Resilience Training: Protect Your Capacity

When do we really think about resilience? Usually when we need it. When the pressure is already high. When change has landed. When we’re stretched, tired or trying to bounce back.

But by then, we’re drawing on whatever capacity we brought with us.

What if resilience starts earlier — before the pressure arrives?

Lately, I’ve been thinking about resilience through a very simple lens: protect your capacity.

We all have a finite amount of physical, mental and emotional capacity available to us. Yet when we know something demanding is coming, we often do the opposite of protecting it. We work later. Sleep less. Drop the things that keep us steady.

And then we arrive at the challenge already depleted.

At least I’ve been guilty of this. I have a very dedicated work mode — once I’m absorbed in something, I can keep going long after my capacity has asked me to stop. My brain is focused on the goal and I override the signals from my body - to move, stretch, recover ..

Rest has never come naturally to this way of working. I’ve had to learn to build it in deliberately — not as a reward when the work is finished, but as part of how I work. It's a process of learning.

This has not always served me well. The job got done — it always did — but my energy was depleted, and three times in my career I pushed myself to the point of burnout. I remember one long day and night when I couldn’t even remember my own address for the taxi home.

I’m learning that resilience isn’t about telling myself to work less or even pull back. It’s about recognising when commitment has crossed into borrowing from tomorrow’s capacity.

We can override the signals for a while. But the physiological cost doesn’t disappear. If we keep borrowing from tomorrow’s capacity, eventually that debt has to be repaid — through fatigue, reduced performance and the need for recovery.

And there’s science behind this. The Resilience Institute’s research describes resilient people as working in pulses, rather than constant effort — balancing periods of challenge with deliberate recovery. Focus matters. So does recovery. In fact, Focus, Bounce and Sleep Quality are the three factors that most strongly differentiate the highest-scoring performers in the data from our 2025 Global Report.

But knowing that and doing it are two different things.

Protecting capacity is a practice.

That word matters. Resilience isn’t something we suddenly remember to have when life gets difficult. We build it through repeated behaviours — noticing when we’re slipping into an old pattern, interrupting it and choosing a different response. Then doing it again. And again.

As I write this, I have several talks/workshops to create. My old instinct would be to put the blinkers on, deep-dive into the preparation and keep going until everything was finished.

Now I’m looking for energy from the work I do. Not just giving all my energy to the work I choose. (How very grown up of me.)

The practice for me is learning that recovery isn’t simply what happens after the work. Recovery is part of the work. Pulses.

So here’s the tiny experiment:

Before saying yes to one more thing, doing one more hour, or pushing through because “I’m nearly there”, ask:

What capacity am I borrowing from tomorrow?

Then do one small thing to protect it. On the hour. Stretch. Breathe. Mind drift. Shake the body for energy (Qi Gong). Walk into the sun and nature to take the brain offline for 5 minutes.

Because resilience isn’t just about how well we cope under pressure in the moment. It’s about what we take into it and call on in the moment. That's the practice.

What can you protect today that you’ll need tomorrow?

If you'd like to receive a copy of the Resilience Institute's 2025 Global Report "Fit for Change", or interested in a conversation about training for your team - please connect with me on - deborah.mctaggart@resiliencei.com