Life doesn’t always go the way we expect. Sometimes, it throws us into situations that feel impossible to survive. Moments of deep loss, uncertainty, and suffering can make even the strongest among us question how to keep going.
We’re often told that resilience is about staying tough, pushing through without breaking.
But real resilience—the kind that carries people through unimaginable hardship—is something deeper. It’s not just about endurance; it’s about finding meaning, even in the worst circumstances.
Few people understood this better than Viktor Frankl. A Holocaust survivor, psychiatrist, and author of Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl lived through horrors most of us can’t even comprehend.
Yet, instead of giving in to despair, he found a way to make sense of suffering—and in doing so, he gave the world a powerful blueprint for resilience.
His lessons aren’t just for people facing extreme adversity. They apply to all of us—whether we’re dealing with personal struggles, uncertainty about the future, or simply trying to find purpose in the chaos of everyday life.
Here are eight lessons from Viktor Frankl that reveal what true resilience really looks like—and how we can build it within ourselves.
1) We are not just products of our circumstances
It’s easy to believe that our happiness, our success, even our sense of self, are all shaped by the situations we find ourselves in. When life is going well, we feel good. When things fall apart, we feel powerless.
But Viktor Frankl’s life and work tell a different story. He was stripped of everything—his family, his career, his dignity—yet he refused to let his circumstances define him.
Even in a concentration camp, facing the worst kind of suffering, he realized something powerful: no matter what happens to us, we always have the freedom to choose how we respond.
This isn’t about ignoring pain or pretending things don’t hurt. It’s about recognizing that even in the darkest moments, we still have agency. We can choose our mindset, our attitude, and ultimately, what kind of person we become through our struggles.
Resilience isn’t about waiting for better circumstances—it’s about realizing that even now, even here, we still have control over ourselves.
2) Meaning is something we create, not something we wait for
Once we understand that we are not just products of our circumstances, the next question is: what do we do with that freedom? For Frankl, the answer was clear—find meaning.
I used to believe that meaning was something that would reveal itself to me one day, like a sudden realization or a perfectly timed opportunity.
But when I went through one of the hardest periods of my life—a time when I felt completely lost—I realized that waiting for meaning wasn’t an option. Nothing around me was going to change unless I decided to change my perspective first.
Frankl wrote that even in suffering, we can find meaning. Not because pain is good or necessary, but because how we face it can define us.
When I stopped asking “Why is this happening to me?” and started asking “What can I do with this?”, something shifted. I wasn’t instantly happy, but I wasn’t powerless anymore either.
Meaning isn’t something we passively discover—it’s something we actively create, even in the most difficult moments.
3) Pain is inevitable, but suffering is a choice
The Buddhist teacher Haruki Murakami once wrote, “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” It’s a simple idea, but one that changes everything when you really think about it.
Pain comes for all of us. We lose people we love. We face failure. We go through things we never expected or wanted.
Frankl knew this better than most—he endured unimaginable pain, yet he refused to let it break him. He understood that while pain is something life throws at us, suffering is how we interpret it, how we carry it, how we let it shape us.
This isn’t about pretending things don’t hurt. It’s about realizing that we don’t have to be consumed by our pain. We can acknowledge it, feel it, and still choose to move forward with purpose.
Even in the worst situations, we have the ability to decide what kind of story we tell ourselves about what we’re going through.
Pain will find us no matter what. But suffering? That’s something we have more control over than we think.
4) A sense of purpose can keep us alive
During his time in the concentration camps, Viktor Frankl noticed something striking.
The people who were most likely to survive weren’t necessarily the strongest or the healthiest. They were the ones who had a reason to keep going—something, or someone, to live for.
Frankl himself clung to the idea of seeing his wife again, even though he had no way of knowing if she was still alive.
Others found purpose in their faith, in unfinished work, even in the hope of telling their story one day. That sense of meaning wasn’t just comforting—it was life-sustaining.
The human mind and body are deeply connected. Studies have shown that people with a strong sense of purpose tend to live longer, recover from illness faster, and handle stress better. It’s not just about motivation—it’s about survival.
When we face hardship, having a purpose doesn’t take away the pain, but it gives us something bigger than the pain itself. Something to hold onto when everything else feels uncertain.
5) We can endure almost anything—if we know why
Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote, “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”
Frankl believed this deeply. He saw firsthand that when people lost their sense of meaning, their will to live faded with it. But those who had a why—a reason to push forward—could survive even the most unimaginable suffering.
Hard times will come. There will be moments when it feels impossible to keep going. But resilience isn’t about pretending everything is fine—it’s about holding onto something bigger than the struggle itself.
Maybe it’s the people who rely on us. Maybe it’s unfinished work we still need to do. Maybe it’s a vision of the person we want to become. Whatever it is, having a why gives us the strength to face even the hardest how.
6) No one can take away our ability to choose
Frankl lost everything—his family, his home, his freedom. But there was one thing no one could take from him: his ability to choose his response to what was happening.
Even in the most dehumanizing conditions, he realized that his thoughts, his attitude, and the way he made sense of his suffering were still his own.
It doesn’t always feel that way. When life is unfair or painful, it’s easy to believe we have no control. But no matter what happens to us, we always have a choice in how we respond.
We can choose to find meaning. We can choose to keep going. We can choose who we become in the face of difficulty.
That choice is the foundation of resilience. It’s not about ignoring pain or pretending things are easy—it’s about recognizing that even when we can’t change our circumstances, we can still decide how we face them.
7) Suffering without meaning destroys us
Pain, by itself, can break a person. But pain with meaning? That can transform us.
Frankl saw this in the camps—those who saw their suffering as meaningless often lost hope entirely.
But those who could connect their pain to something greater, whether it was love, faith, or a future goal, found a way to endure. The suffering was still there, but it didn’t consume them in the same way.
We don’t get to choose whether or not we suffer. At some point, we all will.
But if we can give our suffering meaning—if we can find a way to turn it into something purposeful—it stops being just suffering. It becomes part of our story, part of what makes us who we are.
8) Love is the strongest source of resilience
When everything else was taken from him, Frankl held onto one thing: love.
He often recalled moments of thinking about his wife, imagining her face, hearing her voice in his mind. Even without knowing if she was still alive, the love he felt for her gave him strength.
He wrote, “The truth—that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire.” In the darkest moments, it wasn’t anger or survival instinct that kept him going—it was love. Love for his wife. Love for life itself.
Resilience isn’t just about enduring pain. It’s about what carries us through it. And few things give us more strength than love—whether it’s for a person, a purpose, or even a vision of who we want to become.
When everything else feels uncertain, love is the anchor that keeps us from drifting away.
The bottom line
Resilience isn’t about avoiding pain or pretending everything is fine. It’s about how we respond to hardship, how we find meaning in the struggle, and how we choose to move forward despite it.
Frankl’s greatest lesson was that even in the worst conditions, we still have control over our perspective. We are not just passive victims of our circumstances—we have the power to shape our response, to seek purpose, and to hold onto what truly matters.
Suffering can break us, but it can also shape us into something stronger. The difference lies in what we do with it. Do we let it define us, or do we use it to grow? Do we give in to despair, or do we find meaning within the chaos?
No one escapes struggle, but within that struggle is an opportunity—to choose who we become.
