1. Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Crises come into our lives, no matter how we may try to avoid them. They are troubling, unwanted experiences or events that take us out way out of our comfort zone. Typically, crises result in some type of loss. The very nature of crisis is antithetical to our core values of certainty and predictability as they vanish in an instant.
We desperately try to restore order to our lives, as chaos seems to prevail. Yet, if we learn to reframe how we see crisis, we might actually take advantage of it. There is the potential for alchemy as the crisis unfolds into a gain, provided we learn to stop resisting the unwanted change.
The crisis may be of a financial, relationship, health or spiritual nature. Those crises that are internally driven tend to be relational, psychological or emotional. Ordinarily, we try to avoid these upsets as best we can. Yet, upheavals are at times leveled upon us and may not be of our making. We may feel like victims of the circumstances, as we struggle to hold on to life as we knew it.
Typically, personal change requires our motivation and intention to serve as the catalyst to power the transition. Crisis, on the other hand, removes the self-motivating requirement as it places us squarely outside of our familiar zone. The crisis literally removes the boundaries that have circumscribed us. It is as if a tornado has swept in, and when we open our eyes, everything has changed. The maelstrom places us well beyond the bounds of the known. We typically find ourselves wanting desperately to get back inside the comfort of the known. But the crisis precludes that option. There is no going back. But that is where the opportunity lies.
Breaking Free
Growth and fundamental levels of change only tend to occur when we are out of our comfort zone. We can refer to this as being far from equilibrium, where certainty and predictability no longer reign supreme. So we might look at the crisis as a blessing in disguise, albeit an unwanted one.
Steve Jobs might have felt self-defeated and victimized himself after he was fired from Apple many years ago. He chose otherwise. After his dismissal, he grasped crisis by the horns, seeing opportunity where others did not. He went on to lead a small animation company and turn it into the juggernaut that is now Pixar. When The Walt Disney Company bought Pixar in 2006, Jobs immediately became the largest shareholder in Disney. The moral of the story is unwanted change happens; look beyond it and embrace the discomfort.
The crisis is but a snapshot of a moment in time, and one we’d prefer to avoid. But to achieve self-empowerment requires looking beyond that snapshot and envisioning what door of potential has just flung open.
The individual whose spouse initiated divorce or left them for another person feels betrayed and perhaps heartsick. After a time though, they may in fact come to feel thankful to be freed from an unworthy and inauthentic relationship. This is particularly true if they evolve through the loss and benefit from a new and healthier relationship.
I fervently believe that every crisis presents an opportunity. Crisis and opportunity are merely differing aspects of the process. Do we choose to focus on the crisis and freeze in fear, or do we inquire as what the opportunity may be? Let’s take a deeper look at the phenomena of crisis.
Where Is the Opportunity?
Let’s delve a bit deeper into the opportunity that prevails through these hardships. Crisis is defined in Webster’s Dictionary as: “A crucial or decisive point or situation; a turning point.” If we focus on the phrase “turning point,” we might ask ourselves, “Toward where are we turning?” It is in this non-reactive contemplation that we may elect to seek opportunity. This potentiality becomes obscured when we are mired in the loss of the familiar as opposed to venturing into the new. This tipping point is precisely where transformation occurs.
Do we gaze into the unfolding potential of change, or do we focus on the loss of the familiar? Your answer reveals your relationship between loss and opportunity. Ultimately the question is whether we choose to freeze in the panic of the unfamiliar or we seek to opportunize the new territory that’s unfolding for us. The former presents anxiety and retreat, the latter evokes growth. Release your hold on loss and embrace your relationship with opportunity. They are inversely correlated.
The only constant in the universe is flow. What we call crisis is simply the occurrence of change. We are not the masters of change, and if we release our need to control it, we can ride the waves of change and often turn it into opportunity.
2. Doing your best in life does mean being a perfectionist
Is it always a good idea to do the best you can do? Doing the best you can sets up a never-ending competition within one's own psyche. Competition has its place in our culture, but can you imagine never getting a time out from competing? People with such tendencies incline toward being perfectionists, and perfectionists are rarely present, as they ruminate the past and worry about the future.
This man's wife often complained about his not being emotionally available, and we can readily imagine the impact that his being wed to doing his best might have on his marriage. In fact, I'd argue his was more wed to this compulsion than to his wife.
I am not proposing that we shouldn't selectively choose endeavors in which we really might try our hardest. Selectively doing your best makes sense. But proclaiming it as our mantra makes life look like a runaway competition. I believe that if we integrate the wish "I want to be present" alongside "I want to do my best," we'd begin to enjoy a more balanced life. And when we do choose to proclaim that we did our best, we should truly mean it.
What about Fun?
I have encountered so many people who feel that their performance overarches their enjoyment, particularly in sports. When I was a child, our engagement in athletics was primarily for recreational purposes. The goal was both athletic and fun. Excelling at the sports wasn't necessarily more important than enjoying the game.
Now, many people tell me that they won't participate in a sport unless they can excel. When did performance become more valued than having fun? I play golf a few times a year with some good friends. I'm mediocre at best as a golfer, but I delight in the fun and the relief from everyday pressures that it offers. I couldn't imagine enjoying the game if I had to be good at it. Why do we have to be good? Our cultural penchant for winning, excellence, and maximum performance drives us into a neurotic addiction to self-measurement.
I was recently having a conversation with a young man who was a seeded tennis player. After a while, I came to inquire about his interest in other sports. As we talked further it became very evident that he would only engage in activities in which he excelled. I asked him why that was so and he seemed taken aback by my question. It was nonsensical to him to play at a sport at which he wasn't superlative. He protested, "What would be the point?" "To have fun," I retorted. He stated that having fun at something wasn't his goal; excelling was. I began to see his point. His priority was in excelling, not in enjoying himself.
The word "play" shouldn't appear in front of the sport for him, as in "playing" tennis. He had to be the best. This activity had little to do with play. I began to consider that, as a culture, we might be losing our ability to play as we subordinate it to winning and excelling. How might that affect our well being? The absence of play sounds rather depressing doesn't it?
I have never been an accomplished athlete, but I have had immeasurable joy and treasured memories from the pure enjoyment of play. If while playing at a sport I was busily judging whether I were good enough to play, I'd never be present for the bliss of the experience. I have a treasure trove of cherished memories from playing baseball as a boy and young adult. My joy was derived from being in the process of play, trying to win, the camaraderie and spirited engagement with my teammates. We all want to do well, and most of us want to be the best - that's quite natural. But to refuse to participate because you're not top tier is quite sad.
I see our culture moving inexorably in this direction, and it screams to me in alarm that we are heading into a very dysfunctional area. I fear that our society is falling into a pathological condition when high levels of performance become the goal, and simple playful pleasure is no longer desirable, let alone permissible. A recent article in Scientific Mind suggests that the emotional and psychological well being of a person might well correlate with how much free play they had in their childhood. If this is valid, we are in deep trouble. And we are perhaps setting up an abusive deprivation of fun for our children.
The current generation of children and adolescents are deprived of play. Their experience of what should be play becomes more work, as it is over-organized, scheduled and ultimately graded upon performance. The absence of play in a child's life is somewhat cruel. To rob our children of being children - as we propel them toward the cultural edict of excellence - demands some serious reconsideration.
Having to do your best implies that you are suffering from a compulsion. In this case, you aren't acting from free will, but from the compulsion. Trying to do your best selectively and with discrimination is laudable and leaves you in charge of your experience. Freeing yourself from compulsion is necessary to enable this shift.
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