Why Personal Agility is the Superpower we all need to thrive now

We are more distracted and stressed than ever before. With COVID 19 and the era of lifelong jobs being over, our work  and personal lives are becoming more disrupted and complex, but those who commit to continuous learning and honing their human skills will have the flexibility and confidence to adapt to this new world. People have more access to information and learning now than ever. However, many of us don't spend the time to reflect and learn. You need to be a self-driven learner and reflect more often. 

Most of us operate on auto pilot. But behaviour is learnt and we can unlearn and relearn better ways of being and doing. We need to re-align our mindsets, actions, emotions and thoughts to our values and become more conscious in our behaviour.  

If you are not open to learning and always give up when something is challenging, you can't grow. Mostof what you need work is already inside you. You can build the key practices of Personal Agility. It is a lifelong journey – a marathon, not a sprint. 

The six evidence based practices of Personal Agility are:

1. Self-Awareness - knowing your intentions and values, as well as knowing what can “push your buttons” and derail you
2. Grit – a combination of passion, perseverance and motivation
3. Focus – deliberate and focused attention, being indistractable
4. Emotional agility - listen to your values and emotions when making decisions
5. Growth mindset – leaning into discomfort, using challenges for growth
6. Clear relationships – building clear and positive relationships

Growth Mindset is the core mindset underpinning all others. It's a superpower of belief that you can learn anything if you put your mind to it. This mindset will help you thrive rather than survive. Add some Grit and you have a superpower that will help you achieve your long-term goals in the new world of work. Grit is holding onto your long-term goals even when things come up and cause delays.

Together with a growth mindset, self-awareness is a superpower that distinguishes individuals. When we know ourselves and how others see us, we can adjust our behaviour and emotions effectively and we are more approachable and confident. Most importantly, we can continually mature and grow. If you are self-aware, you can be flexible about the things you need to make adjustments on. Emotional agility helps your emotional awareness- it helps you see the possibilities despite your overwhelming emotions. It saves you from your brain’s natural bias to negativity and helps you choose a more effective way forward. Together with emotional agility, emotional courage helps you lean into the emotions appropriately. 

Finally, you have to commit to being more focused and building deeper relationships. Spend more time on deep and meaningful activities and less on busy or shallow work and interactions. Being focused is a superpower that will make you more productive and thus deliver high-quality work faster. Our brain depends on mutual stimulation and beneficial interactions with others for its survival. Without it, neurons die, but our relationships are, in the words of Professor Gervase Bushe, characterised by interpersonal mush as we try and make sense of events and others, but we never check out our own and others’ stories. This lack of clear communication leads to conflict and misunderstanding. To have clear communications and therefore more positive relationships, you need to discover and validate what other people around you observe, feel, think and want. 

You now understand the six human superpowers that you need in order to learn and thrive in the new world of work. But you should be warned: Behaviour and mindset change is not easy. It takes time. Expect your old habits and new obstacles to come up as you try to develop the superpowers that you’ve just learned. Also, don’t expect everyone around you to like the change they’ll see. So how you can develop these practices? You can use my Superpowers success journal at https://www.amazon.com.au/Knowing-Superpowers-Success-Changing-World-ebook/dp/B0881WMH6F/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=superpowers+marianne+roux&qid=1591154626&sr=8-1 or you can join my 8 week x 45 minute self-paced online learning program if you want to learn more in-depth at: https://marianne-roux.mykajabi.com/Online%20Programs.