How do you score on your "AQ"?
I have a love / hate relationship with change; once I'm in the middle of it, I love it, it's exciting but in the build up to change, I hate it, because deep down I'm scared of it and what it might entail.
Lately, I've been reading more and more about "AQ", in other words "Adaptability Quotient". Many of us know that the demise of Blockbuster came about because they didn't adapt quickly enough to launch a rival streaming service to Netflix. Likewise with the Lotus 123 spreadsheet program, they sat back when Microsoft's Excel came along.
But it's not only companies who need to improve their AQ to stay ahead of the game, we as human beings need to get better with our AQ. The world is changing at an unbelievably fast pace and, like Blockbuster and Lotus 123, if we stand still, then we'll become obsolete. That's a harsh way to put it but there's not much point in sugar coating it.
Don't panic! This doesn't mean stepping away from who you are as a person and starting to do lots of things you don't really want to do. It simply means looking at other ways you can use your strengths. For example, when lockdown came along, I had to stop all my 121 sessions and boot camps with my fitness clients. Immediately, I started to think about what else I could do to help my clients during this difficult period, otherwise both their physical and mental health would suffer and I would lose both clients and income. I was apprehensive, and so were lots of my clients, but I knew that I would have to start using Zoom and making videos. I had to educate both myself and my clients to get to grips with the technology. Would it work? Thank goodness it did! Best of all, my clients loved the fact that they could still see each other, interact and get their exercise done - I think it saved all of us and kept us sane!!
Work (as in my day job!) is slightly different because there's more things out of my control when it comes to change so it scares me more. I need to apply the same principles I use for my fitness business to my day job. In other words, how can I improve upon my strengths in order to become more adaptable. Especially now that I'm a "woman of a certain age" (aarghh I hate that phrase), I don't want people to think that I'm not capable of adapting any more or I don't want to learn new things anymore because that is definitely NOT the case. I love learning and will never stop learning, hence will never stop adapting.
How can you start to improve your "AQ"?
- Change your attitude - hands up if you've ever uttered those words "but that's the way I've always done it"! Oh yeah, we all have. The outcome of doing something in a different way may be brilliant, it may be disastrous ... which leads me onto my next point.
- Take more risks - it's a scary thought I know, and the outcome won't always be good, but magical things can happen when you take more risks. Don't go all in, take some small steps to begin with where you know the outcome is likely to be positive and then you can move onto taking bigger risks.
- Keep an open mind - very much in keeping with the two points above, keeping an open mind is the key to changing your attitude and taking more risks. Don't dismiss things straight away, you may not want to pursue them further, but never write something off immediately. Developing an open mind means opening yourself up to new experiences, new people, new environments that are outside of your comfort zone. You'll never develop an open mind by watching, listening, doing the same things and speaking to the same people.
- Never stop learning - goes without saying that throughout your whole life, you should never stop learning, whether that's simply down to new life experiences or whether it's formal study.
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