Honestly, how adaptable are you?
One of the key benefits of building resilience is that adversity affects you less. Resilient people recover from the bad stuff, learn from it, and spring forward, adapting to their new situation. They can absorb life’s knocks more easily.
Many of us may consider ourselves fairly adaptable, but that very much depends on the circumstances. Adapting is easy if the change is welcome, but how well do you adapt to the negative stuff – the changes that are thrust upon you, without warning?
On a scale of 1-10, how adaptable are you, really? Photo Yuriy Chemerys Unsplash
The pandemic has been a real test of this. We have all had to learn to deal with change and uncertainty. Think about all the changes you may have had to make – wearing a mask, social distancing, staying at home, not seeing friends and family – how easily have you adapted to these changes and why? Maybe you have adapted easily to working from home because it suits your lifestyle better, or perhaps you have found it difficult because you enjoy the social aspect of being among others in the office. Adaptability is a trait which will certainly have become more important over the past year for all of us. You may have learned a lot about yourself and how adaptable you are.
Change is often difficult for many, particularly the types of changes we have experienced recently, which is not welcome, makes our lives difficult, and has been forced upon us, sometimes with little warning. Add to this the threat of a potentially deadly illness and we have a perfect recipe for heightened anxiety and stress. This type of change can be easier to handle for people who already have high resilience levels. People who consciously and actively work on their resilience are less likely to rail against change and are prepared to accept it and quickly shift their own mindset to work within new parameters. I always recommend to clients that they should spend a little time regularly working on each aspect of the Resilience Wheel, to build their resilience reservoir, which can be drawn on when times get tough. It’s not enough to build resilience in response to adversity – by then it is too late. Resilience is something we can all take a little time to work on regularly, as part of our own wellbeing.
The most important aspect of the Resilience Wheel to work on is obviously adaptability in the current circumstances, but all the other factors - support, meaning, energy, purpose and confidence - all work together to help you build greater resilience, which enables you to absorb life’s knocks and spring forward to a new place with clarity. A big part of this is the meaning we place on events. As the ancient Greek philosopher Epictetus said, it is the meaning we attach to events that controls how they affect us, rather than the events themselves.
What is your main takeaway and story of the pandemic? Photo Anna Gru Unsplash
Resilient people learn how to cope in a VUCA world. VUCA is an acronym coined by the US army war college in the 1990s which stands for volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous – a very true description of the world we now find ourselves in. It has been adopted by the business world and is often used in organisational leadership development. An important part of learning to cope in a VUCA world is anticipating the next move – horizon scanning to predict what could come next and be prepared to handle it.
Often people who worry about what could potentially go wrong are viewed negatively as pessimists, but the ability to foresee what might go awry and take steps to reduce the risks is an important skill which can go a long way to helping to adapt to a new situation with greater confidence.
If you feel you’d like to know more about building resilience, or you need support with adapting to a new situation, I’d love to hear from you.