It’s not a bad idea to know how to take a punch.

I don’t mean that in the literal, someone punching you in the face sense (though that’s arguably valuable, too), but rather in the sense of getting hit with something negative and then being able to shake it off, learn from it, and move forward.

For a long time, much of my planning for the future relied upon my capacity to take all sorts of punches. I assumed if something bad happened—a career downswing, a health emergency, an emotional upheaval—I’d just sit with the pain and discomfort, grit my teeth and work my way through it, and then come out the other side, no worse for the wear.

This approach had worked pretty well for me up till my mid-20s, and I assumed it would scale as I grew older and encountered all sorts of new (and challenging and terrifying) styles of punch.

Over the past decade or so, though, I’ve come to realize that while it’s absolutely valuable to not only have the capacity to get back up after being walloped, but to know I can and will, it’s also important to have external support systems available so that when I’m hit with something unfamiliar (or damaging in a novel way), I’m still able to get back up and persevere, aided in my recovery by personal affordances that reinforce my strength, capacity, and tenacity, both in the moment and in my convalescence.

These support systems can take all sorts of shapes, from friend groups to insurance plans to physical or digital tools that allow us to work and communicate and make things, even when we’re hobbled or ashamed or just feeling incapable of producing anything of value.

Shopping around for insurance in case of a car crash or illness, and relying on friends or rehab programs or therapy to get oneself back to a stable, functional state after a significant, negative life event are not as superficially sexy as stoically absorbing a jab to the gut or hook to the jaw, but understanding the value of external reinforcements is a virtue, not a sign of weakness.

And when combined with the motivation to work on one’s internal self, such environmental scaffoldings can enable more, more rapid, and far more sustainable and resilient growth.

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