I spent almost forty years in corporate America with three different companies. Over half of that time was spent in Information Systems management positions. I learned two skills that helped alter and expand my perspective—and increased my resiliency.
What’s the Worst That Can Happen?
The first lesson I adopted came from a Dale Carnegie course I took and brought me relief whenever I felt anxious. So many inconsequential things used to completely stress me out! What I learned during that class was to ask myself, “What is the worst that can happen here?”
As an example, I used to feel frantic if I thought I would be late arriving at scheduled appointments. After the course, I paused to ask myself what the worst outcome would be if I got to a meeting a few minutes late. My answer was something that I could deal with. And immediately my stress level would drop. (I am still rarely late to anything, but my stress levels are under control now when the unexpected happens.)
Once I figured out the worst possible outcome to a situation, I could employ the second skill, which was to ask myself if I could live with that consequence or outcome.
Can You Live With It?
At one time, I was a member of a dysfunctional management team. Each of us did a fair job of managing our individual teams. But when it came to making a decision as a management group we struggled. The wordsmithing of any group statement proved tedious. One constant was that there would be objections to some small aspect of a plan. I’m a big advocate of hearing every voice, but our process (if you could call it that) resulted in us not making timely decisions or communicating the decisions well to the department. Only after we participated in some team-building and decision-making workshops did we become an effective group.
The biggest takeaway for me from the workshops was to ask myself if the proposed solution was something I could live with. (I also remember the name tents with BITD on one side—for Beat It To Death—which we could turn to face the group as a signal for when we felt we had stumbled into quagmire again. That visual aid was used a lot until we got the hang of collaborating.) The solution didn’t have to be perfect for each of us—it just needed to be something that we could all support. It allowed for collaboration on a whole new level.
Perspective and Resilience
I mention these lessons because they are excellent examples of how perspective can impact your life. They are also examples of resiliency. Jamie Logie wrote an excellent article in Learning Mind called, 6 Traits of Resilient People You Can Cultivate in Yourself. Two of these traits are about perspective and identifying the worst outcome. The remaining four are knowing what you can’t change, combating fragility, surrounding yourself with other resilient people, and self-care.
Some of these traits require confidence in yourself to be able to handle whatever happens and the knowledge that you are important and deserve to be a priority for yourself. I frequently work with clients to change beliefs like these. If you feel like your perspective and resilience could use some adjustment, I’d be happy to help. You can book a session here.
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