How good are you at handling adversity? Family problems, financial difficulties, health issues, relationship problems, the impact of crime, major hassles with service providers and so on. Well, this week’s world-class thinker Dr. Paul Stoltz has developed a measure of the attitudes and skills that enable you to turn obstacles into opportunities. He calls it the Adversity Quotient (AQ) and it measures two key differentials of success: persistence and resilience.
Paul Stoltz is not only a research psychologist; he is also an experienced mountaineer. So he uses a mountaineering metaphor to explain how different people deal with our human drive to ascend; to move forward and upward in our instinctual effort to achieve whatever goals we have set ourselves in the limited time we have. In our metaphorical ascent through life we meet three types of people; they have different responses to life’s ascent and we can readily spot them in our organisations, our cities, our towns and village. Also, we ourselves fit into one of the three categories.
First, there are the Quitters: those who opt out, back out, drop out and choose to ignore their core drive to achieve. Their lifestyle is compromised: they have abandoned their dreams and do just enough to get by. In their relationships Quitters shy away from the challenges of commitment; instead they join those who bitch about “the system” as this allows them to vent without doing anything to put things right.
Second, there are the Campers: people who have stopped achieving and ascending and opt instead for comfort and security, and so try to avoid adversity. They are less compromised than Quitters, but they have sacrificed what could be for the illusion of keeping what is. Campers do what is required and have some initiative and drive, but they sacrifice their true potential and opt for relationships and lifestyles that avoid discomfort and are seemingly “safe”.
Third, there are the Climbers: they are dedicated to a life-long ascent; they energetically explore possibilities and live life with a sense of passion and purpose; they enjoy the journey! Climbers are true learners who overcome setbacks, make things happen and strive for their goals. They are unafraid to explore new frontiers and are unafraid of the potential and pain that accompanies deep relationships.
Paul Stoltz posits four dangerous forks in the trail to the top. The “Climber-turned-Camper” option offers the illusion that the campsite will stay stable; but waiting out the storm can lead to waiting out your life, and you risk physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual atrophy! Then there is the “Technology-as-God” option which is a shift from faith in human solutions to technical ones: technology, not teams of people, will tackle the major problems and issues we face; the “I can’t do anything but someone will invent something, someday” mentality. The third dangerous fork in the trail is the “Pump-up” option. This is the search for the quick fix, the motivational speaker type of solution. Tempting tools that offer pump rather than sustainable content, where euphoria dies quickly, leaving little change. His final fork is the “Helpless-Hopeless” option. Helplessness in the face of adversity can change to hopelessness which sucks one into a vortex of despair. Helplessness is a cancer of the soul for individuals, groups, teams and organisations.
Instead of taking any of the dangerous forks in the trail to the top of your life’s calling, Stoltz says you can strengthen your Adversity Quotient by dealing with the “CORE” elements that determine the level of your persistence and resilience.
C = Control: this is your perceived control over adverse events. When faced with adversity it is vital that you search for ways of increasing your control over the situation. Even if it is exercising greater control over your emotions. There is always something you can do to increase your feeling of control; find it! High AQ people are relatively immune from feeling helpless and unable to control at least part of what is happening.
O = Origin & Ownership: origin is who or what caused the adversity. Here Stoltz says it’s important that we see the bigger picture and don’t simply blame ourselves: “it’s all my/our fault”; “I’m such an idiot” or “we’re just not good enough”. Ownership is accepting accountability for doing something about the adverse situation: “we can learn from our mistakes and do something to correct the situation”
R = Reach: how far we allow any particular adversity to reach into other areas. Do we turn bad events into huge catastrophes? Do we allow them to spread like wildfire and to bleed into other areas? Or are we more likely to limit the reach of the event at hand; deal with adversity in discreet, chewable chunks?
E = Endurance: how long you think the adversity and its causes will last. People with a low AQ tend to think “things will never get better”; “this country/city is doomed”; “the whole local government system is going down the tubes” People with a high AQ are likely to consider adversity as temporary, fleeting and unlikely to recur; they see light at the end of the tunnel no matter how long the tunnel is.
If you are currently facing adversity, Paul Stoltz says don’t give in: difficulty is the nurse of greatness; a harsh nurse who roughly rocks her foster-children into strength and ability. Life is truly known only to those who suffer, lose but endure adversity through persistence and resilience. And emerge resurgent on the other side.
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