All Things Inspired

You can't change the wind, but you can adjust your sails to reach your destination!

Every road that leads to your goals is strewn with potholes. Those potholes being the inevitable disruptions to your plan. When this happens, don't change your goal, but seek out a new path, or alternate path or plan with less obstacles to get to your goal. Late American singer and sausage maker, Jimmy Dean, once said, "I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination."

Regardless of your occupation or goals in life, you most likely have experienced the setback of disruptions to your plan or progress. Again, it's just inevitable. While it may only happen occasionally for some, it can be demoralizing to your efforts to achieve your goals. And, in the fast-paced world we exist in today, it might seem to be happening with greater frequency than any other time in your life. Whether the disruption generates from work related, customer related, or personal life situations, it can leave you wondering how you can rebound and get refocused on your goals.

I can promise you that disruptions are coming! Your ability to anticipate and compensate for the disruptions is what will make you shine and achieve your goal. To help you conquer the disruptions of life, this two-week topic will focus on first identifying the strengths you have to navigate the disruptions. Next, we'll entertain the decision to fight or flight. What that involves and how to choose. Next week we'll continue with the path to strategically planning and compensating for disruptions. Closing out the topic, we'll look at how to maintain your momentum through disruptive growth.

Regarding identifying your strengths, your natural tendencies are usually what identify your strengths. To start this process of identification, ask yourself the following two questions:

What strengths do I need to navigate disruption?
What strengths do I have now that I bring during disruptive times?

When things get tough, stressful, or fall right into crisis mode, most people tend to rely on what's comfortable for them. The Covid-19 pandemic was a game-changer where disruptions are concerned. While something like a pandemic may only occur once in our lifetime, it taught us that when the unexpected occurs, we can find a way to continue to function and progress toward our goals. And while we may never have a disruption of that magnitude again, we will be better prepared to compensate for something similar in the future.

Using this example, here's some additional questions to stimulate your thought process on strengths:

What strengths or skills helped you survive this time in your life?
What did you do differently that was at first uncomfortable, but you found to be manageable?
What did you notice as strengths in others that you tried to model after?
What things were you able to connect with during this time? Family, faith, inspiration, or something or someone else?
What disciplines did you learn from this experience? What things did you easily adapt to?

Dare to answer these questions honestly with yourself. Also consider that the more advanced our technology becomes, our disruptions seem to grow exponentially rather than proportionately. This tends to accelerate the level of disruptions that we must face. There is no place for a comfort zone in a disruptive world. The disruptions will only manifest themselves to further enclose your comfort zone, making it near impossible to experience life changing growth.

This brings us to the next section of our topic, determining whether to fight or flight. Flight would be to flee from the disruption, avoiding it all together. What's the good in that? We've already determined that this would only encase you further into your comfort zone and present a fleeting goal. And remember from earlier topics, nothing good comes from staying in your comfort zone. Fight or flight is a reflex. They are reactionary responses that you can't always control when they occur.

There are approaches to take to soothe the beast of fight-or-flight mode. Here's a few to consider...

Quiet reflection - could include focused breathing meditation, visualization of the desired outcome, or just the objective review of the situation.
Evaluate the options - what choices do you have? What do your instincts tell you? Do you feel comfortable in trying something different? Now examine the possible outcomes of each of these questions.
Acceptable sacrifices - what are you willing to sacrifice? The goal? Never! Sacrifice fear? Fear of an unknown outcome of the disruption can be complex, but also liberating if it helps you face the disruption. Handle the details of it and continue your path to success.

We have many instinctive traits that exist to help guide us and keep us safe. And probably these instinctive traits have gotten you where you are today. However, for the ultimate journey of growth, you must move from the instinctive traits to develop new habits that may at first be uncomfortable but through experience become acquired behavioral traits.

In the final analysis, the choice is yours. Fight or flight. Depending upon your strengths and desire to reach your goals, fighting means you must face the challenge and be prepared to compensate for the disruptions of life. Taking flight may seem to mean that you can soar above the disruptions, however, it's quite the opposite as it encloses you further into your comfort zone, drowning out the opportunity to grow and continue the journey of transformational growth.

If you have chosen to fight, next week we'll continue with the path to strategic planning and compensating for disruptions and how that can help maintain your momentum through disruptive growth. Until then chose to fight, face the challenge of disruptions, and most of all...

Be inspired! Inspire others!