Resilience synonyms each reveal a nuanced angle of resilience, and each synonym for resilience has different implied actions. Etymology is full of deep meaning waiting to be excavated. Check out the synonyms below for resilience to gain a deeper understanding of one the most crucial human skills. 🔍
Resilience is not just set of skills, nor a static trait, or even just about bouncing back. Resilience is a holistic model of life that prepares you for challenges, allowing you to advance despite adversity. Driven has developed a model of resilience that is bigger than single skills – but it contains skills that add up to holistic preventative resilience. Check out more in the Driven App.
Resilience synonym: Adaptability
The synonym adaptability refers to the set of skills you need to recognize signs of change and experiment in order to suit new conditions. Adaptation means using the resources and skills you already have (for example, you could adapt your organizational skills as a manager to organize your household when you have children), whereas resilience involves being able to take on new skills and advance towards your goals.
Driven’s tool for measuring resilience, the PR6, includes adaptability as an individual aspect of resilience, but also measures resilience as an overall ability. Adaptability falls under the domain of Reasoning, which is about finding opportunity in change and developing your skillset of resourcefulness.
Resilience synonym: Flexibility
Flexibility is about bending easily, like trees that bend to avoid breaking in the wind. This means being willing to change. When it comes to resilience, flexibility is the aspect of yourself that bends to prevent damage; while full resilience means pushing forward and advancing in the face of the challenges.
Its not always about being flexible – sometimes there are things in the world that genuinely needs to be changed. Resilience is what helps you push for big changes in the world. Flexibility is useful, but as a subset and skill of resilience. In some ways, while being an important part of the Tenacity domain, flexibility also speaks to the domain of Health – which is all about healthy nutrition, sleep, and exercise in order to keep your brain plastic and flexible for new circumstances.
Resilient synonym: Toughness
Toughness is a classic synonym for resilience. When scientists describe the toughness of materials, they refer to the ability of the material to absorb shock and energy without cracking. Toughness in people is the same – it’s the way in which you cope with challenges and withstand pressure. Resilience encompasses this idea, but also involves springing back. While toughness uses up the reserves of energy that you have stored, resilience helps you recover those reserves. Toughness is more about short term while resilience is more about the long term.
The domain of Composure covers toughness – it’s all about regulating emotions and maintaining your poise.
Resilient synonym: Grit
Grit is the ability to persevere towards long term goals: the melding of persistence and passion. Like resilience, grit is all about never throwing in the towel; however, resilience involves coming back stronger after a setback, and possibly adapting to new circumstances. Grit is about motivation towards a certain goal, no matter what. Resilience, on the other hand, maintains realistic optimism about goals, and sustains a growth mindset to know when to let go, and builds structures that help carry you to goals, even when the motivation isn’t there.
Grit falls under the domain of Vision, which guides all the other domains. Vision is about your personal goals and maintaining perspective to achieve them. Grit also has a pinch of Tenacity.
Resilient synonym: Persistence
If we are persistent, we can stick with something for a long time – which is why persistence falls under the PR6 domain of Tenacity. Although a person may face many challenges or opposition, they persist in the course of action they have chosen, or perhaps with the opinion or belief they have chosen. For example, someone who keeps going to gym even when it’s difficult is being persistent.
Persistence is an aspect of resilience, but it doesn’t cover the whole picture. While persistence is needed to stick to something despite opposition, resilience is needed to adapt to new circumstances, and to maybe change the action or belief that you are persisting with. Resilience allows you to figure out what to persist with, and what to let go of.
Resilient synonym: Stoic
The Stoics were a group of people in the 3rd century, who believed that happiness was a result of accepting your circumstances and refusing to be controlled by your rogue desires, and by doing your part in making the world a fair and just place. These days, the word stoic has come to describe people who endure challenges without complaining or losing their cool. Stoicism refers to that aspect of resilience which requires endurance through pain, and composure in your emotions – which is why, like toughness, it falls under the domain of Composure. Resilience involves bouncing back – and not just back to normal, but even beyond. While enduring is one part, another part of resilience is effecting change and being proactive to create something that is better.
Although resilience encompasses all of these individual aspects and skills, resilience is also a holistic skill and state of being. Anyone can develop holistic resilience that buffers them against the challenges of life and helps them to advance despite adversity.
Resilience vs resiliency
Resilience and resiliency are both the same word – however, resilience is used more often these days. Which do you prefer?
Resilient antonym
Sometimes, the antonyms for resilience can tell us a lot about what it means to be resilient. Check out these and think about what is implied about resilience:
Rigid
Vulnerable
Inflexible
Fragile
Synonyms and antonyms contain hidden wisdom. With a little thought, we can learn new things about resilience when we look at other resilient words. Which of these words gave you more insight?
