Tag Archives: adaptation

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Meeting Everyones Needs

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The greater our ability to be fully conscious of our own character, feelings, motives, and desires (i.e., self-awareness) the more will be able to change our behavior to best integrate with other people.

Adapting our behaviours in ways that resonate with our own needs (which is why we need to know what those are) but taking into account the needs of others will produce the most effective results.

Constant Adaptation

Our personalities are formed by our late teens and changing our “go-to” behaviours holistically after this point requires great effort and occurs rarely.

By our early adult years changing behaviour typically requires conscious and concerted effort with a self focus.  Others can influence how we behave but the ultimate choice of behaviour lies with us.

Constantly adapting the way we react to and provide direction for others relies on a high level of self awareness.  To change and adapt our behaviours we must consciously understand ourselves.

Motivation arises from understanding.

Focus on Everyone

While life is all about me, it is impossible to live without the interactions of others. Their understanding and support is critical, we cannot thrive without it.

Your focus needs to be founded on a base self understanding, it is all about you, however successfully navigating life’s challenges means constantly adapting the way you act to maximize the perception and thus the support of other people.

The world and people that surround us is constantly changing as a results of shifting circumstances, we need to be able to do that as well.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

The New Normal

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The usual or expected whether related to an activity, specific behaviours or standards is perceived to normal.  Although we can be surprised by things this is usually the exception or abnormal.

For the most part we become accustomed and familiar with the routines of our daily lives and expectations around travel, shopping, work etc.  Our expectations of how we do these things are fairly constant and constitute the norm.

Shifting Reality

The norm is not an absolute but if constantly shifting it not a norm.  Shifting norms generally occur gradually over time.  It is unusual for rapid alteration in the “norm” but it can occur.

The reality of how we perceive each other and our life circumstances  will typically need a drastic upheaval for a new normal to arise.

But it does happen, case in point is of course the global pandemic.

Normality Shifts

Our expectations about how we and others should behave do not arise in isolation.  Circumstances are a major driver of our perceptions, and these arise from reality.

Simply put, while we can classify actions or behaviours as normal, based  on our own perception, the determination of what constitutes normal can very much  arise from external forces outside our control.

Accept and Thrive

Adoption to the new norm is critical to our own survival.  Recognizing the need to adapt to changing circumstance is a key behaviour of all living things.

The alternative to adapting to the new norm is typically extinction.  And so as time passes the majority adapts to the needs of the external drivers and ultimately these behaviours become the new norm.

 

 

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Accepting the Future

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In his book Homo Deus, Israeli history professor  Yuval Harari explores the future in the context of the past.  His ideas prompted some interesting thoughts.

This post builds on some of the ideas in the book however, it is neither a summary or a review of the book, if you are interested you will need to read it if you have not already.

History as a Train

Consider historical human progress as a freight train moving ahead with increasing speed.  Occassionally progress is derailed but over the long term it steams ahead.

As a passenger on the train you can get off (this can be an orderly departure or a more forced one) or you can stay on for the ride accept and adapt to the changing environment as human kinds train forges ahead.

Going Faster

Intuitively, as humans capabilities progress, past advances feed future ones and the speed of progress is exponential rather than linear. 

That is, the pace and magnitude of change is probably measured in days and months versus the centuries, decades and years progress required in the past eons.

This increasing pace makes it harder to get off the train without consequence (although many still do) and it make it harder for those that stay on the train to adapt.

Artificial Intelligence

The near future holds major changes for all of us as artificial intelligence is leveraged to enhance human capabilities.

Human endeavors will change drastically as more autimation is employed and those of us staying on the train will be part of significant change.

The rest will be left behind.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Changing Direction

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Power steering makes it easier to change direction.   This catchy phrase is a little tongue in cheek, there is a point buried in here though, that is changing direction might not be a bad thing. 

As momentum builds changing course becomes more difficult, sometimes the wrong thing gets completed because it was being driven fast (I am sticking a lot of driving analogies in this post)

Canadian Gun Registry

The defunct Canadian gun registry is an example of a project that surged forward on momentum, stayed it’s course even though there were many signs a change was warranted. 

From a personal perspective gun control should be a high priority for our society, the gun registry was a poorly planned and executed idea to improve gun control and sadly rather than change direction to make it better and usable it was pushed forward in a form that ultimately imploded.  

Flexibility

The key to being able to change direction, even without the need for power steering, is the ability to adapt on the fly (in the moment as it were) but not without a conscious and clear understanding of motivation and impacts. 

Being flexible enough to recognize momentum as a powerful tool for driving activities to completion but it should not be allowed to cause a blind run for the finish line.  You could crash (auto theme again.)

Be aware of your environment, sensitive to ongoing changes and ready to adopt your approach to best fit what are often changing needs.