Don’t Wait for a Crisis to Build Resilience.

Across Australia, emergency services and communities are preparing for another Higher Risk Weather Season.

Behind that preparation are countless hours of planning, training, exercising and building the capabilities needed when disaster strikes.

It’s work that makes an enormous difference when the pressure is on.

And it reflects something I’ve come to believe strongly about leadership.

The best time to build resilience is before you need it.

We often think of resilience as something developed through adversity. Something we discover about ourselves when life throws us a challenge and we’re forced to find our way through.

Sometimes that’s exactly how it happens.

But resilience doesn’t have to be left to chance.

The lessons we never planned to learn.

I remember attending an SES job following a major flood and storm event.

The homeowner was furious.

Water was leaking through her roof in multiple places, and she’d been waiting a long time for help. She’d also opened her home to people who had lost everything in the disaster.

She was trying to provide a safe place for others while her own home was being damaged.

By the time we arrived, she was overwhelmed.

And I was the person standing in front of her.

I tasked the team with making the roof safe but quickly realised there was another priority. This woman needed someone to help ease the enormous stress she was experiencing.

Her anger wasn’t necessarily a reflection of who she was. It was a response to an extraordinarily difficult situation.

Rather than reacting to her anger, I took the time to listen.

I paid attention to more than just her words. Her body language, her circumstances and the responsibility she was carrying all told me something about what she was experiencing.

I let her unload.

As I listened, I began to understand what was driving her anger. Beneath it was fear, uncertainty and the enormous weight of feeling responsible for herself and the people she’d taken into her home.

She was trying to look after everyone else, but who was looking after her?

Once I understood what was really troubling her, I could choose my response carefully and address the concerns behind her anger.

As I worked to reduce her stress, her behaviour changed significantly.

At the time, I wasn’t thinking about developing my resilience. I was focused on helping someone having a terrible day.

But looking back, I gained something valuable.

Another data point.

People aren’t always their best selves when they’re overwhelmed, frightened or dealing with significant life events. And their behaviour isn’t necessarily about you, even when you’re the person receiving it.

The next time I encountered someone responding with anger or frustration, I had that experience to draw upon.

I was better equipped to manage my own response, even when the situation remained uncomfortable.

Without consciously trying, I’d developed greater resilience.

Choosing to be uncomfortable.

When I first decided to join the Rural Fire Service, I was torn between excitement and fear.

My dad had been a volunteer firefighter in the country when I was growing up, and I loved the idea of following in his footsteps.

But I’m an introvert. The prospect of walking into a group of strangers and learning skills I knew nothing about was intimidating.

I decided to give it a go anyway.

To my surprise, learning the practical skills came relatively easily.

Finding my place was much harder.

I was the only woman among the volunteers, and in those early days, I struggled to feel like I belonged.

Every week, I had a choice.

I could stop going and avoid that uncomfortable feeling. Or I could keep turning up and give myself a chance to find my place.

I kept turning up.

Gradually, the unfamiliar became familiar. I built relationships, developed confidence and became part of the team.

What began as something I was frightened to do became 12 years of volunteering as a firefighter.

Looking back, I can see how much resilience I developed through that experience.

Not simply through the emergencies I would eventually attend, but through the decision to keep showing up when it would have been easier not to.

Every week I returned, I was building confidence in my ability to face something uncomfortable and find my way through it.

I didn’t need to know that everything would work out before taking the next step.

And it gave me another valuable data point.

Feeling uncomfortable doesn’t necessarily mean you’re in the wrong place. Sometimes it means you haven’t found your place yet.

I learnt that discomfort could diminish with experience, confidence can grow through action, and sometimes the biggest challenge is simply turning up again.

Building resilience by choice.

These two experiences were very different.

One was an unexpected confrontation during a disaster response. The other was a challenge I’d deliberately chosen to take on.

But both changed how I approached future situations.

Every time we work through something unfamiliar, make a mistake, adapt or recover from a setback, we have an opportunity to learn something about our ability to cope.

Perhaps we discover we’re more capable than we thought, or that asking for help is sometimes the better option.

Each experience gives us another reference point.

And when we’re responsible for others, how we respond matters even more.

I’ve seen how a leader’s response can either add to the pressure people are already experiencing or help them find a way forward.

In emergency services, that difference can have serious consequences. Sometimes lives depend on it.

Imagine the difference if more leaders developed the capabilities to respond well under pressure before they were ever tested.

We’ve been uncomfortable before. We’ve faced uncertainty before. We’ve found a way forward before.

But here’s the important part.

We don’t have to wait for life to create these experiences for us.

We can deliberately choose manageable challenges that stretch us, knowing some will work and others won’t.

Take on an unfamiliar responsibility. Have a difficult conversation. Learn something new. Try an approach without knowing whether it will work.

The important part is what happens afterwards.

What did you learn? How did you respond? What would you do differently?

Each experience gives us another data point to draw upon when things don’t go to plan.

And remember, resilience doesn’t always mean pushing through. Sometimes good judgement means recognising when to change direction, ask for help or step away.

The goal isn’t to eliminate discomfort. It’s to become more capable of moving forward despite it.

Don’t wait for the crisis.

As Australia prepares for another Higher Risk Weather Season, it’s a timely reminder that preparation makes a difference.

And that’s as true for our personal resilience as it is for disaster response.

You can’t control when adversity will find you. But you can choose how prepared you are to meet it.