This assessment explores five core dimensions of resilience: confidence, purposefulness, adaptability, social support, and growth mindset. It helps you identify the habits that strengthen your resilience as well as the patterns that may unintentionally undermine it. The goal is not simply to “bounce back,” but to develop the capacity to grow stronger through challenge.
Resilience is your capacity to absorb pressure, adapt to change, and grow from setbacks. It is not simply "toughness" or the absence of struggle. Resilient people feel stress, uncertainty, and pain just like everyone else. What distinguishes them is how they respond. Just as courage is not the absence of fear, but rather moving forward in spite of it, resilience is not the absence of stress. It is forging on through stress to become stronger as a result. This robust form of resilience has been referred to as becoming "anti-fragile" – the ability to thrive, improve, and grow stronger when exposed to volatility, stress, randomness, and chaos. That is the goal of this index. It is not just about bouncing back to where you were. It is about bouncing forward to become stronger, wiser, and more capable because of what you have been through.
If you are wondering whether you can become more resilient, the research is clear: resilience is not a fixed trait you either have or don't. It is a dynamic set of attitudes, habits, and skills that can be developed at any stage of life. The landmark Kauai Longitudinal Study, which tracked 698 individuals from birth to midlife, found that even people who grew up in conditions of significant adversity were able to develop strong resilience, and that the protective factors supporting this were learnable and practicable.
Workplaces today are characterized by complexity, rapid change, and high demand. Research by Zenger Folkman across 500+ leaders found that those rated highest in resilience were also rated at the 87th percentile in overall leadership effectiveness compared to the 12th percentile for the least resilient. In short, resilience is not a soft skill. It is a performance multiplier.
Beyond work, resilience shapes the quality of your relationships, your health, and your ability to pursue goals that matter to you. When you are resilient, you approach life's inevitable difficulties as challenges to navigate rather than threats to flee.
This index measures resilience across five evidence-based dimensions, drawn from research by a wide range of experts across different fields, such as Albert Bandura, Robertson Cooper, Viktor Frankl, Hill & Turiano, Werner & Smith, and Zenger Folkman:
CONFIDENCE:
Confidence is trusting your ability to navigate challenges and change. It includes emotional regulation and your relationship with worry, pressure, and self-doubt.
CLARITY:
Clarity is staying grounded in what matters most with a sense of purpose. Having clear values, goals, and direction gives you a sense of purpose and clarity that provides the fuel to persist through challenges and recover motivation after setbacks.
COURAGE:
Courage is taking action and adapting when the path is uncertain. This includes the willingness to let go of what isn't working and flexing to try different approaches in response to new situations, even when it feels uncomfortable.
CONNECTION:
Connection is a two-way street. It is about drawing strength from trusted relationships as well as supporting others. The ability to build relationships and draw on others for support, perspective, and collaboration enables resilient people to reach out rather than white-knuckling difficulties alone.
CURIOSITY:
Curiosity is about perspective; it is seeing challenges not as stumbling blocks but as stepping stones to learn and grow. Treating failures as data rather than verdicts, taking calculated risks, and embracing feedback will help reinforce the belief that your abilities can grow through effort and learning.
This Index has three parts. Part 1 is the survey itself — 25 questions you complete in about 10 minutes. Part 2 is the scoring and interpretation guide. Part 3 provides practical, daily tips for each dimension, organized by what helps and what hinders your resilience.
