So 2020 Isn’t Going To Plan? Let Go And Embrace The Curves

Life is full of curve balls. Some you sense are coming around the corner. Others hit you out of nowhere. There’s no time to duck or put plans in place. Instead it strikes you out of nowhere, knocks you to the ground and leaves your head spinning... wondering What the heck?!

A lot of people are feeling like that right now. Like their whole world has just been jolted off its axis with no warning and no playbook for how to respond.

You’ve likely already encountered a few curve balls. They are, after all, inevitable. But many people have never experienced anything remotely as destabilizing to their sense of security, safety and certainty as this. Particularly the younger among us who simply haven’t been alive long enough. You know, like anyone under seventy-five.

Back in March (the longest March in history), a group of varsity athletes created a Facebook group to protest the decision to cancel their final athletic season. “We have the right to play,” one upset young man wrote, “and this is a violation of our basic freedom.” “This is just wrong,” protested another,“People can’t just do this.”

And yet people did. Not to ruin their lives, but to protect many others.

The reality is that the ‘assumptive world’ - a term used by psychologists to describe the mental maps we create about how the world should be - of many people has been squarely turned on its head by this pandemic. When our conviction that something that just ‘can’t happen’ actually does happen, it leaves us both mentally perplexed and emotionally ungrounded.

Little wonder so many people feel so anxious right now. Little wonder so many have fallen into fearcasting, conjuring up worst-case scenarios that can cause more suffering than the source of the fear itself. All of which just stoke further stress.

Of course when the world as you knew it gets upended, it’s only natural to feel off-kilter. But consider the person you would be today if everything you had ever wished for, planned for, or worked hard for, had turned out precisely as you wanted.

If your parents had given you everything you’d ever asked for.

If your first crush had declared their undying love and never again left your side.

If you’d won lotto at 18 and never had to work those minimum wage jobs that taught you more about life and the value of money than any economics class.

The truth is that every curve ball - whether in the form of a disappointment and derailed plan, a setback and struggle - has provided you with an invaluable lesson and unique opportunity for growth.

Likewise, if you’ve been fortunate enough to avoid all curveballs up until now - if you’ve won every competition and accomplished every goal... in record time - then consider that you're currently getting a masterclass in building resiliency skills beyond anything you could learn in any book or classroom.

Sure, it’s not fun. Some days may be incredibly hard going. The uncertainty ahead may sit like a rock in the pit of your stomach. But that doesn’t mean this time is not rich in opportunity for you to learn something - about yourself, about life, and about the world - that you can benefit from long after this crisis is over.

In my late 20's while working in Papua New Guinea, I was in an armed robbery and had three consecutive miscarriages soon after. It was an upsetting time as my hopes and expectations collided head-on with reality. Yet those events ultimately led to an experience of Post Traumatic Growth and shifted the trajectory of my life - personal and professional - in all good ways.

The same is true for you right now. View your problems, and this pandemic, through the ‘this shouldn’t happen to me’ lens and they’ll trigger enormous angst, stress, frustration, fear, and perhaps a solid dose of ‘woe-is-me’ self-pity. This is the lens that expects life to conform to your master plan, one that’s likely built on the privileged assumption that 'bad things don’t happen do good people' (like your good self), and that hard work should always pay off in short order.

Ahhh, if only.

A study by Yale psychologist Charles A. Morgan III of naval personnel that simulated being captured and interrogated by an enemy force found that those who embraced adversity as part of living were less likely to exhibit symptoms that could develop into PTSD and were more likely to experience Post Traumatic Growth. Likewise, research by Martin Seligman from University of Pennsylvania, found that it is how we interpret our setbacks (and not the setbacks themselves) - whether through the lens of self-pity and pessimism or through opportunity and optimism - that determines future success and wellbeing.

Viewing life through the lens of ‘it’s not fair’ sets you up for feeling perpetually stressed out, put out, or peeved off. In doing so, it prevents you from growing from the experience and harnessing your full range of resources (like your creativity, connections and courage) to improving it.

However there is another lens, and it is not wearing Pollyanna’s rose-tinted glasses. Rather it views life as though every adversity can hold the seed of an equal or greater benefit if we look for it. Not immediately, no obviously...but ultimately. To quote Dr Ellen Langer from Harvard University: 

‘Even the gnarliest problems can be turned into a win if we look for it.’

This lens is grounded in faith and forged in optimism. It operates on the premise that everything works out in the end so if it hasn’t worked out yet, it’s not yet the end.

It knows that setbacks happen, but it’s what you do after the fact that matters far more.

It knows that sadness is a natural response to loss which should be fully honored and not avoided.

Yet it also knows that while you’re not always responsible for your experiences in life, you are always responsible for your experience of life.

And last but not least, it knows that even when all hope seems futile, there is always a reason to hold onto hope and that nothing is ever truly, wholly, a lost cause as it may first appear on the surface level. As I shared in You’ve Got This!, reflecting on the tragic death of my brother Peter after a long battle with mental illness, no matter how great our grief in what has been lost, there is always a gift that can be salvaged from what remains. Always.

So if your spirits have been flattened by the weight of this crisis, give yourself space to process how you’re feeling. Then commit to finding the gift that is hidden in your new reality.

Yet while our plans often follow a straight path, life does not.

You may never relish life's curveballs, its ‘plot twists’ or setbacks. But you’ll be happier when you embrace them as an inevitable part of your journey, trust your innate capacity to handle them and proactively seek out ways to transform them into a catalyst for some higher good.

Since leaving my parents small dairy farm at eighteen, my plans have unravelled countless times. In recent years, I’ve had more than my share of curveballs as my husband has been moved around the world by his employer dispersing our family across three continents. And more recently, with him falling ill to COVID-19 in the midst of trying to launch my new book and adapting my leadership programs to a world turned virtual overnight.

But you know what? I would not be half the person I am today without those challenges. Likewise, while this pandemic has impacted our livelihoods and upended our lives, it doesn’t have to ruin them. In fact, it could actually be introducing us to aspects of our humanity on a whole new level all the while uncovering a new path that may, in the end, be more rewarding than the one we were on. After all, who says your plans were so brilliant anyway?

Some of the most valuable chapters of our lives don't get a title until much later.

So if I invite you to take a few moments to reflect on this question:

What would I do differently if I decided to view this disruptive experience as necessary for me to grow into the fullest version of the person I have it within me to become?

If even pondering that thought lightens your load a little, then maybe there's something to it.

Embrace the curves. Trust in yourself. Not only does life rarely unfold along the direct path of your plans, but its greatest opportunities often appear from the turns you didn’t see coming.

Margie Warrell is facilitating virtual programs to help organizations lead through this crisis with more courage and resilience. Information and reviews here.

She's also just released her fifth book You’ve Got This! The Life-Changing Power of Trusting Yourself.