It seems like every day brings along a new disruption. How do you stay adaptable through it all? We thought we would share a couple of simple things that you could apply to help build your adaptability.
Self-Care
It is very difficult to perform, let alone be adaptable, if you are running on fumes. Practicing daily self-care helps you to be more sustainable and adaptable.
Simple things like:
- Getting enough sleep
- Eating healthy food
- Staying hydrated
- Exercise
- Regular breaks throughout the day
- Connecting with loved ones
- Reflecting
- Stretching.
What can you do to boost your self-care today?
Get Uncomfortable
We have a saying at Magical Learning, ‘Change = Uncomfortable = Growth’.
Get a little uncomfortable each day to develop your adaptability skills. Do things such as, speak up more in meetings, or ask for help (more on this shortly), learn a new skill, or do things a different way.
The more proactive you are in developing yourself, the more capacity you have to be adaptable. You are worth investing time and money in to continue to learn and grow.
What can you do today to be more uncomfortable?
Asking for Help
I often ask people in training, ‘Hands up, if you like asking for help?’ Very few hands go up. People are always happy to help, yet few of us like to ask for help. Why? It makes us feel vulnerable. We have to admit we can’t do it on our own.
Yet if I ask the question, ‘Hands up if you like to help others?’ most of the hands go up in the classroom.
That being said, when we listen to the voice in our head that tells us to ‘pretend’ we know what we are doing and that no one would want to help us anyway, remember that voice is probably wrong.
Think about this the next time you have to do something that you’re confident you can do better by asking for someones help; who could you approach for help that you know will help take you to the next level?
Reflect
One of the things I have noticed with great performers is that they regularly reflect on their lives. Three questions we love to help with this are:
- What should I keep doing?
- What should I start doing?
- What should I stop doing?
If you reflect on these questions for a couple of minutes each day and then make tiny changes in what you do, you will start to become more successful and in doing so you will also learn to be more adaptable.
Capture Successes, Learn from Experiments
Life is never perfect. That being said, it is a great idea to keep a folder of your successes, so that when you aren’t doing as well as you hoped you have something to remind you that you can do it.
Think of what you do as experiments. I learnt this concept from James Altucher, in his book, Skip the Line. Sometimes they will work and sometimes they won’t.
Whatever the results of your experiments, take time to reflect on them so you can learn new ways of being more successful.
Learn to Become Anti-Fragile
Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of the terrific book, Anti-Fragile, suggests that we could all work on becoming less fragile. The concept of anti-fragile is that as pressure increases that we get stronger (not weaker).
What can you do to become more anti-fragile?
Maybe it is learning new skills, maybe it is diversifying so you have more than one or two income streams, maybe it is decreasing your debt. What currently in your life has the potential to make you fragile and see how you can reduce that risk?
Being adaptable is a skill we all need to develop. Trying new things and being open to learning from the results will help you to develop your adaptability skills.
In my experience however, unless you take the time to look after yourself, through self-care, there will come a time when you will start to become less adaptable. To prevent or slow that down, you must take time each day to invest in you and your health and well-being. It truly is a great investment to support you and your adaptability skills
