Finding balance and purpose after "Life Ambushes"
Clive Wilson
Author of "Leading Beyond Sustainability"; "Leading a Purposeful Life"; "Designing the Purposeful World”; & “Designing the Purposeful Organization"; speaker, facilitator and coach.
As a coach and specialist in "Purposeful Leadership", and as a human being, a member of a family and a friend, I frequently find myself in conversations with people who have been "ambushed by life". The word "ambush" really resonates and I confess to having borrowed it from Jason Redman and his inspiring TEDx talk linked below:
The ambushes I've explored with people I know include the loss of a loved one, a personal illness or injury, divorce, a forced change of career and the need to provide long-term care for a loved-one.
One of my most poignant recent conversations was with a friend whose wife had early onset Alzheimer’s.? She was diagnosed about a decade previously and, as is often the case, the decline was gradual.? It started as a minor inconvenience with a little memory loss but became more severe as the years and months passed.? At the time of our conversation, John (name changed to preserve confidentiality) had taken early retirement to care for his wife.? At that time, he was still able to take some time out whilst others stood in for him at home.? Since that conversation things have declined rapidly and it has become difficult for anyone other than professional carers to stand in for John.
In our conversation, John remained amazingly positive and shared that, despite the challenge he faced, the situation had given him a powerful purpose – to care and provide the best possible life for his wife.?The playing out of this has included adapting their home, dealing with unpredictable behaviour, coping with loss of sleep and much more.
The journey ahead for John will require frequent re-evaluation and rebalancing.?It will always be a hard compromise but I am confident his positivity and support network will carry him through.?And he will always be able to look back and reflect on the amazing difference he made to his wife’s life.
With this brief case study in mind, let me return to Jason Redman’s story at TEDx.?One of the things I enjoyed was Jason’s offering of a simple but powerful “REACT” acronym and system which I have retyped below for those who might benefit from it.
The thing I really like about this system is it can be applied to any “life ambush” or unexpected change in circumstance.?I reflect that I have subconsciously used this approach personally and with clients – even for much less severe ambushes than those experienced by Jason and by John.?No unexpected situation is too trivial or too severe to tackle in this systematic way.
Another helpful and simple tool for dealing with resilience is available through Primeast and can be accessed free of charge.?I’ve used this on occasions when I’ve felt stretched and out of balance.?It takes very little time but provides useful pointers to conversations to have with a coach, family or friends.
We live in challenging times that will test personal and corporate resilience for many of us.?If you’d like to explore these issues in a no-obligation conversation, feel free to contact me or any of the Primeast Team.