Learn To Adapt: 5 Ways To Boost Your Adaptability
By: Kevin Buddaeus
Tags: Entrepreneurship, Psychology, Self Improvement, Life Lessons, Change

1. Get out of your comfort zone

What forced us to grow adaptable in the first place was the lack of a comfort zone. Predators would hunt us in our favorite spots, food wouldn’t just wait for us in the refrigerator, and every wrong move was often deadly.

But nowadays, we have monotonous lives, a stable income, a secure home, and no conflict. This is our comfort zone. We can live in it today and in 30 years. As long as nothing changes, we have all we essentially need.

You aren’t looking for a better job right now, though you’re not entirely happy with the one you got.

You aren’t looking for a new home, though you still hate that the living room gets quite cold in the winter and you have to let the heater run 24/7.

And that’s what is keeping you in the same spot. Comfort.

If you were to lose your job or home tomorrow, your first reaction would be shock. What to do now? You are unprepared.

The comfort zone is a psychological state in which one feels familiar, safe, at ease, and secure. You never change your life until you step out of your comfort zone; change begins at the end of your comfort zone.

― Roy T. Bennett

But if you stop accepting your current comfortable situation as given and constantly search for ways to challenge the status quo, you will grow more flexible and adaptable to change. Not only that, but you will learn to constantly improve your system.

Start small. Go to a different restaurant next time. One that you’ve never been to before. They don’t offer any food items you like? Then order something new.

The goal is to make changes — however small — to your routine. Routine is your enemy. If you get used to something, you need to try something else. Do not settle within the status quo.

2. Change the way you think

One problem with the above is the way we usually think about tasks and outcomes. “That’s the way we’ve always done it” is a common phrase. But is it really the most effective way to do it?

Quick thinkers are resourceful. And lazy. But not in a bad way. They are lazy as in, if there’s an easier or more efficient way to do something, they will find it.

The trick is to first move outside your comfort zone, and then start working on making your new zone a new comfort zone. Then rinse and repeat.

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

— Albert Einstein

You need to change the way you think when deciding what to do and how to do it. Don’t take your current approach for the right way, the best way, or the true way. Look for flaws, find ways to improve it.

Almost every system in the world can still be improved upon today. And those who dare to try it are often the pioneers of success and change.

If you get used to change on a constant basis, then you will find it much easier to react to unforeseen changes. This will allow you to adapt quickly to new situations.

3. Accept failure and learn from it

How you deal with failure is a direct catalyst for your ability to adapt. Do you give up? Then you’re dead. Do you try again without making any changes to your approach? Then you’re still dead.

Do you analyze your mistakes and search for an alternative with better chances? That’s adapting. Learning from your mistakes and trying to improve on your past failure is adaption in progress.

Adapting is for a big part trial and error. Where there’s no trial, there won’t be any errors, but also no progress.

You don’t learn from successes; you don’t learn from awards; you don’t learn from celebrity; you only learn from wounds and scars and mistakes and failures. And that’s the truth.

— Jane Fonda

Growing a thick skin and being able to accept failure as a part of the process can help you with becoming more efficient.

You need to stay resilient when things don’t go as planned. Because when you want to test your newfound adaptability in a real situation, that’s exactly what you’ll need to do.

Many people have incredible problems with accepting failure. They try to ride a dead horse and refuse to move on. At the same time, they become hesitant to try new things, fearing it could only result in another failure.

Accept failure and siphon it for valuable experience and knowledge. Don’t get caught up with the fact something went wrong, but look at why it did. Then use that to do it better next time.

4. Know your values

As Sun Tzu once said: “If you know your enemy and you know yourself, you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.”

In order to achieve change — the battle — you need to know yourself as much as you need to know your enemy. What is important to you? What are you willing to do in order to get where you want to be?

If your will to remain the same is stronger than your will to change, then you will ultimately fail in your mission. Use your values as pivot points to set the machine in motion. It’s the leverage that will keep you motivated and engaged.

It’s very important for people to know themselves and understand what their value system is, because if you don’t know what your value system is, then you don’t know what risks are worth taking and which ones are worth avoiding.

— Ben Carson

To really get to know your values, you need to analyze yourself thoroughly. Your values are more than your basic sense of justice or common sense. Your values are both intrinsic and conditioned priorities you set in life every single day.

They define how ambitious you are, how resilient you are, and when you take risks, leaps of faith, and chances.

Mark Manson — the author of “the subtle art of not giving a f*ck” — wrote a great article to help you find your personal values, here on Medium.

Get to know your values. Because no matter how much change happens around you, your values remain the same. And they help you with taking the next step in a new situation.

5. Take a look at the bigger picture

When we’re caught up with a task, we tend to become self-centered, our vision limited. We don’t think ahead. But being able to see the entire forest is important if you want to adapt to a new situation efficiently.

You need to constantly remind yourself that there is always a bigger picture. Whether you are working as a creative for a client, or you are an author working on your next book. We always need to keep the entire picture in the frame.

If you’re working in a company, you’re working as a part of a big system. If you can understand and improve not only your own tasks but the system as a whole, you will be able to make bigger changes.

And if you understand how the entire system works, you can predict any changes that may affect you down the line. You can adapt before you will be forced to adapt.

You definitely have to think of the perception of things before you actually do certain things. It may not seem like it’s a big deal to you yourself, but there’s a bigger picture.

— Ezekiel Elliott

Being able to adapt means being able to understand the whole system. If something changes, but we don’t know why or how, it will catch us off-guard. And then we might stumble and fall.

Whenever a company or entrepreneur has written a success story, they did so by seeing the bigger picture. They did not only adapt to their immediate environment or situation, but to a whole ecosystem of change.

Learn to understand the entire system. Question how and why things are interweaved, and you will have a much easier time adapting to certain changes.