“Adaptability is the simple secret of survival.” ~Jessica Hagedorn
It’s been too long my friends! How are you?
I’m writing this to you on day four of my kids being back at school after close to a year of online learning. I’ll save you the details, but it has been HARD five months and I’m so grateful (nervous) they are back. And, we’re now adjusting to the mid-year return-to-school, which has felt a bit bumpy for everyone as we all adapt to this new way.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how much adapting we’ve all had to do this year, and what a skill it is to learn (and how we’re not really taught how). I mean, sure, we all have to adapt to things in life, but this year has been one adaptation after another: in school to home school; businesses open, businesses closed; sports happening, sports cancelled; vaccines coming, vaccines delayed – mixed with conflicting and charged messaging coming from everywhere.
Just when we get our bearings for a hot second and manage to adapt to the current way of being, living and working in a pandemic – things change or the rules change, and we’re forced to adapt to something new. These adaptive challenges are so much harder because there’s no one clear answer or solution; instead, it’s messy and uncertain and unclear on how to best navigate it.
Now, being adaptable is a good thing. Without it, humans would have perished from this earth long ago. Adaptability is an evolutionary imperative: we learn, we grow, we adapt, we change, we keep moving forward – or we don’t survive as a species.
The greatest challenge right now is that we’re having to do it so often and in all areas of our lives. For many of us, nothing feels especially stable or constant – work, school, relationships, money, friendships, health and safety are all in flux. And it’s happening at an individual and collective level simultaneously. It’s a lot to carry.
And it’s why we’re all so exhausted.
The good news is that even though we’ve still likely got months ahead of us that require us to keep adapting, there are some ways we can lessen the impact and strengthen our ability to cope with all the change and pivots we’re forced to do.
Here’s where I turn when I feel my adaptability muscles start to atrophy.
- Hold things loosely: the tighter grip I have on things, the more it hurts when they don’t work out as planned. I’m trying to stop white knuckling everything and just take it day by day.
- Focus on curiosity: This one is hard, especially right now when a quick scan of your social media feed is enough for anyone to go into a blind rage or deep despair. But we don’t get to better answers or insights by digging our heels in. If we can stay open to explore what’s really going on (vs what’s portrayed on Facebook), we position ourselves to better adapt and learn as we go. I’m not anti-anger (b/c there’s a lot to be angry about right now, justifiably), but I’m anti-rigidity and fixed thinking. Getting curious and asking different questions offers us something more than any pissy Tweet or post will bring.
- Remember that uncertainty doesn’t equal a threat: just because things are ever-changing, doesn’t mean I’m unsafe or that imminent danger is before me (tbc: not minimizing very real COVID risks). I remind myself what’s actually true right now about my situation.
- Find my anchors: even among all the change, there’s stability and routine. My immediate family and close friends. Making school lunches. A new puppy that wants to play tug-of-war. Stephen Colbert every night at 9:35pm. A hot bath at the end of the day. There are touch points available to me that I can count on.
- Get outside: Now listen, I live in a cold climate and I hate being cold. There’s a ton of snow on the ground right now, and next week it’s going to be -30ish. My husband is the outdoorsy guy, I am in the indoorsy woman who prefers coffee, a blanket and a book. BUT – getting outside for an almost-daily walk with our puppy has done wonders for my mental well-being. There’s something about grounding in nature (even in the suburbs) that reminds me that I’m part of a bigger world, and that even amidst all this change – the sun still rises, the snow keeps falling, and one day, the grass will turn green again. It helps, even when I resist it.
What do you do to feel a little less untethered? I’d love to hear – share with me on Twitter here.
Steph (she/her)
x
p.s. with the kids back at school, I currently have space for two new clients. If you’d like to talk about working together, email me and we’ll set up a time to chat to see if we’re a good fit.
đź’ˇ FRESH, HAND-PICKED RESOURCES
Curated links from around the web to help you work well, live well and lead well.
The Clocklike Regularity of Major Life Changes. Building on my message above, this article reminds us that there is good to be found in all this change, even if we can’t see it right now. “Life changes are painful, but inevitable. And as hard as they may be, we only make things harder—and risk squandering the benefits and lessons they can bring—when we work against them instead of with them.”
A primer on Adaptive Leadership, coined by Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky, which they define as “the act of mobilizing a group of individuals to handle tough challenges and emerge triumphant in the end.” What is Adaptive Leadership? IMHO, this is the kind of leadership we need more of right now – leaders who can operate within a context of ambiguity, nuance and uncertainty and help their people, their organizations and their communities thrive.
A lovely short audio essay (and transcript) on How being still in nature can remind us of what it means to be human by Canadian storyteller and ecologist Shalan Joudry. “The real medicine comes in the stillness. To me, sitting in nature long enough, reminds me about what it means to be part of the land, what it means to be human.” See point #5 above: get outside.
These Precious Days. One of those curl up with a tea and get cozy under a blanket kind of reads. But so worth it.
Should you need a belly laugh today, these women ALWAYS deliver.
Newsletters are hot again, and Twitter is the latest to get in the game. The Hustle was also just acquired by HubSpot and Substack is offering a no frills, no fuss way to share your thoughts with the world. But is this growing creator economy missing a middle class?
On repeat over here. Feels like its what February needs most.
đź’ĄTHE WEEK IN A GIF
Still reeling in the amazingness that was Amanda Gorman’s performance at the inauguration. Here’s a link to if if you missed it (though I doubt you did – it was exceptional).
