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Years ago I wrote a post for a leadership blog about coping and based on the questions I’m hearing and the discussions I’m involved in it’s time to re-post it.

“Life is not what it’s supposed to be. It’s what it is. The way you cope with it is what makes the difference.”
–Virginia Satir

Smart lady, Virginia.

That thought, or any variation thereof, is probably the single most important concept people need to wrap their heads around.

Neither vehement denial nor passionate pleas will change what is; what matters is what you choose to do.

Positional leaders and those who claim the leadership label are often more into pleas and denial than they are into coping.

Understandable, since it’s much easier to rail or whine than to get off the proverbial ass and do something.

But that is exactly what leading requires and leading yourself is the most important leadership job you will ever have, because if you can’t lead yourself you will never have the opportunity to lead others.

Coping isn’t about playing ostrich or ignoring something and hoping it will go away.

Coping doesn’t involve ideology and rhetoric.

Coping doesn’t always mean solving the problem or overcoming the challenge.

Coping isn’t about being a hero or going it alone.

Coping rarely yields a perfect or even a complete fix.

While founders are less into obvious pleas and denial, they tend instead to superhuman efforts and projecting a ‘we can overcome anything’ persona.

They would do better to embrace the final description of what coping truly is.

Coping means facing whatever it is head on, recognizing it in its entirety, figuring out how best to deal with it, and then doing what needs to be done—all while accepting the reality and limitations of what is possible.

Image credit: HikingArtist

This entry was posted on Friday, May 1st, 2015 at 1:15 am and is filed under If the Shoe Fits, Personal Growth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Tags: cope, IDEO, ideology, lead, reality
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