How to Turn Your Obstacles into Opportunities and Thrive amidst Crisis
One of my favorite things about the sport of Parkour or free-running is that in Parkour the obstacle is the path. The point isn’t to go around the obstacle, but instead to go straight for it, to engage and interact with it, to go over, under or through it in some way, especially if that way is fast, fluid, elegant and athletic.
This is the perfect metaphor to describe how we should respond to the present crisis so that we can turn our obstacles into opportunities.
Many businesses have had to close, for example, and are facing the obstacle of suddenly having no income. Although I can simply switch from working with my life coaching clients in person to doing phone sessions, what about my Taekwondo Academy? We will be closed for at least two or three months. Since we can’t have classes, students will stop paying their monthly memberships and we will lose a lot of income, and many of those students probably won’t come back after this is all over. That’s the obstacle.
Here is the opportunity. Those same students are stuck at home, not getting exercise, getting bored, missing their friends at the Taekwondo Academy. If we can serve them well now, we can keep our monthly income and keep them as members when this is all over, and help them through this crisis as well.
So, we are now offering our Taekwondo classes online each night, via Zoom, for all of our students. They are extremely happy and grateful to have the In-Home service and it is going to make us stronger as an academy and community.
Ask yourself what new product or service you can launch into? In what way can you tweak or change your current business model to respond to the crisis? Can you provide similar services in some remote way?
One of my clients, who owns a catering business, can no longer cater events, so he is now doing “Home Meal Deliveries” and providing gourmet food to folks delivered to their homes.
Ask yourself, if there is a change or new system you’ve been wanting to put into place, or a new skill you’ve been wanting to learn? Now is a great time to work on that project.
You can also look around in your own life and notice what needs this crisis has created to see if there is a way you can meet those same needs for others.
And if you’re not in business, ask yourself what personal changes have you been wanting to make? What projects have you been wanting to do around the house but haven’t had time for? What skill have you been wanting to develop? Then, once you have your answer, go do those things.
Whatever you do, find an opportunity to grow in some way, and you will do more than survive, you will thrive!
