Dealing with a crisis
This topic seems more important than ever in current times. Even before COVID-19, we were constantly confronted with smaller and bigger crisis’s in our life, often triggered by external environmental influences.
In times of crises, the individual mindset is everything. The core question to ask here is to what extend to I let external forces influence my individual happiness? An example, large parts of the world are currently in some form of lockdown for the second time this year. The two options to face now are a) to join into the feeling of anxiety and negativity the external environment exposes us to every day or b) to find some inner place of happiness and fulfilment even in difficult times. You can guess, the approach leading to productivity and fulfilment is the latter.
Coaching can assist here, to even in times of crisis, learn to deal with challenging times in a way, that is not damaging or a threat for our inner piece and happiness. The first thing to become aware of, is that the crisis is only in your mind and defined by you and you only, often based on external influences.
It is therefore important to define the situation of crisis as clearly as possible and assess on an individual basis, what consequences, and implications the crisis has for us as individuals. Very often this first step of recognition can already help reduce the external noise in our heard and calm down the mind, as we realise that the current situation and implication of what is perceived as a major crisis by external views, does only affect us individually in a minimal way.
As an example, COVID-19 is seen as one of the biggest natural disasters in our modern history. However, this crisis is very differently perceived by individuals. We have in common that we cannot do certain thing we enjoy; however, for some of us that are working from home and have no financial sacrifices to make not much has changed. Of course, this varies to a large degree on an individual level as this crisis also caused real trouble for many people, but we always have to access this not as a generalisation and away from external influences and mainstream opinions.
Once we are aware of the crisis and how it affects us individually, there are a few basic attitudes helping us to deal with it in the best possible way. Those include consistency, creativity, compassion, as well as a “we are all in this together” mentality.
Consistency means in times of crisis being structured and organised is key. It starts with a realistic assessment of the situation and describes the desire for us to have clear structures and routines in place even in times of crisis. On the other hand, creativity is another essential part of dealing with difficult situations. Rather than only focusing on all the things we are not allowed to do at the moment, we should use the time to get creative on thinking outside of the box or engaging in things we never did before. It will automatically lead to a feeling of accomplishment and inner happiness, besides external circumstances that might seem difficult.
Compassion is another great tool to handle a crisis. The idea here is “help others to help yourself”. In times of crisis we get inner satisfaction by doing good for others and showing a sense of solidarity. This can provide people with high levels of inner satisfaction as it describes putting other people’s needs on top of our own.
Lastly, an “we are all in this together” mentality can help. Here, it is important for people to realise they are not alone in times of crisis. Others are feeling the same and are also struggling with the current situation. Here, it can be a challenge for a lot of people to show weaknesses, however once we overcome our fears, we realise that a sense of community helps us deal with things better.
Overall, times of crisis always expose us to challenges and opportunities alike. It is very important to first get a realistic picture of a crisis, also in the sense of how we are affected by it individually. Secondly, structure, creativity for discovering new talents as well as doing good for others and joining into a “community spirit” can all help us not to be overly influenced by external circumstances and achieve inner happiness and wellbeing besides challenging times.
