Crisis? What crisis?
The word ‘polycrisis’ - where disparate crises interact such that the overall impact far exceeds the sum of each part - has been popping up everywhere since it was used in the Global Risks Report at the World Economic Forum in Spring 2023.
According to Prof Adam Tooze, the current polycrisis can be traced back to 2008/9 - when global financial crisis, Putin’s aggression against Georgia, the failure of the Coppenhagen climate talks and an outbreak of swine flu all happened simultaneously.
That’s fifteen years and an awful lot more crises ago.
This ongoing sense of uncertainty and anxiety presents significant challenge for all of us, sitting behind every aspect of our lives.
It often shows up in coaching.
The first step is to acknowledge it. The second, to accept that before we put anyone else’s oxygen mask on, we need to secure our own.
“If you’ve been feeling confused and as though everything is impacting on you all at the same time, this is not a personal, private experience. This is actually a collective experience.”
What do you need?
This is not a question many of us ask ourselves.
Turn to the things that have always helped you, and give them time to work their magic. Being outdoors in nature. Your faith. Exercise. Music. Reading for pleasure (I have an absolute distinction between upstairs and downstairs books - the first contain a disproportionate number of heroines with parasols, the second are for learning and growing.)
How are you sleeping? Eating? Feeling?
If you’re not good at asking for help, ask yourself what’s stopping you. What could be a first step? Your friends, colleagues and family deserve to know if there’s a way they can support you. Note the recent Instagram and Tik Tok trend for men to call one another to say goodnight. There’s a reason why it’s a trend.
The Harvard Study of Adult Development was started in 1938 to investigate what makes people flourish. It’s the longest in-depth longitudinal study on human life ever done, and it has a simple conclusion: happiness comes from good health and good relationships. Lean in to your friends, family and community - you’ll be helping them too. (Cars are good places for conversations. So are walks and park benches. Not having to look at one another can help at first.)
There are lots of tools and strategies available, many of which I use in coaching sessions. For some people it helps to think about a circle of control: identify what is, and what isn’t, in your power to change. Focus on the things that are.
Take a look at Mel Robbins’ “Let Them”. You can’t control what other people do or think. You can control how you feel. As Maya Angelou put it, “You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.”
Consider Joel Monk’s advice: “Don’t should on yourself”. There is nothing wrong with you. You are enough. Let things unfold while you remember to breathe.
“Don’t deny the people who love you the honour of being there to support you”
There is a lot of talk about resilience - the capacity to spring forward, or bounce back. I often ask the people I coach to look back to times in their lives when they have come through challenge or adversity. Not without loss or damage, not necessarily better, but when they have moved forward against the odds. Coaching is about the future, but checking back into your personal history to remind yourself of what you’re capable of can reconnect you with your own strength. Ask yourself the question: What helped then?
What do the people who follow you need?
It’s perhaps no coincidence that the 2025 Gallup Global Leadership Report, spanning 52 countries and over 30,000 respondents, confirms that there are four things we look for from all our leaders: hope, trust, compassion, and stability. Among them, hope stands out.
The writer Rebecca Solnit speaks of a storytelling crisis: “The most important territory to take is in the imagination. Once you create a new idea of what is possible and acceptable, the seeds are planted..”
Words make worlds. If you keep repeating the language of crisis, anxiety, panic and despair, that will become the world you live in. As a leader, it is your job to use words, and actions, to build a world of possibility.
“A good leader inspires people to have confidence in the leader; a great leader inspires people to have confidence in themselves.”
For many people I work with, this can feel exhausting and impossible. We take our time. It’s not easy, but there is help, and hope.
Book a free 30 minute call and see how working with me can help.
