The most important factor in your building your resilience.

Let’s be honest, resilience is a bit of a buzzword these days, whether that’s in in business, for your personal development, or in mental health circles. There are lists of strategies, morning routines, habits to build, hacks to try…. You must have seen the posts, the top 5 things you need to do and so on.

But there is one thing that most of them miss: Resilience isn’t something you do,  it’s something you are. It’s about having elasticity, bending and reshaping to accommodate trauma and challenges.

The most overlooked part of any resilience strategy is the one staring you in the mirror: you.

And that’s one of the key reasons I wrote my latest book: The I in Resilience. Because tools and tips and tricks are all well and good but if you don’t start with who you are and how you feel then you’ll never build that resilience muscle.

If you’re anything like me, you’ve been through periods where everything feels heavy and frankly it’s all too much. You’ve tried pushing harder, you’ve ticked all the boxes, you might even have  read the self-help books, started the routines and downloaded the mindset podcasts.

But you still feel stuck.

That’s because the all of those things take action without first accepting who you are, where you are and what you need to do to move forward.

Resilience isn’t about bouncing back at all costs. It’s about bouncing back with yourself still intact, using that elasticity to reshape yourself after trauma or challenge without the breakdown or the burnout.

In other words, the most powerful resilience strategy? Reconnecting with yourself.

Let’s break it down – here’s why the ‘I’ matters (and is, in my opinion, the most important thing):

1. You are not the problem, your disconnection is.

Most people blame themselves when they start to unravel. Using internal phrases like “I’m weak”, “I can’t cope” or “Everyone else seems to manage.” But it’s not weakness at all, it’s a disconnection from your values, from your needs, from your energy and from your own voice.

2. Self-awareness is a skill, not a personality trait.

You’re not born with resilience or without it. You learn it by paying attention to what’s going on inside. Naming your feelings. Understanding your stress responses. Knowing your limits. And that’s a skill anyone can build, if they know how.

3. Real resilience is messy, human, and deeply personal.

Forget the glossy Instagram version (or the one that everyone is pretending is real life). Real emotional resilience isn’t about being unshakeable, it’s about knowing how to recover. It’s about recognising when you’re starting to spin out and having tools that bring you back to yourself. That could include things like breathwork, boundaries, perspective shifts, taking rest or  asking for help.

So, what does this mean for you, right now?

It means if you’re feeling tired, disillusioned, or like you’ve lost your spark. But just remember,  you’re not broken… You’ve just had a wakeup call to get back to yourself.

The I in Resilience was written to help you do exactly that.

Inside the book, you’ll find:

• Honest stories of what it really looks like to hit a wall and rebuild

• Simple reflection prompts to reconnect with what matters most

• Tools to support your mental wellbeing, both in life and in business

• Reframes that help you shift your internal narrative when everything feels hard

Your resilience starts with you.

Not with doing more. Not with pretending you’re fine. Not with toxic positivity.

And certainly not with another set of self help tools that don’t take the person you are into consideration.

It starts with asking: What do I need right now?
And letting that answer guide your next step.

If this resonates, you’ll love The I in Resilience. It’s part guidebook, part permission slip, part mirror and 100% written by a human who’s been there, done that and got the bouncy trauma t-shirt.

Grab your copy here https://amzn.eu/d/0rHPEo8 and start rebuilding from the inside out.