When the going gets tough ....Part 1

How to handle tough Economic times…..

As a Qualified Accountant and Business Consultant I have advised and assisted many clients and individuals through tough financial and Economic times over the last 35 years.

I’ve also personally survived and thrived through some very tough Economic times indeed – and learnt a lot in the process.

This mini-series of articles outlines some of the more practical things we need to do when facing personal financial challenges – in particular let’s focus on the recent Coronavirus epidemic and its resultant impact on Business and the detrimental financial effects that means for all of us.

As I write this in late March 2020, these are indeed tough economic times….and we all face real challenges on so many levels…..

For Part 1 I just want to step back from numbers and explain the emotional stages happening to people in such a crisis or loss situation – this will allow you to recognise, acknowledge and accept these stages (unless you are superman/superwoman?) and to hopefully anticipate and handle these faster and more effectively.

I need you focused, sharp and alert in what you have to do!

Just like the Song by Billy Ocean –

           “When the going gets tough, the tough get going”

 So let’s see what’s going on in our heads and hearts in these tough situations, I’m sure you will identify with many of these during the recent global events:- 

Key Stages in Crisis or Loss 

1) Denial – “This is not happening to me”

We refuse to believe what’s happening or has happened. It helps us to survive the potential losses and negative changes we are suddenly seeing to our lives. In this stage, the real world almost starts to become a little meaningless and overwhelming. Life suddenly makes no sense. We are in a semi state of shock and denial. We go numb.

We wonder how our business will now survive, our jobs and handling redundancy, if we can go on, why we should go on. We try to find a way to simply get through each day. Denial and shock help us to cope and make survival possible. Denial helps us to pace our feelings of grief. There is a grace in denial. It is nature’s way of letting in only as much as we can handle.

As you quickly accept the reality of the events and start to ask yourself questions, you are unknowingly beginning the healing process. You are becoming stronger, and the denial is beginning to fade. But as you proceed, all the feelings you were denying begin to surface.

Defence - is the last phase of Denial as we also start to realise the reality of these new events but still fight against any change or response as we believe it may not get worse or simply still go away (Head in sand).

2 ) Anger – “someone’s going to pay for this!”

Anger is a necessary stage of any “healing” process. Be willing to feel your anger, even though it may seem endless. The more you truly feel it, the more it will begin to dissipate and the quicker you will heal. There are many other emotions under the anger and you will get to them in time, but anger is the emotion we are most used to managing.

The truth is that anger has no limits. It is natural to feel suddenly abused, wronged, deserted and abandoned, but we live in a society that fears anger. Anger is strength and it can be an anchor, giving temporary structure to the nothingness of whatever loss you are feeling. At first the grief and panic feels like being lost at sea: no connection to anything. Then you get angry at others for no reason. Suddenly you have a structure– your anger towards others.

The anger becomes a bridge over the open sea, a connection from you to them. It is something to hold onto; and a connection made from the strength of anger feels better than nothing .We usually know more about suppressing anger than feeling it. The anger is just another indication of the intensity of your love.

3) Bargaining – “Turn back time – please!”

 You now will literally do anything if only your life would be returned to its previous normality. “Please God/spirit” you bargain, “I will never do [insert guilt here!] Again if only you take me back to before this happened”.

In this process bargaining may take the form of a temporary truce. “What if I devote the rest of my life to [insert promises here]? Then can I wake up and realize this has all been a bad dream please?” We become lost in a maze of “If only…” or “What if…” statements. We want life returned to what is was; we want our job back or our customers not to leave or the bank account to be full again and everything back to normal.

We want to go back in time: …if only, if only, if only. Guilt is often bargaining’s companion. The “if only” cause us to find fault in ourselves and what we “think” we could have done differently.

It makes us suddenly look at all those things we did preceding the Events that now seem useless, detrimental and wasteful to what we now have to do.

 We may even bargain with the pain and the feelings. We will do anything not to feel the pain of this loss and dread. We remain in the past, trying to negotiate our way out of the hurt.

People often think of the stages as lasting weeks or months. They forget that the stages are responses to feelings that can last for minutes or hours as we flip in and out of one and then another. We do not enter and leave each individual stage in a linear fashion. We may feel one, then another and back again to the first one. It’s what we humans do.

4) Depression – “I don’t care!”

After bargaining, our attention moves squarely into the present. Empty feelings present themselves, and worry and grief enter our lives on a deeper level, deeper than we imagined. This depressive stage feels as though it will last forever.

It’s important to understand that this depression is not a sign of mental illness. It is the appropriate response to any great loss or bad events. We want time to stand still; We want to withdraw from everyday life, left in a fog of intense confusion and sadness, even wondering what is the point in this new world ? Depression after such losses and events are too often seen as unnatural: a state to be fixed, something to snap out of.

The first question to ask yourself is whether or not the new situation you’re now in is REALLY depressing. The loss of Economic/Financial security or threats to loved ones are very depressing situations, and depression is a normal and appropriate response. To not experience some depression during this time would be unusual. However understand it’s simply part of being human and is part of the process in healing - depression is simply one of the many necessary steps along the way.

The good news is this is the last of the stages above where you can be viewed externally to be procrastinating and hesitating and not taking action that others think is urgently needed.

It’s important to remember that in more normal circumstances you would be doing more and reacting faster - but it’s not normal circumstances – so give yourself a break – you are only human !

5) Acceptance– “Ok - let’s get on with it!”

Acceptance is often confused with the notion of being “all right” or “OK” with what has happened. This is not the case. Most people don’t ever feel OK or all right about dramatic changes in life or negative events. This stage is about accepting the reality that our world may never be the same and recognizing that this new reality is the permanent reality. We will never like this reality or make it OK, but eventually we accept it. We learn to live with it. It is the new norm with which we must learn to live.

Discarding – We implement the new actions and beliefs and seek to make the best of these new circumstances. 

We must try to live now in a world where things have changed. In resisting this new norm, at first many people want to try to maintain or return their life to as it was before. In time, through bits and pieces of acceptance, however, we see that we cannot maintain the past intact. It has been forever changed and we must readjust. We must learn to change jobs, reorganize teams, roles and businesses, learn new skills and go in new directions, reinvent ourselves and reboot our Egos in the process. Finding acceptance may be just having more good days than bad ones.

Re-bargaining – one of the sub steps where we realise that we do urgently have to change our current behaviours and activities to handle the new situation. We seek out new ideas and try to quickly find and agree a best course of action to handle the new challenges.    

As we begin to live fully again and eventually enjoy our life, we often feel that in doing so, we are betraying our previous Lifestyle, Ego or status. We will never replace what has now been lost, but we can make new connections, new meaningful relationships and new inter-dependencies. Instead of denying our feelings, we listen to our needs; we move, we change, we grow, we evolve.

We start to rebuild and reach out to others and become involved in their lives. We reinvest in our friendships and in our relationship with ourselves. We begin to live again, but we cannot do so until we have given all of these different stages their time.

Conclusion

During difficult economic and financial situations - Whilst I’m normally droning on to clients about their cashflow statements, income streams and restructuring options, their heads are normally still deep in the many complex emotional stages described above.

No wonder it can take time for us all to react and meet the difficult circumstances in our lives....

After all we are not robots – we are complex and wonderful human beings with spirit to guide us and protect us in such tough times….

In part 2 we will look at more areas to manage tough time and tough decisions

until then - keep calm and carry on !

Neil

About the Author

Neil Prior (FCCA) has been a Currency Trader and Trainer for over 20 years and is also a qualified Accountant and Business consultant with over 35 years experience with Blue Chip Corporates.