The Goldilocks Zone.
- David Yates
- Apr 4, 2025
- 5 min read
Updated: May 1, 2025
Eustress, Distress & The Rhythm of Resilience.
Not all stress is bad.
It’s easy to forget that, so much of what we hear about stress is tied to burnout, anxiety, and overload, but not all stress drains us.
Some of it actually wakes us up, sharpens our focus, gives us energy and pushes us toward things that matter.
It’s not the enemy, it’s part of how we grow.
In truth, we need a little pressure, but the trick is finding the right amount. Somewhere between too much and too little lies the space where we feel most alive.
Not overstretched, not underwhelmed, just the right mix of challenge and control. Psychologists call this the “Goldilocks Zone.”
When stress is too low, we drift, we procrastinate, we lose momentum. Without something to focus us, life starts to feel flat, like we’ve stepped out of rhythm with our own purpose.
Conversely, when stress runs too high, we spiral. Thoughts race, emotions fray, we make mistakes, or freeze entirely. The hard part is, we often don’t notice we’ve crossed the line until we’re already deep into the red.
That middle ground, the one that shifts and flexes with our life, is where sustainable performance lives and with resilience, it’s somewhere we can learn to return to again and again.
Two Kinds of Stress and Why They Matter
There’s a name for that energising kind of stress: eustress, It’s the charge you feel before a big presentation, the quiet thrill of solving a challenge, the focus that comes when the stakes are just high enough to matter.
Then there’s distress, the slow, grinding kind we all know , this one lingers in the background, makes everything harder and can steal the joy from things we usually love.
It creeps in when the pressure builds and doesn’t ease off.
Most of us shift between these two more than we realise. Sometimes in a single day and one of the most valuable things we can learn is how to tell the difference.
Eustress feels alive.
Distress feels heavy.
Both ask for different responses.
When Stress is Too Low
It’s not often talked about, but too little stress can feel just as difficult in its own way, it can show up as apathy, restlessness, or even sadness. Not because life is hard, but because it’s missing that spark.
You’re not overloaded, You’re just not engaged.
This can happen after a period of intense stress, when things finally quiet down, we expect relief, but instead, we feel lost.
That’s normal too.
Sometimes, resilience means not just pulling back, but finding a way to re-engage, to choose a task, a conversation, a challenge that brings a little tension back into the system.
The kind that reminds us we’re still here, still trying, still moving forward.
The Rhythm of Resilience
Your Goldilocks Zone won’t look like mine and it won’t look the same today as it did last year, or even last week.
It changes, based on sleep, health, hormones, emotional load, environment, the people around you, and the narrative you’re holding inside.
That’s why the Stress Cup metaphor helps so much.
It gives you a way to check in with yourself as you are today, not in theory, but in practice. Some days you wake up ready and on other days, you feel full before the day begins.
What matters is noticing the drift and knowing how to gently steer back. That’s what resilience really is, not just bouncing back after crisis, but learning to adjust in motion, to move with life rather than bracing against it. To flow.
In Teams and Organisations
This isn’t just personal.
The Goldilocks principle plays out across teams, schools, hospitals, entire organisations and even families.
Too much pressure, and people burn out, too little and they disconnect, but in that middle space, where people feel challenged and supported, something powerful happens.
That’s where sustainable performance lives, where trust grows, where people stay, contribute, and even thrive.
It starts with Leadership, but it lives in Culture.
In the ability to speak about capacity, to recognise signs in one another, to know when to push and when to pause.
When everyone’s allowed to check in with where they are and support each other in getting where they need to be, that’s where real resilience begins to build.
Listening In
Often, all it takes is a pause, a moment to ask:
“Am I tired, or just underchallenged?”
“Am I focused, or starting to fray?”
“Do I feel stretched, or strained?”
You don’t need perfect answers, the asking itself begins to bring clarity and from there, you can make a small course correction, nothing dramatic, just enough to shift closer to your own sustainable place.
If You’re Not in the Zone Today
That’s alright, you’re human, you can’t be all the time.
It’s not realistic to expect yourself to live in perfect balance all the time, although admittedly its a common goal.
It’s to notice when we’ve lost our balance and know how to find our way back.
Maybe that means stepping away for a while.
Maybe it means saying no!
Or maybe it means saying yes, to something that stirs you, that reconnects you with yourself.
There’s no formula, only feedback and the more we listen to it, the easier it gets.
Closing the Series, Opening the Door
This is the final part of this series, but it’s also the beginning of something else.
We’ve talked about stress and silence, about language and recovery, about how your cup fills, how it spills, how it can grow.
We’ve explored what happens when you share that metaphor with others, and how it can shift not just your own habits, but the culture around you.
What comes next is living it
This isn’t just a nice idea, It’s a practice, one that can genuinely change how you feel in your life and work.
That’s what we teach, not theory, but daily tools.
Not pressure to do more, but ways to carry what’s already there with more balance, more clarity, and more kindness.
Because resilience isn’t about pushing through, It’s about knowing when to reach out, when to recover, and when to come back to what matters most.
So if you’re feeling full, or flat, or somewhere in between.
You’re not broken.
You’re not behind.
You’re just human.
Resilience isn’t about being unbreakable. It’s about knowing how to bend, how to rest, and how to rise again.
This is where we begin.
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