these irritants turn into chronic stress.

Resilience vs. endurance: the mistake that exhausts employees

In many organizations, resilience and endurance are still confused. Let's clarify:

• Endurance = resisting, holding on, absorbing.
• Resilience = adjusting, recovering, starting over.

This confusion leads to three common mistakes:

1. Overloading yourself to prove your worth: the more you take on, the more “professional” you feel.
2. Managing alone: asking for help would be admitting a form of incompetence.
3. Avoiding conflict: accepting everything to keep the peace... and silently burning out.

While endurance may seem admirable, it actually reduces your ability to recover, whereas resilience strengthens it. In difficult situations, you need to take the time to step back, regulate yourself, gain perspective, put things into perspective, and then you can switch to resilience mode with a game plan. 

Letting go: a key sub-skill for reducing mental load

Letting go

Letting go is not giving up; it is the cognitive ability to decide where to focus your mental energy in order to reduce your load and regain control. It is based on a simple principle: distinguishing between what you can control and what you cannot!

Concrete examples at work:

- You cannot control a management decision, but you can control how you prepare for it.
- You cannot control other people's reactions, but you can control how you set your boundaries.
- You cannot control emergencies, but you can control how you prioritize.

Working on your time management skills (which are essentially about planning, organizing, and prioritizing) is important.
Letting go makes resilience possible. Without it, your mind remains fixated on irritants and recovery becomes impossible.

Why your current strategies are not enough to strengthen your resilience at work in the long term

In my observations, I have noticed that most employees spontaneously try to organize themselves better, take things upon themselves, wait for the situation to pass, take their minds off things in the evening, or work faster to reduce the pressure.

I understand them; these strategies give the illusion of helping. In reality, they consume even more resources. They reduce mental flexibility instead of increasing it.
What is really missing is a structured framework for understanding triggers, regulating physiological reactions, and restructuring cognitive habits.

How to develop resilience at work: a 3-step plan

1. Clarify your areas of influence

Every stressful situation must be sorted out:

What depends on me (actions, behaviors, requests, limits).
What does not depend on me (reactions, decisions, external constraints).
Sign that you are on the right track: you should be able to say in one sentence what is really actionable. For example, when your manager changes (yet again) the deadline for an important project, you could say: “I can clarify what is a priority and what can be postponed” (vs. “I can't control the fact that he changes deadlines,” which is not actionable).

2. Stabilize your nervous system in times of stress

Resilience is not only mental: it is also physiological. Your ability to regulate yourself depends on the autonomic nervous system.

Here are a few tips to help you do this:

• Practice coherent breathing for 2 minutes²,
• Change your posture,
• Take a 90-second break every hour,
• Relax your diaphragm³.

You should notice a decrease in your body tension in less than a minute.

3. Repair after each minor setback

Intervene within 2–5 minutes to bring your nervous system back into its tolerance zone and avoid increased heart rate, tension, or repetitive thoughts.

Here are a few things you can do to achieve this:

• Focus on your breathing to regain a calmer rhythm. Observe your abdomen as it inflates and deflates, etc.
• Focus your attention on a part of your body, such as your feet on the ground or your facial muscles relaxing...
• Repeat “I breathe in” and “I breathe out” mentally while keeping your attention on these words, which will help slow down the hamster in its wheel. 

This should allow you to regain mental clarity to decide on the next useful action (clarify, let go, ask).
You can ritualize the end of your day more broadly by noting what has been accomplished, what is still pending (to avoid late-night rumination), and adjusting your priorities. This will allow you to start each day with a stable mental load.

Signs that your resilience is improving

I'll be honest: you won't see a dramatic change.
But... you will notice various adjustments:

• you recover more quickly after an unexpected event,
• you ruminate less,
• you find it easier to concentrate,
• physical tension eases spontaneously,
• you set boundaries without feeling guilty,
• your relationships become more stable,
• you are less quick to dramatize situations.

These are the real markers of growing resilience.

Building lasting resilience: the importance of a structured learning environment

You don't develop resilience by reading advice.
You develop it by practicing in a safe environment that allows you to identify your personal triggers, establish lasting reflexes, take advantage of tools that can be applied in real time... and build a healthier work environment without waiting for the organization to change.

Resilience at work is not a talent, it is a skill that can be learned, starting with simple and accessible situations.... .

To go further:

➡️Mental health: navigating complexity with resilience and letting go

(1) Lazarus, R.S. & Folkman, S. (1984). « Stress, Appraisal, and Coping. »

(2) To practice coherent breathing: for 2 minutes, breathe at a steady pace (e.g., inhale for 5 seconds/exhale for 5 seconds) -> create cardiac synchronization, lower cortisol levels, and restore mental calm. The rhythm is more important than the depth of the breath.

(3) To easily relax your diaphragm and release physical tension that limits breathing and maintains stress: short inhale, long exhale with gradual relaxation of the abdomen, slight pressure under the ribs -> physical relief, deeper breathing, the brain comes out of “alert” mode.