Map the situations that knock your resilience.
Participants map the situations that reliably push them off balance, including the common pattern of imposter syndrome. The aim is precise self-awareness before solutions: understanding the personal shape of each person's resilience challenges.
Understanding resilience in the abstract is straightforward. Applying it in the moment of a specific trigger is harder. Research by clinical psychologist Valerie Young on imposter syndrome, and by Martin Seligman on explanatory style, both point to the same conclusion: the patterns that undermine resilience tend to be predictable and personal. People have characteristic ways of interpreting difficulty, and those patterns activate in predictable situations.
Trigger mapping is a structured reflection practice. Participants identify the specific situations: types of feedback, performance contexts, interpersonal dynamics, that tend to knock their confidence or energy. The imposter syndrome lens is particularly useful because it names a pattern that many professionals recognise but rarely discuss at work. First identified by psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes in 1978, it was originally studied in high-achieving women but subsequent research found it across genders, roles and industries. The core features are consistent: a persistent sense of fraudulence despite evidence of competence, the expectation of being found out, and the tendency to attribute success to luck or timing.
Trigger mapping combined with an emotional check-in (what do I feel when this happens, and what do I typically do?) gives participants an accurate picture of their own resilience vulnerabilities before they look at strategies for managing them. The group discussion element matters because it surfaces shared patterns and reduces the isolation that tends to accompany these experiences.
Participants identify their specific triggers with clarity, recognise any patterns in how pressure affects them, and understand where their resilience is most at risk. Many also find that triggers they experienced as private or embarrassing are widely shared.
Have people map the situations at work that tend to knock their resilience, introduce imposter syndrome as one common pattern, then share in pairs to normalise what is widely felt.
Ask people to write privately. Think about the situations at work that tend to knock your resilience: what types of feedback, pressure, or interactions cost you the most? Encourage specificity. "When things go wrong" is too broad; "when I receive critical feedback in front of others" or "when I am asked to take on something I am not sure I can do" is more useful. Once people have two or three triggers, ask them to note what they feel when it happens and what they typically do. If anyone is stuck, offer common triggers: critical or negative feedback, especially in public; being evaluated or observed; being asked to do something outside current competence; work going badly; feeling undervalued or overlooked; comparison with peers who seem more capable; organisational change or uncertainty; a high workload with no visible end.
Introduce imposter syndrome as one specific and common pattern: a persistent sense of fraudulence despite evidence of competence, the expectation of being found out, and the tendency to put success down to luck or timing. Named by psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes in 1978, it was first identified in high-achieving women, and later research found it consistently across genders, roles and industries. It matters here because it is a trigger pattern with a predictable shape, and people who can name it clearly are better placed to interrupt it. Ask whether it shows up for people, and if so, what tends to trigger it.
People share one or two triggers with a partner. Ask what they notice: what is shared, and what is personal? Close with a brief whole-group reflection, inviting one or two people to share what surprised them. The point of the group element is normalisation; people are often relieved to find that triggers they experienced as private or shameful are widely shared, which creates the conditions for genuine engagement with the tools that follow.
Use Know Your Triggers when you want people to get precise about the situations that reliably knock their resilience. Each person maps their own triggers, including imposter syndrome, and often finds the patterns they thought were private are widely shared.
Using this tool with a skilled facilitator means that discussions are focused, time is used efficiently, and the group moves toward consensus, making the session productive and impactful.
