Only facing a crisis, we explore our real potential, and encounter our real identity. Only facing the limits of our existence, we push the limits of our creativity and resiliency.

At the beginning of Corona, I wrote “Be calm. Be Resilient. This too shall pass.” We did not know what was coming, but we knew we had to face the storm, rather than hiding for it, allow the wind and the rain to beat down on us, rather than avoiding it.

We had to brace for impact, but allow the impact nonetheless to knock us over; smoother and softer because we were prepared, but knocked-over nonetheless. We had to allow the storm to lift us of our feet, in the fate that we would one day be able to wake up, stand up and continue to walk.

When facing a tremendous storm, it is often better to be like the palm tree, surrender to the rain, but don’t drown, bend with the wind, but don’t break, dance and tremble on the vibrations of nature, but have faith in the strength of your roots.

The world around us will change, we will change with it, but our core remains the same.

In our core shelters our inner compass, our values and vision, our qualities and skills, our knowledge and wisdom, our tools to survive. Therefore, I wrote: “Be calm, be resilient, this too shall pass.”

Adaptation

The changed world resulted in changed needs.

Those who went along with those changes fare well, those who tried to fight, struggled. Companies that adapted to the new economic needs fare well, restaurants became meal deliverers, car manufacturers became ventilator producers. Companies that resisted, closed the doors.

Employers that adapted to the new professional needs fare well, offices were moved to home-offices, meetings went online. Employers that resisted, lost employees, customers, and thrust. People that adapted to the new psychological needs, fare well, they worked on a new work-life balance, opened up their hearts and minds for the new wave of emotions that kicked them off their feet, and licked their wounds.

People that resisted, were lost.

Change Management

The world is change, we don’t live in a vacuum, nor in a theatre play. Everything around us moves and so do we. Sometimes we have no choice, other times we are the ones that make a move. In all cases however, we have the choice to manage the change, no matter how limited our choices are to manage it.

When the storm knocks us over and drifts us away from everything we know, we still have the choice how we deal with the unknown. This does not mean we have to hide for feelings of anxiety, sadness, nor madness.

This does not mean we have to ignore the changes, and neglect the wounds it has caused.

In contrary, it means we have to explore our new situation, explore our new limitations, and our new starting point. Accepting this new starting point, rather than trying to start off from what once was, gives you a head start, since you don’t have to close the gap with your past anymore. Here you are. Here and now.

Changed Start

Further on, it means we have to explore our new feelings, and thoughts; accept them, feel them, sit in them, let them take you off your feet once again if necessary, but have thrust you’ll come down again and there you’ll still be: the core of your identity; not the material translation, but the pure centre of your being.

Once you’re there, you explored the new situation, the new feelings, the new starting point; set a new destination, aligned with your value and vision within the changed setting.

Connect the dots and start moving again.

The world has changed, but so can you. It does not make sense to fight the change, since it will make you struggle more. It does make sense to thrust on your core to find a new way in the changed surroundings.

In our fast-changing world, we’ll need change management more than ever, on all levels and all domains of life. Have thrust, we made it through Covid-19, we might have been through another big change already, and we will make it through many more changes to come. If ever facing a change again, and doubt arises if the other side will be achievable, think of the Times of Corona, and see how we did.

Knowing how to manage changes, is the key to manage your life.

 

 

This article is part of the series of Hope in Times of Corona. Read

1. How this too shall pass
2. how this times of self-isolation should not mean loneliness,
3. how you can contribute to this battle, 
4. how gratitude lights up the dark,  
5. how united we will stand strong
6. on the most util strategy in awake of a crisis 
7. how I got blown of my feet as well, but caught by many caring hands, 
8. how being calm can get us through the storm.
9. about Love in Times of Corona
10. how to discover your own talents 
11. why we need stories to hold on to 
12. how you can be creative and innovative.
13. how to spend your mot valuable assets in times of Corona.
14. how to listen to the sound of silence. 
15. How breath taking Corona really is.
16. discover the other freedoms Corona has shown us, 
17. about the new-born freedom Corona gave us.
18. about another way to exceed your personal bubble.
19. about the position of nature in this entire story
20. about nature bouncing back
21. about the crucial choice between resilience and resistance
22. about the game to play
23. about star gazing in dark times
24. About looking for Meaning
25. About how Music Connects
26. about what Easter and Corona have in Common
27. About the Shark and the Turtle
28. About the Irony of Distance
29. Why to Hold on
30. Fake News
31. about The Big Unknown we live at
32. about Feeling Alive
33. About turning obstacles into opportunities
34. about what the Birthday of my nephew learned me about life 
35. About where we should go from here?
36. About coping with incertitude
37. About the Great War and the Great Pandemic, and we should not forget
38. about history’s most important message, echoed by corona
39. How one country could rule them all
40. About how to prevent the next Green Pandemic 
41. about how we are experiencing a new episode of our history books
42. about when the poppy flowers
43. about what’s in a number
44. masks off, how a friend in need is a friend indeed
45. What’s Next. after we flattened the curve?
46. how will our personal story look like in a post-corona world?
47. why we should never let a good crisis go too waste.
48. How Spring can happen in Autumn
49. How to unlock the lockdown
50. Why education matters
51. How we can give meaning to the meaningless deaths. (rethink health care)
52. The remarkable marketability of health, or not?
53. the remarkable rewards of health
54. The queeste for global health care 
55. Health Heroes
56. Pains and Gains 
57. Solidarity 3.0
58. Work-Life Balance
59. Home sweet home
60. Real Connections
61. Leadership 3.0
62. gratitude 3.0
63. Respect 3.0
64. Humanity 3.0

Or wait until tomorrow, when I’ll shine another light on yet another positive corner of this dark times.