"It is what it is" should be retired in the COVID-19 era. Here's why.

It was one of his favorite sayings. 

“It is what it is.”

Until that point I’d always taken that statement to mean that we must face reality and deal with the situation we’re facing. Improvise, adapt, and overcome. Face the challenge that’s set before us, overcome it, and move on. No more, no less. Drive on and keep going.

Until that day.

It was an aggressive illness. The medical options were dwindling. Hope was eroding. This was the end of the line. And on that day, he said it. 

“It is what it is.”

This time it was a defeated tone. Resigned. Done. And he was right. It didn’t last much longer after that. Since then, I silently bristle whenever I hear someone say it. 

In recent days I’ve talked a lot about the concept of #resilience with coworkers, friends, and family. We face extraordinary times these days with #COVID19. At the time I’m writing this, there is no clear answer on when this will end and things might return to normal.  Resilience means true mental and physical toughness. It can help us to deal with things as they are and not as we want them to be. It can help us improvise, adapt, and overcome. 

This is why I use the phrase #ChallengeEveryDay in my personal and professional life. It means two things to me: 

1. Each day, challenges confront us.

 We are challenged in business, in school, at home, and in our relationships. Obstacles are set in front of us. Complete the project. Write the report. Build the business. Finish the article. All too often, we face so many of these challenges in a single day that we wonder whether it's physically possible to finish it all. But we keep working hard anyway. 

2. Each day is an opportunity to challenge ourselves.

We can set new goals for ourselves. We can choose to go back to school. We can learn a new software system. We can register for a class in a hobby we've never tried before. We can start a side business. We can make a commitment to go for a run. We can make healthier food choices. We can read a book on better business strategies or personal development. We can try cooking something we've never tried before. We can go sing karaoke for the first time, even though we're deathly afraid of being on stage. We can do new things just for the sake of trying something completely different.

Honestly there are days when I fall well short in both scenarios. Sometimes the challenges I confront get the best of me and I don't overcome them. Sometimes I do not take advantage of the opportunity to set a new goal for myself or to try something outside the ordinary. But there’s an opportunity in those failures, too: the opportunity to learn resilience. As Edgar Guest's poem says, "success is failure turned inside out." I have the opportunity to pick myself up, dust myself off, re-group, and re-engage the next day. To test, refine, and increase my resilience.

That's why I no longer like the phrase, "It is what it is." It implies hopelessness. Powerlessness. It implies that we can't do anything about the situation in which we find ourselves. I do not believe that is true. 

Instead of saying "It is what it is," I now say, "It is what we make of it."

These times are uncertain. We do not know when things might go back to normal. In many respects, we might wonder what 'normal' will look like when this is all over. We can choose how to respond to the challenges we face. We can also choose to challenge ourselves. We can make a choice about how we respond to these trying times, each and every day. We can choose to #ChallengeEveryDay.