​Consider Your Challenge

It times when situation changes daily, and not for the better, you need to continuously re-evaluate what your challenges are in every context you are embedded in: as parents, partners, children, employees, business owners, leaders, neighbours and friends. 

You need to find time to pause, quiet your mind and your body, reflect on what is unfolding inside you and in front of you, then explore what is critical for you right now. Are you struggling with anxiety and are you afraid you will contaminate those around you, if you share how you feel? Are you struggling to concentrate on your work or study? Are you afraid to make a wrong decision and look incompetent under pressure, when so much is on the line? Is it home schooling, caring for sick and elderly, while working that makes you feel unproductive and even more scared about keeping your job?  Are you worried about your next rent or mortgage payment or feel that you have no purpose in this crisis? The list of worries can be endless. 

Ask yourself: What is triggering me most right now and how do I know? Notice what thoughts, feelings and physical reactions are flooding you during a day and what is it in response to. Do the same at your family and your team level, notice what comes up.

The way you see your challenges is going to be impacted by the way you see yourself, others, the world and your purpose. The more you are focused on meeting your own desires, as opposed to what benefits us all, the narrower your view will be of what needs to be valued in decisions you make.

Assess Your Context

How much do you know about the impacts of this crisis on your environment? What evidence do you have to support what you "know"? Emotions are running wild right now and they are highly contagious. It is easy to go down the vicious spiral, if you indulge in rumination and catastrophic thinking for long periods of time. Focus on the facts that come from most reliable sources, when assessing what is happening in the world, your country, health system, economy, community, schools...

​Every decision being made by politicians or shoppers at your local supermarket is affecting the resources you have available to adapt to your current and future challenges; to some extent, it even impacts your ability to notice and process those challenges (e.g. it is much harder to stay cool when people are panicking around you). Bear in mind that decisions you make, equally, affect others' ability to adapt: be it your family member or your leadership team.  For example, if you shelter your children from every bit of negative news, you do not give them a chance to learn how to cope with it. If you give orders to your team to protect them, you do not allow them to proactively become a leader we need everyone to be right now.                                                                                                                                                        

The Importance of Spare Resources

In recent years, there has been a quest for productivity and finding ways to eliminate waste, creating a level of fragility for organisations and their employees. There has been a lack of appreciation that we often do not know what resources we will need until we need them. 

For example, hospitals are struggling to find high numbers of staff. The only ways to adapt are by tapping the resources that: 1) they can redeploy (e.g. move from other healthcare facilities), 2) they can acquire (e.g. by government fast-tracking the visa applications for nurses that were trained abroad but currently reside in this country); 3) are suddenly provided to them (e.g. an international body gaining an agreement from nurses overseas to come to this country); or 4) they are given an opportunity to develop them (e.g. training flight attendants to help in hospitals). 

Those who find spare, relevant resources will be better placed to adapt and more resilient to their challenges. Families who, for example, have no internet access at home will likely be disadvantaged, just like employees reporting into a manager who does not have mental capacity to process changes in their environment and to address their own anxiety. 

"Relevance in Relation to" is Key

There are hardly any resources that are universally relevant for every challenge. We know it is much harder for people with an underlying health condition to overcome COVID-19, but those conditions and circumstances vary widely and the contexts that they escalate are very different (e.g. an aged care home, a home shared by three generations, living with a healthcare front line worker etc). Something that is considered a great lifestyle one moment, might not be see the same way the next.

In other words, as much as there are common challenges and we all should aim to address them, there is no universal optimal solution for your unique and changing situation. ​Therefore the resources you are considering must be relevant to your challenges and your unique contexts. 

Identify Your Personal Resources

Your task now is to identify what it is that you possess and can bring to bear against your challenge, or more likely, a range of challenges. Think about your resources in broad terms: your physical and mental health, psychological strengths (e.g. confidence, capacity to thrive in or cope with uncertainty, positive emotions), skills in life and professionally, knowledge, experience, talents, social networks, support networks, personal finances, time and energy, etc.

For example, you cannot tackle your tasks because you are too upset about what is happening and you are too afraid about your future. If you are a pessimist in general, you might need to do more exercises to see options than a realistic optimist who might be able to proceed to planning and executing on actions much quicker. If you are a single person living alone, you will need to consider your work arrangements and consult your bank more urgently than a spouse in a household that relied on a single income for a long time. ​

Recognize Your External Resources

Examples of external resources include: 1) time and flexibility to take care of your children while also delivering work projects from home; 2) access to public schools and childcare facilities for parents who are in high demand to turn up for work every day; 3) rent freeze, tax allowances, free products and services to run your small business ...

What is it that you need today, tomorrow, this week, this month, this quarter? Who are the people around you that rely on you and have a vested interest in supporting you? What can they provide? What could generous human beings that you know or do not know provide for you and how will you make that request?

Your Ability to Access Makes All the Difference 

Possessing resources or having people who would provide them to you is not the same as actually accessing them. For example, we are all creative with our kids but not always able to access our own creativity under pressure. We are also all able to change for the better but we rarely do, until some critical event comes along. 

You need to tap into or develop your internal resources, like asking for help or making others aware of your needs, when it comes to taking advantage of external resources that can be made available to you. Otherwise, you can be a very lonely person in this highly populated and still very resource-rich world. 

Over the Time-frame of Your Challenge

Your challenges will be changing, the way you see them will evolve, how you resource yourselves to address them will develop. Build, redeploy or replenish your internal and external assets with a sustainable view in mind: you will need them for the duration of your obstacles. You might be called a hero today for stocking up local and national warehouses or caring for sick, but watch out for your own and others' burnout or those critical resources will be depleted quickly and it will become so much harder to tackle your own and our collective challenges.