Not All Workplace Stress Is a Resilience Problem

Not All Workplace Stress Is a Resilience Problem

There is a phrase I hear surprisingly often when people talk about pressure at work:

“I just need to become more resilient.”

Sometimes that may be true.

But I think we have become a little too comfortable using resilience as the explanation whenever somebody begins struggling with pressure.

Recent UK data gives us good reason to look more closely.

The Mental Health Foundation reported in September 2026 that more than one in five UK workers are now experiencing poor mental health. Around one in six describe their job as causing almost constant stress and unhappiness. The Foundation Reports

Those are not small numbers.

And they raise an important question.

If somebody begins feeling anxious, exhausted, irritable or less confident at work, is the problem really that they are no longer resilient enough?

Or has something about the environment changed?

Pressure is not always the problem

Pressure itself is not necessarily harmful.

Many people perform extremely well when something matters.

Deadlines can sharpen attention. Responsibility can create purpose. Competition can bring out a level of performance that routine work rarely demands.

I work with pressure frequently, both in therapy and performance settings, and I do not automatically see it as something that needs removing.

But there is a difference between pressure that challenges someone and pressure that gradually erodes their ability to recover.

That distinction is easy to miss.

A person may look as though they have suddenly become less confident when they are actually dealing with months of uncertainty.

They may appear less motivated when they are mentally exhausted.

They may describe themselves as anxious when much of the problem is a working environment in which they feel they cannot make mistakes.

And somebody who previously coped extremely well can begin questioning themselves simply because the demands around them have changed.

Why “be more resilient” can miss the point

The language of resilience can be useful.

It can also become a convenient way of placing responsibility entirely on the individual.

If workloads are unrealistic, boundaries have disappeared, relationships have become difficult or somebody feels permanently under evaluation, teaching them to tolerate more stress may not be the most intelligent response.

This is one reason I am increasingly interested in the difference between performance pressure and persistent psychological strain.

They often produce similar symptoms.

But they can require very different conversations.

When I work with someone experiencing pressure at work, I am interested in what has changed.

Is the anxiety appearing before particular meetings?

Has confidence dropped following a difficult interaction?

Is the person mentally rehearsing work long after the working day has finished?

Do they feel pressure because expectations are genuinely high, or because they have begun interpreting every mistake as evidence that they are failing?

These patterns tell us far more than simply asking whether somebody is stressed.

Work can be protective as well as harmful

It is also important not to reduce work itself to a mental-health problem.

The same Mental Health Foundation research points out that employment can provide purpose, social connection, financial security and personal development.

Work can be very good for psychological wellbeing.

The difficulty comes when the balance changes.

Supportive work can strengthen people.

Persistently unsupportive or insecure work can have the opposite effect. The Foundation Reports

That is why I think the useful question is rarely:

“How do I become tougher?”

A better starting point is:

“What exactly is creating the pressure, and what has changed in the way I am responding to it?”

That is where the real work often begins.

Working with workplace pressure

I work with people experiencing anxiety, stress, confidence difficulties and performance pressure, by hosting performance under pressure workshops for teams and from my practice in Beverley.

Sometimes the work is about helping somebody perform more effectively under genuine pressure.

Sometimes it is about understanding why a previously manageable situation has begun feeling very different.

Those are not always the same problem.

And recognising the difference can be an important first step.