With our recent relocation to the UK from South Africa, and our decision to work towards being location independent, Andy and I have had alot of change over the past 6 months, and needless to say, we’ve been doing alot of learning. I’ve been learning about building a sustainable location independent business structure, about online marketing, about the value of collaborating with other people, and about software and technology for creating audio programs and running teleclasses and managing newsletters and running my online shopping cart and building my blog and website… (breathe!). For someone who wasn’t much of a techie before, it’s been alot of learning. But probably my biggest learnings have been about myself and how I deal with fear, change and uncertainty, and where I get my sense of security from.

Some days living with just 20kg of personal belongings and knowing that we’re not “tied down” by any long-term plans is enormously liberating, and other days I find the uncertainty and abundance of options intolerable and I have to hold myself back from signing a 2-year gym contract just to give myself a smidgen of the illusion of certainty about the future. Because it was a nice illusion to have…

Of course we could have stayed in Cape Town in our beautiful cottage that we own, and continued to enjoy spending time with our good friends and family who are all there. Andy would have stayed in his job where he was earning well, and I would have continued enjoying my full coaching practice. We would probably have continued to be content, successful and secure…

maybe…

Over the past 6 months we’ve all seen alot of people in that same “secure” lifestyle lose their jobs, struggle to find good work, and battle with great uncertainty about their financial futures. Whether you’ve been affected directly or indirectly, this recession is giving us all the opportunity to discover how we deal with fear, change and uncertainty, and to re-evaluate where we get our sense of security from.

Actually, it’s not just about the recession.

This recession is one of many shifts in the world that are demanding that we learn how to work with fear, change and uncertainty. Technological advancements and globalisation have created an abundance of information and choices and we’re dealing with a faster pace of life, more change and greater uncertainty than ever before. Economies, industries and career paths that used to be secure are no longer. Power is shifting from West to East. More and more jobs can be done by a computer or outsourced to be done more cheaply in a developing country. And the pace of change and degree of uncertainty that comes with all these changes is only going to continue to increase exponentially as technology continues to advance and the world becomes “flatter.”

And if you really want to blow your mind as you think about future possibilities, check out Richard Watson’s book, Future Files (…ethical dilemmas about whether it’s okay to make love to a robot, and the introduction of a second human species that are genetically modified!) and this TED video presentation about the future of the internet by Kevin Kelly.

So what does the future hold?

That’s the big question we all want answered, isn’t it? Because if we had an answer to that question, then change, uncertainty and fear probably wouldn’t be a problem. Nobody likes uncertainty, and when we find ourselves in a situation of uncertainty, we either try to claw back to the old familiar world or we try to quickly paste a new answer over the gaping void so that it doesn’t feel like a gaping void anymore.

I love the way Clay Shirky has summed up his thoughts, in reference to the change, uncertainty and fear that the newspaper industry is dealing with:

“That is what real revolutions are like. The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place. The importance of any given experiment isn’t apparent at the moment it appears; big changes stall, small changes spread. Even the revolutionaries can’t predict what will happen… When someone demands to know how we are going to replace newspapers, they are really demanding to be told that we are not living through a revolution. They are demanding to be told that old systems won’t break before new systems are in place. They are demanding to be told that ancient social bargains aren’t in peril, that core institutions will be spared, that new methods of spreading information will improve previous practice rather than upending it. They are demanding to be lied to. There are fewer and fewer people who can convincingly tell such a lie.”

So how do we live with all this uncertainty and change?

Overcoming the challenges and leveraging the opportunities of this era demands a specific set of skills – what I call “Agile Living Strategies.” The Dictionary defines “Agile” as:

…marked by ready ability to move with quick, easy grace, as in an “agile dancer”
…having a quick, resourceful and adaptable character, as in “an agile mind”

The word “agile” refers to both mind and body, and it’s about being able to be responsive, flexible and adaptable, and being able to change in an effortless and elegant way.

In one of her recent posts, in reference to Clay Shirky’s article, Colleen Wainwright was spot-on in summing up the importance of Agile Living Strategies and how we can deal with all this change and uncertainty stuff.

“As individuals, I guess we all need to do what we can to get grounded and still stay receptive. For the first time in six or so years, I’m thinking I’ll take another stab at sitting meditation. Maybe… Stay tuned. Stay steady. But flexible, too. I think flexibility is going to be more and more important.”

Core Agile Living Strategies:

There are four core Agile Living Strategies for thriving in the increasing change and uncertainty in the world, and I’m going to be sharing more about these strategies with you in upcoming posts:

1.) Develop your ability to create a calm, clear and resourceful mind amidst chaos, change and uncertainty:
This is the most important Agile Living Strategy because the quality of your thinking is what will determine the quality of your responses and ultimately the results you get. Fear clouds your thinking and shuts off creativity. When we have a calm, clear mind we’re much more resourceful and creative.

2.) Develop your ability to easily and comfortably change your thoughts, feelings, behaviour and skills, and get comfortable with the change process:
If what you’re doing isn’t working, you need to do something different. And if you can easily learn new internal and behavioural responses and be familiar and comfortable with the psychological process of changing yourself, you’ll be flexible enough to adapt until you get the results you want.

3.) Develop your ability to utilise your whole mind:
As technology advances and more and more of the left-brain-directed tasks can be done by computers or outsourced to be done more cheaply in developing countries, the people who’s skills will be most valued in the market will be the people who have developed their right-brain-directed thinking skills and are able to use their WHOLE mind – the story-tellers, the empaths and the creatives. Dan Pink does a great job of explaining this in his new book, “A Whole New Mind.”

4.) Develop your ability to identify and dissolve societal and personal limiting assumptions:
One of the greatest obstacles to Agile Living is the assumptions, generalisations and rules we make up – in order to create a sense of certainty in the world. Even though they’re illusions, we’re usually very attached to them, and they can feel like very real obstacles. Being able to recognise and dissolve ideas that hold you back is a core Agile Living Strategy that will enable you to adapt and find new ways of being the person you want to be and doing what you love as the world continues to change.

What’s it like when you imagine being ready and able in both mind and body to move and adapt quickly, gracefully and resourcefully in your work and other areas of your life?

Free teleseminar – How to Grow Through Fear

If you’re keen to learn more about living with fear and uncertainty, you still have time to sign up for my teleseminar, “How to Grow Through Fear” on Wed 1 April, 7pm BST/ 11am PST. Just fill out the form below and you’ll be emailed the call details.

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