Hi again!
We’ve been talking a lot about adaptability and how that applies to life in general and the current time in specific.
In fact, adapting and the ability to adapt are dominating the news and taking center stage. In Monday’s Wall Street Journal, the front page of the Business & Finance page read, “CEOs Lay New Bets, Adapting to Crisis.”
And on Tuesday, the top headline on the front page read, “Americans Adapt.”
What does adapt mean, how does it apply, and what can you do?
Remember the two sayings we shared with you from my friend, the psychologist?
The first was a bumper sticker on his kitchen cabinet that read, Change is a given. Adapting is a choice.
That can’t be more true then now.
The second saying was on a t-shirt:
What’s the definition of stress?
Stress is when your mouth says “yes” and your guts screams “no!”
We talked about the many different ways we react to change, particularly when it’s foisted upon us, like many of the changes we now face.
We bet a lot of people are feeling the stress of saying “yes” to many things they feel forced to do, while their gut cries out, “no.”
We ended the last email telling you that we would share with you another way, another route you could take to manage today’s new conditions and changed circumstances. A way to manage without the “yes/no” paradox.
Notice that we wrote “manage,” and we mean it.
But there were many other words that automatically popped into mind before that. “Grapple with” was among the first. But the one that seemed to really catch our attention, even for a moment, was “endure.”
We’ll talk about adapting, but first, let’s take just a moment to examine that word, “endure.”
Endure has been around for hundreds of years, coming from the Latin word that means “to make hard.” In the 14th century, it meant suffering without breaking. Today, it suggests suffering patiently through something painful or difficult.
Manage, on the other hand, comes from the 1500s, when in France and Italy it meant to touch, handle, train, or direct a horse. The definition was expanded to mean the skillful way a person handled or took care of business, from small details to big-picture items.
So let’s pause and ask a super simple question, Would you rather endure or manage?
Probably doesn’t take a lot of imagination to assume that you clearly would rather manage and be able to take care of business than suffer through with pain and difficulty. RIght?
Unfortunately, a lot of folks have been--and still are--in an “endure” state.
This means the slumped shoulders, downcast eyes, worry lines marking the forehead, and suffering sleepless nights, impaired function, and probably a lot of conflict in relationships.
We don’t and won’t diminish the tragedies and horrors of the last many months. Nor the worrisome clouds on the horizon.
And we surely won’t play Pollyana and naively tell you that all can be made good if you just “think positive” and “put on a happy face.”
But there is an alternative. It’s what adapting is about. Adapting means to adjust to, to fit. That’s a whole lot better than “endure.”
We’ll be sharing with you powerful practical tools and strategies you can use to boost your ability to adapt. Right now, however, we want to set the stage and go one farther.
That “go one farther” way is embodied in the words of Dr. Viktor Frankl, Holocaust survivor and psychiatrist.
He writes:
“Human potential at its best, is to transform a tragedy into a personal triumph, to turn one's predicament into a human achievement.”
“Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment.”
We invite you to focus on just three ideas from these 2 quotes:
Personal triumph
Human achievement
The next moment
In the throes of hardship, struggle, and maybe even tragedy, it’s easy to lose perspective, to overlook the moment-to-moment opportunities we have to define ourselves by our responses to those challenges in a way that reveals our dignity, power, and grace.
But Frankl’s words give us not only hope, but suggest the path.
Ask yourself: How can the new conditions and new circumstances be embraced, not as something you ultimately would choose for yourself, but as something that can raise you up, That can maybe even enoble you? Where and how can you rise to the occasion?
Remember Frankl’s “next moment.” Where are the opportunities, no matter how small and how fleeting, in which you the best version of yourself into play?
Find a quiet time for yourself, even just a moment, and relax.
Imagine that you are looking back at this time and you see yourself moving through it in a way that brought out the best in you.
What’s the first thing you would notice that would tell you you had risen to the occasion, transformed what you faced into a human triumph, turned the worst situation into something that spoke to human achievement? Brought meaning to your life?
Think of these two exercises as setting the stage and laying the foundation for adapting.
When you cloak yourself in a robe of dignity, power, and grace, everything else you do reflects it.
Whether it’s hand sanitizing when you enter a store, masking up, or doing a socially-distanced visit to an elderly neighbor, you will be creating the kind of destiny for yourself that holds the greatest promise of good.
In future emails, we’ll get into practical, nitty-gritty tools and techniques to help you adapt. For now, we invite you to prepare and set the stage.
Deborah Teplow
Be Your Own Best Coach Co-Founder
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