There are so many dif­fer­ent views about al­most every­thing un­der the sun. Life no mat­ter how we try to keep it sim­ple, it’s com­plex. Hu­man be­ings are com­plex be­ings. You think you solve a prob­lem on­ly to dis­cov­er that a very well-in­ten­tioned so­lu­tion on­ly opens an­oth­er Pan­do­ra box of un­in­tend­ed con­se­quences.

Re­gard­less, one con­stant I be­lieve that will al­ways be im­por­tant is a will­ing­ness to keep learn­ing.

Some­time last year, I was read­ing the spring 2021 edi­tion of the Har­vard Busi­ness Re­view- a spe­cial edi­tion. The theme of the spe­cial is­sue was “How To Build Ca­reer Re­silience -  Re­cov­er from set­backs, get un­stuck and pre­pare your­self for the fu­ture”.  

Two ar­ti­cles, in par­tic­u­lar, caught my at­ten­tion- one writ­ten by Dorie Clark and Pa­tri­cia Carl en­ti­tled: “How to Re­set Your Goals Dur­ing a Cri­sis”. The oth­er is by Ser­e­na Chen - “Give Your­self a Break: The Pow­er of Self-Com­pas­sion”.

Dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic which is still on­go­ing men­tal health has be­come a full-on pri­or­i­ty. The dis­rup­tion and dev­as­ta­tion - the un­cer­tain­ty and un­pre­dictabil­i­ty - the doom and gloom have every­one un­der ex­treme and un­prece­dent­ed stress and pres­sure.

Add in the bru­tal re­al­i­ty of so­cial me­dia. The in­tense and re­al-time—24-hour × sev­en-day scruti­ny—the can­cel cul­ture, mis­in­for­ma­tion. It has been an in­ces­sant boil­ing point. Burnout, frus­tra­tion, hope­less­ness, and pes­simism are pre­dom­i­nant. Peo­ple are just fed up.

The eco­nom­ic cir­cum­stances are un­cer­tain. Lay-offs are all around. Many are try­ing to fig­ure out what are their op­tions. How do they cope? How do they bounce back? How do they stay pos­i­tive in these un­prece­dent­ed tough times? How do they re­cov­er emo­tion­al­ly?

Re­cent­ly, I was telling some­one: “Fear Not! What­ev­er the cri­sis there are op­por­tu­ni­ties.” But in tak­ing that ap­proach I al­so recog­nised the need to have em­pa­thy.  Be­cause of the re­al­i­ty of COVID-19 on all fronts of hu­man ex­is­tence in­clud­ing the loss of loved ones. Peo­ple have be­come bit­ter. They have lost trust in lead­ers. They are lash­ing out and blam­ing.

I ac­cept there is a del­i­cate line be­tween main­tain­ing a con­fi­dent and op­ti­mistic out­look on life and giv­ing the im­pres­sion you are dis­miss­ing or di­min­ish­ing some­one’s pain.

In the ar­ti­cle, I men­tioned ear­li­er writ­ten by Chen, the writer made the point that when peo­ple ex­pe­ri­ence a set­back it’s com­mon to re­spond in one of two ways. Ei­ther, we be­come de­fen­sive and blame oth­ers, or we be­rate our­selves.

The ar­ti­cle fur­ther ar­gued that nei­ther re­sponse is help­ful. That while avoid­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty by get­ting de­fen­sive may al­le­vi­ate the sting of fail­ure but it comes at the ex­pense of learn­ing. Self-fla­gel­la­tion as the writer de­scribes it can lead to the un­der­min­ing of per­son­al de­vel­op­ment.

It’s a lot to take in—peo­ple are just tired, frus­trat­ed, wor­ried, stressed out, and need not just help but as­sur­ance. Lead­ers need to re­build trust. Like every­thing else that we all have to deal with, it all seems eas­i­er said than done. But to move past the cri­sis and move for­ward, we must face the re­al­i­ty and com­plex­i­ty and all else. Yes, it’s eas­i­er said than done but we have to get it done.

There is no turn­ing back. In mov­ing for­ward, we must take care of our men­tal and phys­i­cal health they are of equal im­por­tance. Not every­thing will fit neat­ly in our time-line or sched­ule. You can’t rush progress; it is what it is. It will take as long as it takes.

A clear view in a com­plex word—life is not de­ter­mined by what you want. Life is de­ter­mined by the choic­es you make. Sport is a mi­cro­cosm of life. As in life so it is in sport. One step at a time, one day at a time, one train­ing ses­sion at a time.

Fear Not! We will over­come. 

Ed­i­tor's Note

The views ex­pressed by the writer are not the views of any or­gan­i­sa­tion in which he has an in­ter­est.