It is fascinating to watch how we deal with change, and how resilient we really are. In less than a week, many of the foundations that we take for granted have been rocked. Travel is out. Restaurants are closed. Work is disrupted. Jobs are at risk. Major sport is cancelled. Markets are down. Even St. Patty's Day celebrations are cancelled. And yet walking in the evening sunshine, talking with people in my neighbourhood…

By now, we all know the actions we can take to prevent getting or transmitting COVID-19.

There is also a lot we can do to keep our immune system strong.

What we often overlook is our mental resilience and mental 'immunity' – how we stay mentally and emotionally healthy in the face of stress and challenging times. The rapidly shifting

I don’t think I’m alone in this; sometimes I wish I could just get instant results or a quicker fix with some of the problems in my life. I want my low back pain to go away, and my physiotherapist provides me with some deep core exercises that she is confident will help it. But I stop doing them after a few days because they are tedious, and it feels like nothing is happening.

Maybe you experience this in your world too?

Tell me if you can relate to this?

You had every intention to get one important task completed today. But urgent emails, impromptu meetings, the constant distraction of notifications and a tired brain after too much screen time last night had you choosing easier tasks all day. When you finally got to the one important task, the day was wrapping up. It wasn’t your best work so you’ll have to look at it again tomorrow.

The question was innocent enough.  “Where is all of this headed?  I mean, life is pretty good right now and I’m not sure that I need this.”

This was a brilliant and bold question from one of the participants in a recent Train Your Brain series I was running at a forward-thinking company.  Brilliant, in that it went straight to the heart of the matter.  Bold, in that I never imagined at this stage of the training anyone would still be asking this question, believing we had covered this earlier.

Yesterday we did the hard thing – the one that we knew was coming but our minds kept hoping would come another day.  Perhaps, a day when we were more ready.  We said goodbye to our 15-years-and 8 months-old family dog Rudy.  And if you have ever had to say goodbye to a beloved pet, you know exactly how that feels. Ugh.

But this isn’t a post about grief or loss.  It is about recognizing how fleeting and beautiful everything is and remembering to pause and truly appreciate it.  

How would you describe the workplace of 2019? Answers will vary enormously depending on your work culture and environment, but something that most of us will see is a sense of urgency, jumping from one thing to another and racing to keep up.  Too many emails to read, people to get back to, projects on the go, influencers to follow, blogs to read (this one included!), changes in your industry to be aware of, not to mention how busy most of our personal lives have become.  We live in an amazing time of abundance on so many levels, yet most of us are challenged to appreciate and enjoy it as we fight just to keep up.  

In a recent conversation I had with a leader, she said to me “The leadership team doesn’t feel the organization is changing fast enough, yet our people feel overwhelmed by the changes currently underway”.  Quite the paradox – we need to change faster, yet people are already feeling stretched to their limit.  And the dominant mindset in these situations is “Can't we find a way to help our people change faster?”  

Plans change.  Deadlines get moved up.  Someone drops the ball.   A new technology platform is launched in your organization. We live in a world of change.  Sometimes the change is good (e.g., for those who are enjoying a new iPhone).  Sometimes it's hard (e.g., for those adjusting to the new internal platform).  

We all have developed a variety of coping strategies to deal with change and the resulting stress. Some healthy, some not so healthy. 

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?