There is a scene about half-way through the climbing documentary The Dawn Wall where the climbers are stuck at the crux of the climb – the toughest section. The two climbers (Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgesen) had spent six years planning to climb a seemingly impossible 900 m rock face in Yosemite National Park, California. And here at the crux, more than a week into their ascent, Caldwell is faced with a most difficult decision: should he abandon his partner to fulfill his dream, or risk his own success for the sake of their friendship?
As the two of them wrestle with this situation in the spotlight of a media frenzy, you can feel the enormous range of emotions both of the climbers are experiencing. They were fatigued, uncomfortable, frustrated and faced with a problem that could derail their dream while the world watched in fascination. Without spoiling the movie, it is an extreme example of what it is like when everything you are focused on and invested in, isn’t working out the way you have planned. And what we are truly capable of if we can stay out of a reactive mode.
Not Reacting When Things Don’t Go Our Way
For most of us, when we run into challenges or unmet expectations (sudden change in the plan, a colleague dropping the ball, or having to navigate conflict when there is seemingly no time to deal with it), we will experience stress. Sometimes lots of it. And if our threat response is triggered by the ‘unreasonableness’ of what’s happening, our natural reaction will be to default to some form of fight, flight or freeze.
If asked how fight, flight or freeze affects their performance, almost universally, people will say that their performance declines. When we are triggered and reacting emotionally to what’s happening, we lose our ability to access the tools we need most to solve the problem and move forward. Our ability to even notice our own behaviour or self-regulate, our ability to see other perspectives, find creativity, or our ability to have empathy and connect with others is limited or absent when we need it most.
What if You Could Accept Things as They Are?
Here’s the paradox. The more we focus on ‘hating’ how things are going, the more likely we will stay in a rigid, angry, frustrated, judging, blaming and/or righteous mode. And in this state we are less likely to find an ideal solution to the problem. The crucial resilience skill that most of us miss is acceptance. Rather than fighting, bemoaning the people in your life or trying to change the situation, what if you could shift your perspective to accepting the world as it is and working with that? Navy SEALs are trained to work with what is, since they know that it is beyond anyone’s ability to change what just happened or how things are at the moment. The only thing we can control is our reaction to what has happened or is happening and how we choose to move forward.
So, what would happen if you could do this? As you move out of resistance and judgment, you move out of fight/flight/freeze and free your brain up to notice all of what is happening now. And while things may be unfolding in a way that wasn’t in the plan and slowing down progress, there are other things present which, if you pause and notice them, could be leveraged to work with what is. Your ability to see more clearly goes up. As does your ability to think creatively, develop options and evaluate them quickly. In a word, you become more agile.
Tools to Help You Develop Acceptance and Mental Agility
In my experience, embracing acceptance is highly challenging. If solving a problem more mindfully is like a climb, acceptance is like the crux (toughest move) of the climb. Can’t do the crux move? You won’t get to the next step in the climb. So, from the outset, expect that this will take some work. I practice this daily and I am routinely shocked by my brain’s resistance to ‘accepting what is’.
Nonetheless, here are a few practices that help:
1. Reframing and Relabeling. Reframing is shifting how we see a situation. Some people do this really well. The rest of us? Well, we have room to grow. One of the simplest reframes is to relabel the situation. Our brain automatically labels people or situations that aren’t to our liking as ‘bad’ (or related words like stupid, incompetent, unfair, etc.) Relabeling the situation helps us stay out of fight or flight. Traffic isn’t ‘ridiculous’. It is simply ‘lots of people taking care of things’. And these people aren’t all out to make your life more difficult – we are all in it together, just trying to get to where we need to be.
2. Practice saying ‘Yes’ to what Is. When we say no to what is, we unconsciously slide into fight or flight. Saying yes or yes, and…helps us stay in a more open and accepting mindset and see options we might have missed in our state of frustration. It allows us to work with what we’ve got (since we can’t change it) or pivot and try something different.
3. Pause and breathe. When you don’t know what else to do, start by creating space to pause and breathe. It is like a circuit-interrupt and will give you room to react less and find a better way.
4. Practice Gratitude and Appreciation. This may sound unrelated, but it is very difficult to stay in fight or flight mode while experiencing genuine gratitude. When you are full of gratitude about what’s good in your world, we will feel less triggered when things don’t go your way.
5. Focus on What You Can Control. Many of our unmet expectations are things we really have no control over. As we train our brain to focus on what is in our control, such as our thoughts, perceptions, how we feel about it, the words we use, our actions, etc., we move back to a state of empowerment.
Note: In no way does practicing acceptance mean rolling over and giving up on values, standards and goals, etc. Stand for what is important to you and continue to work toward your goals! Just recognize this will be easier from a place of acceptance rather than from a place of judgment.
Lastly, Train Your Brain (aka Meditate)
The tools suggested above will definitely get you through the crux move, such that you will be far more accepting of things as they are. Well executed, you can be agile in the face of challenges and unmet expectations and not dip into fight or flight at all. I’ve done it and I’ve seen it in many of my clients. It almost feels like a miracle when you do it well the first time.
Yet having the knowledge of how to execute acceptance is just like having the knowledge of how to execute a challenging climbing move. You may know what to do, but you need to have the strength and skill to pull it off. This is where meditation and a mindfulness practices come in. These practices train your brain to have the strength to notice your autopilot reactions and then access the reframing, relabeling and other tools to help you pivot.
Conclusion
While most of us may not take on something as challenging as climbing the Dawn Wall, we all will face challenges big and small. Some days, we may not like ‘the way things are’ and may even feel that we aren’t able to deal with it. But the truth is we are all far more resilient and resourceful than we think. Remembering this is the key, since in those moments when we are struggling to get through the crux of it all, faith and belief in ourselves matters. A lot. And once you remember that, you can move to accepting that like it or not, this is it. Which frees you up to explore what you can do with that. Will you be able to execute the crux move you are facing? My bet is that you will.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post. Please feel free to share your comments.
I coach amazing people like you to delete the overwhelm, discern what matters most and drive your future. Schedule a FREE consultation with me HERE if you want to explore what life would be like for you with a more resilient brain and more masterful habits.