Adaptability & Flexibility

Change is hard…

“It’s essential to grasp that what worked yesterday might not be the best strategy for tomorrow, so a willingness to unlearning skills and acquiring new ones is crucial. People must be cognitively flexible to new ideas and ways of doing things.”  Human Resources Online

We moved around a lot when I was growing up. And not just down the block or to a new neighborhood. I mean, to a completely different state. To my knowledge, I’ve spent time in Wisconsin, Montana, Louisiana, Ohio, Iowa, Kansas, and again, back to Iowa. Changing schools, making new friends, learning the system. Change was hard.

Likewise, change in daily life is hard. We like consistency, we like patterns, we like the known. When things are stable, we get to know who we are, our roles, and how we fit into the larger picture. When something disrupts that, we have to reestablish ourselves. Therein lies the fear. That feeling of “what if I can’t do this? “ or “what if I’m not (fill-in-the-blank) enough?” or “what if I don’t know what I’m doing?” Yeah, change is hard.

Yet, change is a part of everyday life. In our work, our schools, our homes. We’re in a state of constant change. We can even predict it: in the next 5 - 10 years, at least one-third of the jobs as we know them today won’t even exist. Don’t believe me? Check out the Amazon Go store or observe the self-checkouts at your local grocery. 

Knowing we have to deal with change, can’t we find a way to make change easier to accept? Of course we can! The answer lies in studying applied improvisation. 

As we perform in improv, we have to be ready for change. Without a script, we never know what a scene partner may say or do. A scene may be headed down one direction. Everyone in the scene agrees on where the scene is headed. Until, ... another performer enters with a new idea. Suddenly the scene has taken a left instead of a right. We have a number of choices,  some of which are our natural instinct: 

• Flight - we could just let the scene die by finding a reason to exit the scene.

• Fight - everyone in the scene begins arguing while trying to get the scene “back on track.” 

• Freeze - everyone in the scene could just freeze and the scene goes nowhere.

None of these options are anything an audience wants to watch. 
What if we had a fourth option? What if we grab onto that new idea, that change? What if we accept it and incorporate it into whatever happens next? Maybe we create something that is the most hilarious thing an audience has seen. Maybe we create something that moves the audience emotionally. Maybe, just maybe, we make some magic.

By embracing change, we have the opportunity to make magic in our daily lives. As we study and apply the skills of improvisation, we lower our resistance to change. We accept that change is going to happen, one way or another. We build our confidence that we will be successful even if we don’t feel confident. We become comfortable knowing that we may not know what to do, but it’s okay to figure it out on the way. We trust our skills, and those around us, to feel we are enough. 

We always have a choice to embrace change. Applied improvisation gives us the tools to choose: flight, fight, freeze, or embrace? 

How do you react to change? What could you do to become more comfortable with change? Post a reply below!