Firefighters need a performance model grounded in flexibility under pressure, not just resilience

Mental Edge Mondays is a new column built for one purpose: to give firefighters direct, usable psychological insights that hold up under operational pressure.

Some weeks will expand on themes from Kory Pearn’s Friday Truth. Some weeks, I’ll introduce new lines of thinking – like this recent article about how dark or self-destructive thoughts don’t automatically mean someone is suicidal — and why that distinction matters in this profession. And some weeks it will be an “Ask Doc Springer” response to a reader question that carries weight for the broader CRACKYL audience.

I’m Dr. Shauna Springer. I work with military, first responders, and tactical professionals on psychological performance under extreme conditions, helping people stay sharp, connected, and internally intact across a career of exposure.

Let’s drop in …

As Kory Pearn mentioned the most recent Friday Truth, “Resilience is a word that gets used often, applied broadly, and rarely defined with real precision.” I’ve heard the same reaction from many firefighters.

Resilience has become a catch-all. Something you’re told you are because of what you do. You run calls. You show up. You absorb trauma after trauma and keep going. As a result, for the past decade, our wellness models have focused on the goal of being “resilient.”

But there’s a problem underneath that assumption.

You’re resilient — until you’re not.

And “not” rarely looks like collapse. It looks like drift. A firefighter still functioning, still answering calls, still performing — but internally narrowing over time. Sleep gets lighter. Patience gets shorter. Stress lingers longer. Emotional range shrinks. Surges of anger seem to come from nowhere. Nothing breaks. But capacity changes.

That’s where resilience becomes too limited to serve as a true performance target.

Because resilience, as it’s commonly used, describes a simple loop: impact → recovery → return to baseline.

But this job is not built on single loops. It’s built on accumulation.

That’s where Kory Pearn’s emphasis on standards and objective integrity becomes critical. The objective doesn’t move because conditions are hard. The standard doesn’t bend to pressure. Execution has to align with something fixed within you while everything around you is kinetic.

That’s the job.

But here’s the missing piece: you cannot sustain objective integrity if your internal system loses flexibility over time.

And resilience doesn’t account for that.

It focuses on bouncing back after impact, not staying adaptable while impact is still stacking. It tells you how you recover. It doesn’t tell you how you hold range under load.

That’s why resilience-focused trainings often miss the mark. Not because firefighters reject strength, but because they’re already operating at or near capacity — and “be more resilient” can sound like it misses what’s actually happening.

It’s time to evolve beyond a “resilience”-focused model to a better target for sustaining peak performance.

Elasticity is the evolution needed in the profession.

In my work, I’ve defined “elasticity” as flexibility and range of motion in your nervous system, your identity, and your key relationships.

It’s your ability to be stretched by pressure, exposure, and moral complexity without losing your center. Not shutting down, numbing out, nor rigidly forcing your way through. But staying internally flexible while externally decisive.

Here’s what that looks like practically:

After a hard call, resilience says: move on, don’t dwell.

Elasticity says: don’t suppress it and don’t amplify it — process just enough of it so it doesn’t harden in your system.

That might look like:

  • A brief, honest crew check-in: “What hit you on that one?”
  • A 2–3 minute physiological reset before the next run (breath, stillness, no input)
  • Naming one specific moment that stuck instead of carrying the whole call as weight
  • Catching early narrowing (irritability, detachment, over-control) and correcting before it compounds

None of that reduces toughness. It preserves range.

Because the real threat in this job isn’t lack of resilience. It’s loss of flexibility under accumulation.

Elasticity supports objective integrity by keeping you capable of adjusting execution without losing internal alignment — emotionally, morally, and relationally — even in kinetic environments.

Resilience gets you through traumatic moments.

Elasticity keeps you capable across a career of them.

*Shauna ‘Doc’ Springer, PhD is a pioneering psychologist, award-winning Military Times podcast host, and one of the world’s leading experts on psychological trauma, moral injury, suicide prevention, close relationships and the unique needs of the military and first responder communities. Doc Springer provides highly specialized consultation and confidential advising to organizations and public safety agencies that support protectors and defenders through her company THIN LINE ADVISORY. *