Time to be “Presponsive”?

‘There is nothing permanent except change.”   Heraclitus

What’s the first word that comes to your mind to complete this sentence: “Change is ____.”    The most common answer from my workshops over the years is “hard.”  The fact is, change is many things, and perhaps the most accurate answers would be “continual” and “inevitable.” 

When the impact of COVID-19 began, some changes happened quite quickly.  Professionally, we had to rethink how we would provide healthcare and how to be both safe and effective in doing so.  Personally, entire lives of many were upended by “stay at home” orders, “social distancing,” school and business closures, personal PPE, “supply chain” disruptions, and the COVID-19 disease itself.   

And as we now know, though much of this change was and continues to be quite challenging, glimmers of some positive aspects of the pandemic emerged as well.  With many being forced to “slow down,” family and social connections were enhanced, “community” was reconsidered, hobbies were “dusted off,” and creativity and possibility-thinking emerged. 

All that happened as a “reaction” to the pandemic, or perhaps in some cases, as a more thoughtful response.  Now that we are in the middle of it (we may not even be at halftime yet), what might a proactive, “presponsive” approach – taking a more deliberate and conscious approach to the direction of our lives despite inevitable external change – look like?   Perhaps a good place to start would be to ask yourself, “What changes was I longing for even before COVID that now seem even more compelling?”

None of us created the circumstances caused by the pandemic, but we have the choice as how we change because of them, or perhaps even regardless of them.   One thing we can count on is that there’s more change coming.  so knowing where your “growing edge” is and what change you desire and then implementing a well-thought-out action plan despite external circumstances would seem to be a wise approach to that change.   That would certainly be what being “presponsive” would look like.