Reflecting on the virtues of adaptability, the martial arts legend Bruce Lee once said, “be formless, shapeless, like water.” Water, Lee pointed out, shapes itself to be in sync with its environment. “You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot,” Lee said. When it comes to thriving in an ever-changing marketplace where once highly in-demand job skills could suddenly become obsolete, being able to pivot and embrace change is vital. Right now your career is the teapot; tomorrow it could take on a very different shape. You have to be prepared to change with the world as it changes beneath your feet.
Adopt a Growth Mindset
When you fail at something, do you view that failure as a learning opportunity and incentive to grow or do you see it as confirmation that you’re innately bad at it? One of the keys to becoming more adaptable is embracing the former attitude, a growth mindset, which is looking at yourself as someone who can change and improve over time. Believing you have the capacity to change, that you can adapt to new situations and learn new skills, is crucial.
The alternative to a growth mindset is a fixed mindset, in which you view yourself as a person with restrictions and limitations that are fixed and thus unchanging. Your intelligence, talents, and skills are what they are and will not change. To someone with a fixed mindset, there’s no point in trying to get good at something they’re “naturally bad” at. Or to use Bruce Lee’s philosophy, a fixed mindset person is a teapot no matter what they get poured into.
Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, who developed the growth mindset model, often talks about the power of the word yet. If you’re struggling with a problem, try reframing it as a “yet” statement. “I can’t do this” becomes “I can’t do this, yet.” The “yet” trick keeps setbacks in perspective: they’re temporary, something that can be overcome with time and effort.
Take a Walk in Other People’s Shoes
One of the biggest hurdles to overcome to become more adaptable is our own stubbornness. Each of us has a unique perspective and life experience that shapes how we see the world and treat other people. It can become difficult to see outside that perspective if you’re so used to doing things YOUR way. That’s why it helps to cultivate your emotional intelligence and build up your empathy skill. Becoming a more active listener and making a good faith effort to understand where other people are coming from can make you a more flexible person. Someone with an open mind, who can concede that other people know better at times, is going to be more able to pivot and do things differently than someone who refuses to give an inch.
“Yet, if you refuse to give that inch, you may find yourself on the outside looking in,” said Rio Salado College's Career Services Supervisor John Bastian. "More and more employers seek employees who can adapt to change. Several reports and studies from the past few years indicate that adaptability is one of the most in demand qualities.”
Be Mindful of Feedback
It’s hard to be objective about our own shortcomings and failures. Getting feedback and advice from mentors, co-workers, friends, and other people we trust can help us become more well-rounded people. The key is to actually listen to feedback with an open mind. Don’t be defensive or try to argue their feedback is wrong. You don’t HAVE to actually make changes or follow through with their advice if you don’t feel it’s right, but you do want to be approachable so people feel comfortable giving you this kind of feedback. If someone makes a keen observation about you but doesn’t share it because they think you’re going to ignore them or react negatively, that could hurt you in the long run.
A simple trick to take criticism is to keep this in mind: it’s not personal. In most cases, people are trying to help you, not cut you down. If you do work with someone who is frequently negative or seems to openly dislike you, take care to work around their schedule so you can minimize your exposure to them. Work with people who will support you and encourage you as much as possible.
Keep Expanding Your Horizons
Few things better prepare us to be more adaptable than pursuing an education. Developing new skills and cultivating knowledge and expertise can create more opportunities for us, opening up forks in the road toward our professional future. Upskilling to update your professional skills or to learn new technologies like AI can make you a more competitive candidate on the job market. Industries aren’t static: new techniques, technologies, and best practices are being innovated and proliferated all the time. Adaptability is an essential skill because it helps us to keep pace with these changes, evolving our abilities to reflect the needs of the current marketplace.
“Because things are changing so quickly, we need to adapt or potentially be left behind,” said Bastian. “Be curious, willing to grow, and open to change– even if it is uncomfortable at times.”
Another risk factor is that sometimes jobs and even entire industries can be rendered obsolete. Going back to school and learning a new set of professional skills so you can transition into a new career path could be very important someday. Take a hard look at your current professional trajectory: do you have a backup plan if things go off the rails? Is there another line of work you’d like to train up in if this one doesn’t pan out? Don’t wait for life to deal you a tough hand of cards: start upskilling and reskilling today, so that if the worst case scenario happens you’ll be ready to hit the ground running.
Learn More
Interested in learning more about how AI is influencing the job search process and today’s workplace? Rio Salado is hosting a free virtual webinar, “AI and Your Career,” this Thursday, July 30. The webinar will be presented twice: once from noon to 1 p.m., and then again from 6 to 7 p.m. Interested in attending one of these emails? Email [email protected] with your first name, last name, preferrred email address, and which session you'd like to attend.
Article by Austin Brietta
Career Corner
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