“Some people see the glass as half
full. Others see it half empty. I see a glass that’s twice as big as it needs
to be.” —George Carlin
In
today’s life, whether you are soldier on enemy front or an engineer on a construction
site or a doctor in operation theatre or a business executive doing marketing
or even an adventurist on an excursion trip, there can be an adverse situation
where you feel threatened, scared and tense. You feel struck in grave situation
and unable to take right decision. One option is to exit and run away but
better option is to hold on and quickly think of a solution and act fast. You
must not panic or flee but calm down and improvise/innovate some solution
quickly. Take this grave situation as a challenge or an opportunity to test
your knowledge, grit and experience. Stay calm but alert to make timely decision
to take appropriate action.
There
are many examples of war scenario where bold and determined US military General
Patton could change defeat into victory during World War II. Similarly, some
determined people have braved through the desert storms, snow storms, avalanches,
river floods, massive landslides, jungle fire, volcanic eruptions and earth
quacks. Likewise, during various high-jacking situations, pilots and their
support staff have stayed clam to take appropriate action and save many lives. In
similar cases of business slowdown, bold and decisive leaders have sustained
bad patches and turned around their growth. It is well established that those
who can handle today’s adverse situation effectively, become great leaders of
tomorrow.
Some
of us do experience suffering and pain when we come across emotional, social or
financial crisis. Such agony could be due to uncertainty in our career or a
tragedy in home life. We may curse our fate and even accuse God for such a
situation and feel like quitting. You might feel depressed over failure
of your project/product or deep pain over the demise of your relative/family
member, separation from a loved one or chronic physical ailment like cancer of
your family member. One who is in agony might think he/she is unlucky and a
failure in life. However, what seems like suffering/adversity can be turned
into an opportunity, if it is dealt with skill and patience.
Adversity Definition.
Adversity is a difficult or unfortunate event or circumstance that can occur
suddenly and makes you depressed, helpless or spellbound. As humans, we may
experience adversity at
workplace, in family or at any other location of activity.
Adversity creates Opportunity.
In our colleges/universities / homes we are trained / told to play safe
and avoid risky situation. Our training, counselling ,coaching and
grooming is done in such a way that we
do all the things as per accepted norms leaving little room for any adverse situation to occur. This approach inhibits our creative
thinking and we often go dumb when suddenly faced with an adverse
situation.
Infect, occurrence of adverse situations is the prime reason how the
world continues to overcome various challenges and progress. Adversity needs
not to be feared; rather it needs to be taken as a challenge to improvise,
innovate and evolve new processes/procedures and resources. All our training
and preparation should be with the objective of overcoming the inevitable
adversity and converting it into favourable opportunity. Whenever we face
adverse situation, our ability to quickly adapt, allows us to sustain it and by
the end, things do turn in our favour.
If we look back in history of natural calamities, wars and all the man-made and man caused catastrophes, our strong willpower, knowledge and
leadership have helped us to survive during those complex and unfavourable
situations. We do need to change our education system, thinking process, that
instead of focusing on ways to avoid adversity, we need to train ourselves to
face adversity in a better way. As every cloud has a silver lining, similarly
there is always light of opportunity and hope at the end of the tunnel of
adversity.
Opportunity to
grab.
Everyone
has problem big or small and it is the attitude and common sense (though not
very common) as how you tackle the problem.
It is not only your tackling your own problem but equally significant
that when need arises, grab that opportunity to help out others in their time
of need. The needy could be your family member,
your spouse or child or even your close friend.
If you take it as a challenge/mission to help the needy, you will
develop capability to stay calm, better control of mind/thoughts and make sound
and timely decisions. As you go through adversity, you gain great experience of
life. Adversity gives you the opportunity to do introspective thinking. In
words of wisdom of great leaders/thinkers, “We cannot change the cards we are
dealt, but surely we can play the cards wisely. Indeed, resilient leaders find
ways to stay calm, bold and speedy in their decision making and action taking
Quick
analysis of adverse situation. When you are faced with a difficult and complex situation, start
asking yourself the questions to seek good answers:
- What outcomes do I want out of this situation?
- Are there others outcomes as well?
- What are the obstacles in my way from making favourable outcomes
happen?
- How to overcome those obstacles and succeed?
- Do I need outside help and is it readily available?
a) Physical Disability. Let us take a situation
where a football player falls after collision with opponent player and injures
his lower spine. Likewise, it could be a horse rider or rock climber or a skier
who has serious fall and consequently, he is stuck in a wheelchair which is a
drastic change to the way he lives through balance of his life. However, there are many
examples where such injured people did guided exercises/physiotherapy and
improved their health and learnt how to deal with other limitations.
There are many determined sportsmen/sportswomen who have recovered fully and came
back to resume their sport and even won medals. Some tips to combat such
adversities are:
- Calm down and accept such disability as is a
part of life and you are to face it boldly.
- Don’t curse yourself or anybody for the
accident/incident. Instead, learn to live with the adversity without feeling
bitter about it.
- You need to take care of your health. Regular exercise, a healthy diet
and positive thinking are all necessary for doing/feeling good.
- Look
for support groups made up of people going through similar circumstances. Talking and
listening to them will make you comfortable. Keep smiling and cheers up others
too.
- There
are services from organizations to help you find a community of individuals who
can relate to how you’re feeling.
- Be
open to your doctor and work with him/her on adjusting your medications and
adding supplements.
- Be punctual in waking up, exercising and taking your medication at the same times of day. Keep trying different kinds of meditation techniques until you find something that works for you
- Stay
positive and never give up on the idea of getting better. Things can be rough for a while, but there’s
always something new you can try to improve your well-being.
- Be
in the company of sympathetic and loyal friends who have positive thinking and
supporting attitude
d) Financial Loss. It could be big loss
in business or unfair dealing by alliance partner. Some of the suggested steps
to sustain during such adversity are:
- Start
part time job or join some business partnership as quickly as possible.
- Adopt
some effective ways to plan your budget and ensure expenditures remain within
budget.
- May
take some help from close friends/relatives or even loan from bank to tide over
the situation.
- Track
your spending habits and firmly control to stay within budget.
- Learning new skills to match new job
requirements.
- As per the market trend and your need to fill the gap in your CV, join on-line or contact program, which could be a certificate course, diploma or degree program from a well-recognised institute/ organisation.·
- Seek guidance from mentors.
- Be in touch with your career councillors
and update your profile.
- Seek assistance from friends in home country or abroad.·
- Activate your network but do not announce your job loss to everybody. Be calm and slowly inform your family members as they will appreciate your efforts and standby y during your career crisis.
- Come out of your comfortable zone and
have mental mobility for change of place or job.
- Calm down and focus on your strengths
and better understanding of your limitations.
- We are all human and often tend to get
emotional or panic.
- Look around for sources which can help you
to move ahead.
- Walking in natural surroundings and spending
some time alone or even bird watching can cheer you up.
- Use common sense to solve
complex situation.
- Reading light articles/books or
recalling past good events quietly.
- Thinking
alternatives and doing cause and effect analysis.
- Listening to music or TV program that inspire
positive thinking.
- Doing Meditation or any
stress relieving exercises.
- Interacting with people who have
positive attitude and share with them your
worries and thoughts.
- Seeking guidance from mentors and
seniors.
- Don’t get serious and depressed when an adversity occurs. Look at every challenge with curiosity and humour
- Share your learning and experience with their friends. Soon you will get fresh idea to deal with adverse situation
- Sincere prayer seeking God’s help.
For more information you may refer to my books available on www.amazon.com
1. A2Z – 26 steps for assured success
2. Career challenges during Global Uncertainty
Dr Sarbjit Singh, Former Principal Apeejay College of
Engineering, Sohna District Gurgaon, Haryana – 122103, India
Comments
Nice article