How To Thrive in Uncertain Times w/ Dr Joan P. Ball

In this episode Dr Joan P. Ball discusses how to thrive in uncertain times.

Background

Stop, Ask, Explore: Learn to Navigate Change in Times of Uncertainty, author, educator and transition expert Dr. Joan P. Ball offers a practical framework to help individuals, teams and organizations to prepare for turning points and transitions—at work, at home, and in between.

Drawing upon more than a decade of research and practice, Joan invites all of us to re-imagine our relationship with ambiguity and recognize the creative potential that exists in the messy middle between life’s inevitable “What Now? Moments” and what comes next.

This book introduces field-tested tools that help readers to flourish in an era of unrelenting and exponential change.

Unlike the many “how to” books that offer overly simplistic and prescriptive suggestions, Joan’s work focuses on art and practice of curiosity, wayfinding,

and discernment as a means to “learn to” make sense of uncharted territory and learn to thrive in times of uncertainty.

Highlights

Dr Joan Bell discusses how to improve relationships with change and uncertainty

Well, I think the first thing is to just acknowledge that change and uncertainty are fundamentally different than when we’re executing and have clear goals and a clear set path estimates right.

And so I think what happens is we think we can plan our way away from uncertainty, right? If we plan organize ourselves.

Well, if we take the right course or do the right, whatever it might be, that we now can have a clear and certain cause all along the way of our lives. And then we treat every change in transition, every interruption and disruption.

Like it’s surprise right each one of us was shocked that we find ourselves in transition. And I think acknowledging that change is inevitable that transitions are inevitable and they’re not only inevitable.

They’re something that we should be really grateful for because if we weren’t transitioning we wouldn’t be growing.

We wouldn’t be changing. Our lives wouldn’t be evolving. And so changing our relationship to our understanding of what it means to be in what I call my work uncharted territory, right.

We will have some times that we have clear maps and we have a clear sense of where we’re going but other times we find ourselves in uncharted territory,

and learning to navigate uncharted territory, then can become a practice that we engage in, rather than something we react to when it surprisingly comes our way.

Dr Joan Bell gives tips on how students can manage to thrive in an new environment

I think that in our kind of self help, self improvement, professional development world, we really have hyper focused on always needing to improve, as opposed to sometimes just accepting that we have a shortcoming.

And now think about how do we want to operate in the world as a person with that shortcoming.

And that’s a different strategic prompt, because now it’s a creative prompt to say, oh, when this sort of thing happens

, I tend to really get anxious. Should I bring a friend? Should I plan afford advance? Are there other things that I can integrate into my life

so that I can I accept myself as someone who sometimes gets anxious, and then just begin to explore how I can operate in the world and have

the fit between who I am and the world I want to be in? Just become something that I’m always experimenting with and exploring?

In this episode we discuss :

What inspired her to become a transition expert

How can individuals adapt to the constant changes brought on by the pandemic
Discernment as a means to learn to make sense of uncharted territory
The motivation behind her book Stop, Ask, Explore: Learn to navigate changes in times of uncertainty