What does it mean to be resilient?
Growing up, I was a pretty ambitious kind of kid. By the age of 21, I had finished high school, earned a Certificate III in Geoscience, worked in the Mines, worked on the oil rigs, was a volunteer firefighter for the Country Fire Service, had joined the army and had risen to the ranks of Special Forces. I knew what I wanted, and I always went for it. I look back and I can see that younger version of me…with a fuel tank full of optimism and a relentless belief that anything was attainable with the appropriate steps in place. Failure was never an option, as failure was always mitigated with thorough planning and preparation to the best of my abilities before taking the plunge.

When I was accepted into the Special Operations Engineers Regiment within the Australian Special Operations Task Group, I trained harder than ever before. In order to mitigate failure, I worked tirelessly on my physical fitness in order to be the best performing soldier I could be in strenuous situations. I studied the “in’s and out’s” of the profession and learnt and listened for better ways to perform the job. When it came to searching for Improvised Explosive Devices, I wanted to fluently understand the threat triangle so that I could use it at a moment’s notice to ensure a level of autonomy when it came to finding these hidden bombs in Afghanistan. And I pushed myself beyond breaking point to ensure that I was physically and mentally tough for when the time came. When it was my turn, I wanted to be an asset on the battlefield and the young adventure seeker in me wanted to ensure that I had every base covered to ensure I’d live up to the legacy forged by our forefathers from the wars before.
My goal was to become the ideal soldier…or close enough to it. I learnt and implemented everything I knew to perform my duties both physically and mentally.
Then came my two tours to Afghanistan, and a series of events that no training both personally or professionally prepared me for. One after another, experience after traumatic experience, ripped through my life like a freight train. Over my two tours, a brief recap would involve my vehicle exploding as it hit an IED, then there’s standing next to another vehicle when that to exploded…and I disappeared into the fireball, I’ve had RPG’s fly metres over my head, been in more gunfights than I can remember, been pinned down by enemy gunfire, I’ve found myself contemplating my own death laying on top of IED’s…with the main explosive charge underneath 5 of my mates, been a first responder to another mate who stood on an IED which exploded, and I’ve seen…enough death to last me a lifetime.
I was bombarded with events that managed to pierce through all my learnings, and all my preparations. Life was throwing a haymaker at me, and when I needed all my defences, and all my protective mechanisms…they were unfortunately nowhere to be seen. So with no shield to protect me from the experiences happening in the world around me…my very foundations were rattled right to their very core. Within months of returning home, my life began imploding right before my very eyes…but completely hidden from my own awareness. My life was spiralling out of control…hidden in plain sight.
Looking back, I can see that period playing out before me as clear as day. Instead of looking inwards and asking myself whether there was there anything wrong with me, I unknowingly just looked outwards and cast blame and judgement on my environment. I had this new train of thought that I had never seen before…but never seemed to question it. I blamed my unhappiness on society for being entitled, I blamed consumerism for polluting people’s mind and being the destruction of society. I cast judgement on those who wanted to dress nice and be respectable…(as I strolled through a shopping centre in my track pants and hoodie). I judged others who were having fun as naïve and not understanding what others sacrifice for their freedoms, and I cast judgement on those who drifted their way through life with no vigilance, no sense of urgency and no experiences as useless and naïve. I was angry at the world and everything that it had become…in the space of just two years.
In hindsight, I can see as clear as day how badly I was hurting…but I had never been taught to look inwards, I didn’t even know that it was even a thing. Therefore, if you don’t know you can look inwards, and things are going wrong in your life, then there is nothing left to blame other than that the problem must be exist out there.
This carried on for years until I was to be diagnosed with PTSD and Major Depression some two and a half years later and finally learnt differently. I was now just 25.
Before my tours, I had always best prepared myself. But as it turns out, my preparation pretty much ended on a “physical” front. There was a fundamental hole in my knowledge that I wasn’t even aware to be aware of. Due to always achieving as a young man, learning to deal with failure was never a skillset that I truly learnt. So, when it came to facing adversities later in life, I didn’t have any solid coping mechanisms or strategies in place to assist me overcome them. So, when I thrusted myself into an environment where one witnesses and performs the worst of humanity… my fate was pretty much sealed.
Yes…I had heard of the word resilience, but I just always thought it was some innate quality that we all possess. Something that when we face our struggles, our resilience will kick in like an old diesel engine and will get us through. I had never been taught anything about what it was, how it works, or where it comes from. I had always assumed that if the time came, I will always just overcome…meaning I was resilient (a fixed internal mechanism that we all just have).
And on top of this, because I was a high achiever, I was probably naïve enough to believe that my time for resilience will never come because I’m always prepared. (Hahaha…man, I laugh at myself sometimes)
So, what is it? Resilience is one’s ability to cope and manage with stressors, so that we not only bounce back and recover from adversity but also have the potential to grow and become a better person because of it. Resilience is a learnt skill that is usually born out of failure. Whether it be from failing a job interview, coming second place instead of first in a running race, missing the game winning shot, missing a large contract, failing at communicating effectively and getting into a heated argument with your partner or friend, or failing at patience and screaming at your kids for not picking up a new skill fast enough etc. The list is exhaustive.
When we fail at something, we inform ourselves that we aren’t as great as we once thought we were. It tells us that we are not as strong, not as skilled, not as kind, not as compassionate, not as creative, etc as we once thought we were, which in turn kicks our sense of self to the kerb. When we fail, we usually feel beaten, and in turn, our identity and our ego have been threatened (whether it be an emotional threat or a physical threat…our body cannot tell the difference). When our very livelihood is threatened, our thoughts and emotions are likely to be highly emotionally charged, which in turn…leave a far bigger imprint in our minds and are something not easy to forget.
This is why failure is so important to success, because only through failure can we give ourselves the greatest opportunity to grow. Because our self-esteem has taken a blow, we will do what is necessary to repair any damage caused and potentially learn of a better way to do it. Failure not only allows us to think more creatively, but it also contributes to our humility as we have been there before. We learn to overcome our “fear of failure”, as we have now been there, and realised its not the end of the world. And we can also become better mentors due to an instil of compassion and empathy from having walked a similar path.
But more importantly, you will also learn strategies along the way that will support you on that rainy day the next time you face challenging times. These very strategies become the backbone of your resilience.
When it came to my journey, I thought I trained for everything. I ensured I was physically fit, I ensured I had all the necessary knowledge to perform my job role and I always pushed myself to ensure I had the audacity to keep pressing forward during the most trying times. However, what I unfortunately overlooked due to my own lack of knowledge, was the acquisition of any tools to support me cope and manage with the psychological impact of war, and more over…adversity as a whole. Due to a lack of failing, I had next to no strategies in place to have grown and learned from. Books would have been a great asset to find some knowledge…but I wasn’t even aware I needed to look, nor would I have probably listened, because for some of us, it’s not until you need it that you actually choose to care about it.
So today, I look back at myself and ask…do I believe the younger soldier version of me would have been better off knowing what I know now? Well my answer is pretty clear cut and simple…YES!!!

Resilience starts with knowledge and learning about how the mind actually works. It is about looking inwards and beginning to understand how our thoughts and past experiences drive our reactions, learning how we fall into cognitive traps such as our own negative biases, double standards, and confirmation biases, how our values drive our actions, and the problems associated with going against your values. It’s about learning our innate desire to create meaning and how it can help us recover and grow, it’s about learning the power of mindfulness and presence, and how gratitude can reshape our thinking. Learning about how and why we do things enables us to become aware of it in our own lives. And once we become aware of our own actions and the thoughts driving them, we can begin to change them not only in hindsight and reflection, but in the moment…for the better. Affording us the opportunity to choose to live a life more in line with who we actually are.
Learning about ourselves enables us to tackle adversity head on. I’ve spent the last 6 years learning about the very values that drive my thoughts which are responsible for my actions and my choices. And through learning and education, I have made a profound recovery and am starting a new chapter of my life. Being resilient doesn’t mean the next time life throws a punch your way it isn’t going to hurt, or that it is going to magically allow you recover at the flick of a switch…no. The difference is, you will firstly become consciously aware of dangerous thinking traps that will hinder your recovery process, and secondly, you will know that you will get through it…because you have been through adversity before.
Yes, being punched in the face by life sucks, but these punches are the backbone of what drives you, what moves you and the things you value. Our challenges teach us our greatest lessons and it is these adversities, that in hindsight, we all will most likely cherish the most. Yes, I lost 6 years of my life to severe mental ill-health…but only now do I look back and say…I honestly wouldn’t have it any other way. Our greatest struggles teach us the most valuable lessons we will never forget, and once overcome, allow us to live life more fully.
If you are going through a crisis:
Emergency Services:
Police, Ambulance, Fire: 000
Poisons Information Service: 13 11 26
Crisis Support
Lifeline 13 11 14 (24 hours a day, 7 days a week)
Lifeline Online Crisis Support Chat: www.lifeline.org.au/crisischat (7pm-4am 7 days a week)
Lifeline Get Help website: www.lifeline.org.au/gethelp
Lifeline Service Finder: lifeline.serviceseeker.com.au
Mensline: 1300 78 99 78
Beyond Blue: 1300 224 636
If this information interests you and you want to explore it further, or you seem to find yourself fulfilling the roll of an Accidental Counsellor more often than not, jump onto the link below and sign up for the Lifeline Adelaide half day workshop. Best few hours I ever spent.
Lifeline – Accidental Counsellor
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