I Call BS on Resilience

I Call BS on Resilience, I'd Rather Take the Lift - Danielle Dodoo

Fuck resilience, grit - whatever you want to call it. Seriously, I’m over it.

I’m fed up with being stretched, pushed, and tested like it’s some rite of passage I should be grateful for. People love to talk about resilience like it’s the ultimate badge of honour - how adversity makes you stronger, how challenges are “lessons,” and how we’re supposed to bounce back into success from all the newfound strength we’ve accumulated. I’ve even preached about it in my coaching and articles.

Well, I don’t care for it anymore.

Unless I’m in a physio session, I don’t want to be stretched. I don’t want to be “bouncing back.”

I’m tired.

Struggle = Strength = Myth

This year has been a yo-yo, and not the fun kind. Every single decision I’ve made - decisions based on reasonable assumptions, careful planning, logic, and data - has unravelled. Nothing has gone to plan. People have let me down. Plans have fallen apart. I’ve lost money. And every time, I’ve tried to dig for the “lesson,” to find meaning in the mess, to tell people, Oh, I guess I’m just building resilience. But honestly? Resilience can fuck right off.

How much do we need to go through to “grow”? How many times do we have to be pushed to the brink before the universe decides we’ve had enough? At what point does the glorification of struggle turn into outright cruelty?

I’ve officially removed the word from my vocabulary. I don’t even believe in this relentless “build your strength through suffering” narrative anymore. I think we already have all the tools we need to handle life’s crises, even if we’re not constantly being stretched to snapping point. If we were living good, peaceful lives - free from endless challenges - we’d still find ways to deal with hardship when it showed up.

The idea that we have to endure years of grinding adversity just to be prepared for a bad day?

It’s a myth.

We don’t need suffering to be strong. We need to stop repeating patterns that break us.

Is It Me or the Universe?

The universe is having a laugh at my expense. I’ve had a good run and maybe this is karmic balance doing its things to level the playing field.

But if I’m being honest with myself, there’s something else niggling me. Has some of the pain I’ve gone through not  just been bad luck or cosmic chaos? Has it been me - not implementing lessons I should have learned? Maybe that’s where the real accountability lies - not in building resilience by taking the punches, but in whether I’ve really applied the lessons life has already taught me.

Yesterday, in between tears of self-pity, this question filtered down from my subconscious: Have I been ignoring my gut?

Sure, every decision I made felt sound - based on good data, risk-aversion, carefully thought through etc. But was there a moment, even a flicker, when my instincts whispered don’t do this or this doesn’t feel right and I ignored it?

Take the builders who robbed me of seven thousand pounds last week. Was there something in my body, some quiet warning, telling me not to hand over the money? Did I push that instinct aside because it didn’t fit the logical narrative? And if I did, what else have I ignored along the way?

Are We Repeating Painful Patterns?

And it’s not just about instincts. It’s about lessons. Have I been here before? Yes.

Did I promise myself I’d never trust someone so blindly again? Yes.

But did I do it anyway? Yes.

And that’s not the universe screwing with me - that’s me, failing to apply what I already know.

Maybe that’s the real issue: we conflate resilience with intelligence. We think surviving the struggle is the point, when really, it’s about understanding why we’re struggling in the first place.

It’s about asking the hard questions:

• Are you repeating patterns that you already know lead to pain?

• Are you trusting people you shouldn’t, because it’s easier than setting boundaries?

• Are you ignoring your instincts because logic says otherwise?

• Are you refusing to lower expectations of people who’ve already let you down?

We shouldn’t be striving to build resilience, testing ourselves to see how much suffering we can endure and bounce back from. We shouldn’t flippantly tell ourselves our suffering is a stepping stone to success. We should do everything in our power to avoid unnecessary struggle.

Why? Cortisol is real. How? By not compounding it with making choices that ignore data from lessons we’ve already learned.

Cortisol is real.

Cortisol & The Brain: The Hidden Cost of “Toughening Up

On a real, let’s talk about cortisol. Turns out, “pushing through” has a biological cost.

Accelerated aging

Chronic stress shortens telomeres, the protective caps on your DNA. Shorter telomeres = faster aging. No thanks.

Mood & Motivation Crash

Enduring stress messes with your brain’s neurotransmitter balance. The result? Feelings of anxiety, irritability, and hopelessness. Over time, this can spiral into clinical depression and an inability to experience joy.

Maybe that's why I want to punch everyone in the throat.

Cognitive Decline

Need to use your brain? Cortisol doesn’t care. Long-term stress shrinks the hippocampus -the part of your brain responsible for memory and learning. The result? Foggy thinking, poor recall, and struggling to make decisions.

Unless under the influence of (legal) drugs - no one wants to be dumb.

Emotional Dysregulation

Chronic cortisol exposure rewires your brain’s fear and emotional regulation centers, making you hypervigilant and prone to overreacting. Ever felt on edge for no reason? That’s your stress response stuck in overdrive. Welcome to my world.

Resilience culture loves to tell us that suffering makes us stronger. Biologically, it just makes us more depleted.

There is No Conclusion

I still don’t have the answers. I’m still tired of the struggle. And I’m definitely not about to give you a five-step plan for navigating it.

But, I will say this: Fuck resilience.

If you’re in the middle of the chaos, maybe the best thing you can do is stop and ask yourself: Am I really listening to the lessons? Or am I just bracing for the next hit?

Resilience isn't the flex. Knowing when to opt out of unnecessary struggle?

That takes courage but will give you real power.