I was first introduced to the word resilience back in 2000 when I worked for Applied Materials. Our HR department had a variety of courses we could take for professional development and this one sounded interesting. As the instructor was going through her subject matter, I was struck with why would anyone be interested in resilience? To me at that time, it was you make goals, you have a plan, and you stick to the plan! Don’t let anything derail you! Resilience sounded like an excuse for when you didn’t want to put in the hard work. So, I quickly dismissed resilience as something for the less ambitious.

Now fast forward to 2018 and I read a book by Shauna Niequist called Present Over Perfect. It was all about rest and not grading your life based on checking off your To Do list. I literally read the book three times because so much of it spoke to me and I wanted to reframe how I was living. I was consumed with busy-ness and was starting to realize that this was actually hurtful to my health. Satisfaction from achievement is not as important as finding satisfaction in the now. This is a powerful mind shift, but easier in theory than practice. It is hard to change who you have fundamentally been. Part of resting is listening to your inner voice and letting the thoughts play out in different directions and discovering what truly matters.

Throughout the last year, many goals and plans have not worked out. What I have come away with is that a few goals are ok to keep moving forward, but too many goals and too much ambition locks you into a mindset of achievement at any cost. The word resilience has power to me. It means that I can have goals and plans, and if something doesn’t work out, or the unexpected happens, I can let that goal go. It is not a personal failure. There is grace and I love that resilience means I can be knocked down and change the path and be stronger for it.

Sophie Curtis
2021-2022 President, MPI Texas Hill Country Chapter