How Do -YOU- Respond To Adversity?

BY CAROL QUINN

In difficult economic times, like we are experiencing right now, many people are afraid of losing their job. For employers who have to cut back, they must chose who stays and who goes. The deciding factor is often based on productivity. If you are not the most effective, then maybe you do have cause for concern.

Have you ever wondered how some people are able to achieve success in the face of adversity? Are they luckier, do they have fewer external factors against them, or are they a more positive thinker? Is there anything that you can do that will help you to accomplish more during these tough times? The answer is YES!

You’ve heard the saying, “Change your thinking - change your results”. It’s true, but do you know what thinking needs to change and from what to what? It’s not just about heaving positive thoughts on top of a dismal situation. Nor is it about denial. A bad decision followed by hopeful thinking doesn’t change the bad decision into a good one. Understanding how the High Performer is able to achieve a desired outcome is the first step we must take to improve our own productivity.

All of us encounter difficult situations. What makes each person squirm varies. However, when we find ourselves in an uncomfortable situation that we don’t know to handle often times we react to it out of habit. Our auto-response more often serves to keep us safe and protected rather than move us closer to our goal. When poor results follows, typically a flight or fight response was involved. Retreating or avoidance is a flight response. It’s an ineffective under-reaction. We chose not to deal with it. Fight is an aggressive or angry over-reaction that escalates and makes matters worse. Neither solve the problem and inappropriately used, both sabotage achievement.

Here’s a clue; where you are not getting the result you want, look at how you react. It sounds easy, right? What many people do instead is deny their responsibility and focus solely on external factors that may have contributed to their outcome. As long as a person blames other people and circumstances beyond their control they won’t look within. They wait, and wait, and wait for change to happen. It’s when we become tired of the ways things are we usually become ready to see things anew. When we let go of the need to justify errant behavior, only then is it possible to sincerely contemplate how we can change ourselves and thus, our outcomes.

Change your thinking and your results will change. Keep your thinking the same and your results will remain the same.

Each challenging situation requires a response from us. The effectiveness of our response is determined by our outcome. Each disappointing outcome holds a lesson. Learning the lesson involves correct analysis and understanding, as well as problem-solving. Making the right change to our response will give us a better outcome in the future. Life has a way of presenting us with opportunities to try again. Each challenge we step into and conquer increases our confidence in our ability to create the outcome we want. It’s as if life wants us to know how much power we really have to achieve our goals and live our dreams. It is through our resistance and refusal to learn and change ourselves that we stay trapped in mediocrity. It’s not the adversity that holds us back from achieving - it’s ourselves.

I know when I’m in a situation that makes me squirm my mind makes a monster out of it. “Heck…Yes!” retreating makes sense. Mustering the courage to step in was the first change I had to make. Next, I wrestled with my old faithful desire to react as I always have. Instead of doing what I’d always done and expecting different results, I had to change what I was doing to change the outcome. I had to recognize and stop my auto-response that still seemed like the right way to handle the situation. I had to consciously override it because I knew it would create another unsuccessful outcome. The next dilemma you experience is, you may know what doesn’t work but you don’t know what does! This can be very confusing. You have any number of reactions you can choose from - some effective and some not-so-effective. Whenever you select an ineffective response, your outcome pays the price.

Once you stop your old pattern of reacting, now it’s time to go into problem-solving mode. You may feel like there is no possible solution for your situation but it’s that thinking that will block you from finding one. Switch your focus from what’s out there that is causing your dismal results to what you can do differently. For me personally, I have trouble seeing what I need to alter in order to get the results I want, so I ask for advice. I seek another point of view to help change my mind. I carefully pick someone who has succeeded in the area that I’m struggling in. I ask for their input. I listen to what they have done and would do in my situation. I process the information and learn. I find that - when the student truly is ready, teachers do appear. But the student must take the initiative. When you are receptive, you will discover that those who have succeeded did something different than you. This difference, as subtle as you may think it is, is what enabled them to produce their better results.

Try a new idea. Implement a new practice. Take a new approach. Act differently! It’s all about trial and error and change until you find a way that moves you a step closer to your goal. That is how the high achievers do it and that’s how you can do it too - in any area of your life. The next time your sales fall short of quota, your budget runs over, your turnover is too high, your customer satisfaction is too low, your performance is not good enough, your health is ailing, you struggle financially or a relationship is strained…take a new look at how you react. Your best opportunity to achieve your goals may not be as dependent on the external contributors changing as you think. Take another look at the power you possess to make your dreams come true. Your dream right now may simply be to keep your job and tweaking yourself just might be all that’s needed.

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