Resilience is a word I hear a lot these days.
If you’ve found yourself saying it too – perhaps while looking at your group and wishing they had a bit more of it – then what I’m about to share is designed for you.
I’m sharing three awesome team-building activities that are fun and easy to lead and help you explore and develop those all-important resiliency skills.
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I’m an experiential trainer – I’m not a psychologist, but my best understanding of resilience is simple:
“…the ability and the willingness to get back up again when you’re down…”
These activities alone won’t magically create resilience.
However, when combined with traditional or non-traditional curriculum that scaffolds coping strategies, they can supercharge your sessions.
Think of them as the fun, practical element that makes the learning stick, and more engaging for everyone.
Here are a few of my favourite experiential activities designed to help groups connect, reflect, and bounce back from challenges.
Or, in other words, build resilience together.
Kind of a strange name, and a quirky activity to match – but so effective. You won’t need any props, just your group.
Here’s how it works:
If you’ve got 20 people, that’s 19 alternating handshakes per person.
Sounds simple, right? It gets surprisingly tricky, fast. And that’s where the resilience kicks in.
The frustration builds, and so does the opportunity to practise persistence, focus, and determination—key facilitation skills when working on resilience.
This one is great to debrief around coping with confusion or sticking with something even when it seems silly or frustrating.
This activity is as simple as it sounds.
All you need is:
Participants try to stack their paper “stones” on top of one another.
If you’ve ever seen cairns (those balanced rock towers used on hiking trails), that’s the inspiration.
Start with three stones. As they master it, increase the challenge by using four, five or six stones.
You can even turn this into a group task: each person adds a stone to one shared stack. It becomes surprisingly difficult—and that’s the point.
It invites focus, coordination, trial and error, and of course – resilience.
Watch how people respond when their stack keeps falling.
Do they take a breath and try again? Or give up?
That’s where the conversation about resiliency really opens up.
Simple. Brilliant. And one of my favourite teambuilding activities to run with all age groups.
All you need is a rope—nothing fancy, but something with a bit of heft (not a shoelace.) You can play in pairs, but it’s even better with teams of 6–8 people.
Set it up like this:
They’re connected by hands, but only two are touching the rope—making it a challenge for everyone to contribute.
It’s a classic setup for frustration to kick in, especially for those furthest from the action.
But that’s also what makes this such a powerful metaphor for resiliency.
It invites discussion about persistence, cooperation, and one of the most important facilitation skills—building perspective.
You can increase the challenge with different types of knots or by giving the group less time.
Either way, it’s a fantastic activity for exploring what it means to work together through obstacles.
If you loved these team-building games to help your group explore and build resilience skills, here are some recent articles I think you’ll also enjoy:
Brilliant Team-Building Games using Index Cards
Resilience doesn’t come from a single activity or moment – it’s built over time, through shared experiences, reflection, and practice.
While none of these group activities alone will magically create resilience, they will support it when paired with intentional facilitation and meaningful conversations.
Remember, as an experiential trainer, I see these activities as tools to bring your curriculum to life.
They help create those lightbulb moments—when participants feel challenged, supported, and seen.
So give them a go, adapt them to your group, and most importantly, have fun while building those all-important resiliency muscles.
Drop a comment below with your favourite activity from this list or share one of your own that helps build resilience in your group.
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Original post April 2025, last updated May 2025.