The Resilient Mind

Resilience doesn’t always mean you come out on top.

Sometimes you fight as hard as you can, give everything you have, refuse to quit—and still lose.

That doesn’t make the fight meaningless.

…sometimes that’s when you learn more about resilience really…

Saturday afternoon at Montbello Rec Center in Denver, the 13U Riverdale Ravens faced the 13U Colorado Lions in a football game that became a perfect example.

Poor weather delayed the scheduled 4:00 p.m. kickoff, but once the game got underway, the Lions wasted little time taking control.

Colorado scored early in the first quarter. Both teams battled through stalled drives before the Lions broke through again midway through the second quarter, when their running back found an opening and exploded for roughly a 60-yard rushing touchdown.

For Riverdale, things just weren’t clicking.

Three-and-outs.

Two fumbles.

An interception.

Drive after drive ended before the Ravens could build any real momentum. The Lions eventually added another touchdown on a quarterback sneak, and suddenly Riverdale found itself in the kind of situation where it would have been easy to accept that this simply wasn’t their day.

And that’s where resilience entered the story.

Resilience Is What Happens When Things Aren’t Going Your Way

We often tell stories about resilience backward.

We start with the victory.

We talk about the person who struggled, persevered, overcame every obstacle and eventually stood on top.

And because we know how the story ends, we point to the victory and say:

“See? That’s resilience.”

But what happens when there is no victory?

What happens when you do everything you can and still come up short?

Are you somehow less resilient?

Absolutely not.

The fourth quarter at Montbello showed why.

The Ravens could have folded.

Instead, they fought.

Riverdale came alive late, scoring two fourth-quarter touchdowns and turning what appeared to be a comfortable Colorado victory into a 19–14 football game.

Then the Ravens got the ball back.

One final possession.

One more opportunity.

After spending much of the game struggling to move the football, Riverdale suddenly had an opportunity to do something that seemed almost impossible just minutes earlier:

Win the game.

They drove toward the goal line with a chance to take the lead.

But Colorado had something to say about that.

The Lions defense stood tall.

With the game hanging in the balance, they stopped the Ravens at the goal line and secured a hard-fought 19–14 victory.

Both Sides Showed Resilience

It’s easy to look at the final score and decide who gets to be called resilient.

But resilience was wearing both uniforms Saturday.

Riverdale showed resilience by refusing to allow mistakes, turnovers and an early deficit to determine how they finished.

Colorado showed resilience when momentum completely shifted against them.

Think about that.

The Lions had controlled much of the game. Then suddenly the Ravens scored once.

Then again.

Now the opponent that had struggled all afternoon was standing near the goal line threatening to take the lead.

Colorado had to respond to adversity of its own.

And they did.

One team had to fight its way back. The other had to fight to keep from being overtaken.

That’s resilience.

You Can Lose and Still Be Moving Forward

That’s a lesson much bigger than football.

Life has a funny way of making us believe progress should always come with a scoreboard.

We expect the promotion.

The relationship to work.

The business to succeed.

The opportunity to come through.

The plan to unfold exactly how we imagined it.

We convince ourselves that if we work hard enough, stay disciplined enough and refuse to quit, eventually we’re guaranteed the outcome we want.

But life doesn’t make that promise.

Sometimes you can do everything right and still lose.

Sometimes you can make the comeback and still fall short.

Sometimes you can get all the way to the goal line and discover that today simply wasn’t your day.

The resilient mind understands that losing and quitting are two completely different things.

Losing is an outcome.

Quitting is a decision.

And while you won’t always control the outcome, you still get to decide how you respond to it.

The Scoreboard Doesn’t Get the Final Word

That’s the result.

Colorado earned the victory.

But the final score doesn’t tell the entire story.

It doesn’t show the Ravens refusing to disappear when the game appeared to be slipping away.

It doesn’t show two late touchdowns.

It doesn’t show one final drive with an opportunity to completely change the outcome.

And it doesn’t show a Lions defense being asked to make one final stand after watching its lead nearly disappear.

Those moments tell us something a scoreboard never can.

Who are you when things stop going your way?

That’s where resilience lives.

Not only on the podium.

Not only in the celebration.

Not only after you’ve overcome everything and can finally tell the inspirational story about how you made it.

Resilience lives in the fourth quarter when you’re tired, frustrated, behind and running out of time.

It lives in deciding there is still another play to make.

Another yard to gain.

Another opportunity to stand your ground.

Another reason to keep fighting.

Saturday, the Colorado Lions earned the victory.

The Riverdale Ravens experienced defeat.

But both teams demonstrated something worth remembering:

It guarantees that when life puts you in one, you’ll have the strength to keep fighting until the final whistle.

….before you can learn how to win,… you must refuse to quit.