Nov 6, 2020 in Life Coaching

Adaptability

All areas of your life will have been affected to a greater or lesser degree by the pandemic.

As we go into ‘Lockdown v2’ here in England, I was reminded of a wonderful quote by Vivian Greene (wife of the novelist Graham Greene) ‘Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning how to dance in the rain’.

I have spoken to so many people since March and the first Lockdown, whose career and or personal life has taken a buffering from the storm of the pandemic and the enforced changes to their lives. And yet the rain still continues to fall…

No matter how consistent and focused you want your life to be, things happen around you all of the time, things that will force you to adapt.

Some of the things that you relied on are no longer there; your morning commute, that time you get to listen to your own music! Working alongside colleagues, popping out for lunch or coffee.

And yet we adapt.

All areas of your life will have been affected to a greater or lesser degree by the pandemic. Yet you can still stay true to yourself whilst adapting to the circumstances around you.

I talk a lot about adaptability and mindset through my coaching, because you are doing it consciously or unconsciously all of the time. You need to adapt to grow!

But adaptability is not about a single big step.

It’s the reason why I am big on goals with clients, breaking down the dream into manageable chunks. Adaptability is a continuous process of improvement, in small steps. It allows you to confirm the positive change with yourself and then move on.

Dave Brailsford would call this ‘marginal gains’.

The ability to learn from your own and others’ experiences is another way in which you adapt, you re-think and form new or break bad habits, you change your environment or your social circle.

A first child brings about a huge change in life, your boiler breaks down, you get a puncture in your car or bike, your internet goes down, etc.

Faced with any of these situations you adapt!

How you respond to challenges in life defines you as a person. Every situation is an opportunity to learn and take something away, either about someone, something or yourself.

It allows you to become creative, dream new dreams, re-focus, set new goals and to take a new direction.

As Jimmy Dean once said ‘I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination’.

For many of you Lockdown will have provided an opportunity to do just this. A time to reflect on where you are at right now, how that sits with your short, medium and long term goals and whether or not you need to adjust your sails.

If you are going in the right direction, excellent, keep going!

If you’re not, why not get in touch and lets start a conversation.

None of us are ever too old to learn to dance in the rain or adjust our sails.

After all we are adapting all of the time…

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