Resilience Personal Statement

Words: 613
Pages: 3

Resilience: A Key Ingredient of any Public Safety Agency
Resilience is a key component of success in any endeavor in life. This is particularly true as a leader in the public safety field. Over the course of my life and career, I have experienced many challenges that have required exercising an adaptive and resilient spirit. Beyond the individual level, organizations also must be resilient to fulfill their missions in a changing environment. The American Psychological Association (APA) defines resilience as the “process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or significant sources of stress” (2013). Further, resilience is not the absence of difficulties, challenges, or stress, but being able to move forward despite
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I am sure that any person could likely say the same as stress is a normal aspect of life. From the perspective of resilience, completing my undergraduate and graduate education while working full-time has presented very significant challenges. From 2003 until the present, I have been continuously involved with some level of college-level education or vocational training. I completed a great deal of fire department and police department training along with my A.A.S. degree before re-enrolling as a full-time undergraduate student in 2012. At this time, I was a relatively newly, married homeowner and working full-time for the Maryland State Police (MSP). Along, with my marriage in mid-2011, I also changed positions within the MSP, from a road patrol trooper to an aviation flight paramedic. A few months after I completed my aviation training, I elected to return to University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) to complete my bachelor’s …show more content…
Success required the application of proper coping mechanisms and adequate use of resilience strategies. Two keys factors include self-awareness and self-discovery. Liggy Webb (2013) describes these as knowing yourself and understanding your accomplishments and abilities. This would also relate to Bandura’s principles of efficacy and perceived self-efficacy. To develop and display resiliency a person must believe they can achieve success, that is, they must have perceived self-efficacy (Olson & Hergenhahn, 2011). However, to maintain resiliency in continuing difficulty, one must also have true self-efficacy, which is the capability to accomplish a task or succeed (Olson & Hergenhahn,