Business | Self-Improvement | Entrepreneurship

Improvise, Adapt, Overcome

Set yourself up for success by adopting a survival mindset

The above quote comes from one of the most acclaimed survival experts himself: Bear Grylls. A former serviceman of the British SAS (Secret Air Service) and a survival instructor with a deep passion for adventure, Bear Grylls knows best how to face the most taxing challenges and coming out on top.

The core to his success lies within a simple to adopt, yet extremely empowering mindset: Improvise, adapt, overcome.

The good news is, you already have that mindset programmed into you; you only need to (re)learn how to use it.

Improvise

The problems that most often cause our retreat are unforeseen events and incidents, interfering with our meticulously pre-planned SOP (standard operating procedures). It’s easy to follow a guideline, but once you’re faced with a problem that is not included in these guidelines, you may risk failure.

For Bear Grylls, this is the opener in many survival scenarios. A plane crash in the wilderness with limited resources. A hostile environment, limited food, no water. Only through improvisation can he survive long enough to escape into safety. But even in less threatening environments, we can face sudden problems that challenge our will to succeed. This is the exact environment in which men like Bear Grylls start to thrive. They don’t seek the easy path but challenge themselves purposely. Survival means growing through tough scenarios.

Our survival instinct (Fight or Flight), which is there to ensure our survival, may cause us to freeze in the face of a seemingly insurmountable problem and lose our composure. It is at this moment, that your future path will divide into success and failure. And it is your mission to ensure the former. Since problems are never a part of the plan, they don’t come with an immediate solution to resolve. Though such problems may let you think that you’re about to fail, it is not yet decided. It won’t mean immediate failure if you stand up to the task and take action.

You need to divert from your plan (your fixed mindset) and start to circumvent around the problem dynamically. You need to find alternatives. That is improvisation.

• Analyze the problem calmly and try to understand its cause and effect.
• Check for the tools at your disposal and get creative in using them. A stick can become a hunting spear and software can become a powerful source of income.
• Think outside the box and try to find quick alternatives. They don’t have to be perfect, but should at least minimize the effects of the problem. It’s often enough to minimize collateral damage.

Improvisation is a talent many entrepreneurs have learned over the years and an important foundation of their success. From sudden understaffing due to sickness to unexpected results in investments and business planning, sudden problems are a part of any serious endeavor. While learning the Howto is important in becoming successful, being able to improvise in certain situations is often the deciding factor.

Adapt

After improvisation has outlined the circumstances you find yourself in, you will need to adapt to the new situation and make sure that you stay in control. You may have to ration and relocate your resources and expectations in order to adapt properly. Adapting does not only mean to react (passive action) but also to act proactively (active action). By taking the reins and working against problems without hesitation, you will be able to stay in control.

Whenever you face stress, your instinct kicks in. Your brain releases a rush of adrenaline in order to sharpen your senses. This even happens when the stress is not caused by a dangerous predator, but by a situation that throws you off your feet mentally.

Stress can affect you either negatively or positively, entirely depending on your mindset in that situation. If you stay calm and analytical in that situation, this boost of mental energy can give you the edge in critical thinking. But if you’re not used to it, the emotional and mental burden may overwhelm you.

In order to adapt responsibly, you will need to get used to this unpleasant experience and see it as a challenge rather than a problem.

• Accept the necessity of change to happen. We’re often unable to adapt, simply because we refuse to do so. We try to keep following our old path. Acceptance is required to move on.
• Focus entirely on the positive: You have survived similar experiences in the past. Draw from your experiences and find similarities to your current situation.
• Look for what you can do, then do it. If a certain path seems blocked, look for alternatives. A change of perspective can often help you with opening new doors. Try to improve new skills that will help you on your new path.

If you don’t refuse to take action and keep a positive mindset, you will quickly be able to adapt to the existing problem in new and creative ways. Even if a solution does not seem optimal, it will be worth pursuing in the long run. The alternative would be to simply succumb to failure.

Overcome

As this word already suggests, the goal is not to “defeat” a problem entirely. It is often wishful thinking to make problems go away entirely. It is not in our control to make problems disappear. But it is in our full control to overcome them and find alternative solutions.

If you have improvised by re-evaluating your situation and your relation to the problem at hand, then you are one step closer to overcoming it. This means looking for alternatives and implementing them.

By adapting to the problem and tackling the parts you can directly control and influence, you have made the second step towards overcoming it. This means adapting to your new environment and following your chosen path.

Now it’s time to take action and implement your prepared solution.

• Though you might feel uncomfortable in that new situation, it can prove to be a valuable new venture.
• You might even discover new talents and skills within yourself, which you would have never used otherwise.
• The more problems you overcome successfully, the more your confidence will grow, making you more resilient against stress factors and problems in the future.

Us humans are resilient and able to adapt naturally. Though some of us are better at it while others seem to lack behind, we can get better at it by changing our mindset and learning to improvise our ways out of stressful situations.

An example from my personal account

I have adopted this mindset myself and would like to share my example to underline its scope.

I lost my job in a corrosion repair facility in 2016. All the qualifications I own are next to useless in my current environment (a small island in Japan). I could only apply for entry-level jobs without any higher requirements. Since my Japanese is not sufficient enough to work in high-performance environments, I had to look for jobs with English-speaking environments, which are very limited.

As the available workforce on the job market currently supersedes the available positions by far, it takes a lot of time to find another job. Time, I didn’t have.

But I adapted to this new challenge and started doing it anyway.

I was faced with stacking bills, my wife was pregnant with our daughter and my general outlook on our immediate future was dim, to say the least.

In order for us to stay afloat, I had to improvise quickly. I did so by widening my horizon towards other means of generating income. Instead of applying for classical jobs on the market, I focused on a new venture: Freelancing.

My experience with freelancing was nonexistent. I’ve never majored in English literature, Marketing or other influential fields of expertise. I did not know what copywriting means, nor did I know anything about book formatting or advanced grammar.

But I adapted to this new challenge and started doing it anyway. With each fulfilled contract, my knowledge about freelancing grew, together with my list of clients and my income. I’ve started from zero because I saw myself confronted with the problem of sudden unemployment at incredibly bad timing.

Now, I’ve been freelancing for almost 5 years. I do not intend to return to a regular job, as my freelancing is providing me sufficiently.

If you’re faced with a problem, don’t throw the towel. Don’t just give up.

Improvise, Adapt, Overcome

Kevin is an editor and writer for the ILLUMINATION publication. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.