How We React To Adversity, Part 3
If there is one truth, regardless of how ordinary or extraordinary your life is, you will ultimately be faced with calamity, trauma, disappointments, challenges, setbacks, failures, and even loss. You will be dealing with difficult situations and need to figure out effective coping mechanisms and emerge from these adversities.
As we are faced with adversity, it is essential human behaviour to cope and navigate through these testing times in one way or the other. We could react in three ways: the victim state, the survivor mode or the desirable victor mode. So which pattern is your autopilot reaction?
Unfortunately, most of us feel victimised and get trapped in the victim mode, albeit sometimes only for a short time. When we are at this stage, we blame everyone and everything and deny ourselves the opportunity to look forward and plan. Anxiety takes over, and you are. This stage is a recipe for disaster, and the earlier you recognise the danger, the better your chance to change mode and plan for victory. At this stage, either you could bury your head in the sand like an ostrich or have a course correction.
Then some of us leap into the survivor mode. Where we might be delusional and might not realise that we are digging ourselves deeper and we are on a hamster wheel. When you are in this mode, you are neither fully aware of the situation and what got you there in the first place, nor are you equipped to handle the situation. You feel overworked, undervalued, stressed and burned out and could suffer physical and mental health issues. In this state, you react to every situation and are not planning to solve the problem.
The few who have the knowledge, skillset, insight, and wisdom move into the victor mode relatively quickly. Awareness and Acceptance of the situation are the first steps in the path for recovery and success. Once you are aware of the challenge, it is essential to analyse the causes and take an in-depth look into the mistakes. Assess the situation systematically and investigate the cause and effect of the condition past and present. Learning lessons from past experiences caused the present challenge and planning and changed the course of action to create a different future outcome.
As the adage goes, if you want a different result, you need to do something different. In Albert Einstein’s words:
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Albert Einstein
With this in mind, you need to create a plan, allow time to recover and evaluate your progress in the new direction. Be willing to learn, adapt and change course and ask for help if and when needed. With these attributes, it is only time before success will be in sight, and victory can be achieved.
Like Winston Churchill said:
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
Winston Churchill
Originally published in LinkedIn on December 29, 2018
