Drawing on resilience

I joined a sketching group a few months ago. At the end of each session, the organiser takes a picture of everyone’s drawings to share on Instagram. At first I was almost embarrassed to share my sketches – many people in the group are incredible artists, whereas my efforts are distinctly amateur.

Embracing the discomfort that comes with sharing my wonky drawings is one way I’m trying to build my wider resilience. As Fawzi Abou-Chahine discusses elsewhere in Chemistry World, resilience is an important career skill to develop. No matter how brilliant you are, there will be times when you make a mistake, or where you encounter something you don’t know how to do (and worse, have to admit that you don’t know). To some extent we should embrace those situations, as they are likely to be times when we can learn the most.