Six years have flown by since resigning from the NZ Police and started my own business. I regularly get asked by attendees at our presentations and workshops, apart from the most common "Can you tell us a few war stories" - "What was it really like as a crisis negotiator?" I am always honest in my reply - "It is much easier than it seems when looking from the outside but the stakes are the highest possible."
It got me thinking, crisis negotiating is much like starting and running a business, and probably just like life itself;
None of us truly know what is ahead of us - We can plan, we can strategise, we can think about exit points, but unexpected things always come along and throw us off course. Both good and bad events happen on our journeys therefore understanding that most things never go exactly as planned provides us with comfort. It happens to us all, not just me.
The single best thing that we can do in life is to connect with others - There are three ways to get things out of our head when we have difficulty resolving our challenges - talk, write, and read - with talking being by far the best option. Why? Because each of us is restricted to what we have done in our own life and talking with others allows us to extend life experiences beyond our own and better resolve our problem.
You are not alone - We often think that no one else has the same problem as us, that others won't understand what we are going through, that we are unique. You are indeed unique but you aren't the only one who has faced seemingly insurmountable challenges in life, all of us have. There is not one person on this planet who has not faced what seemed to them like a mountainous problem which they got through, and so can you too.
We are restricted by ourselves - Richard Branson once famously said “If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes – then learn how to do it later!” Our brain is designed to keep us safe, to keep us within our neural pathways, to make us run in known patterns. Hence, we feel overwhelmed when uncertainty or adversity hits. That's normal, whatever normal is for you. Stepping outside of our comfort zone is how we get over life's challenges, running to the fire armed with the necessary tools to put out the flames. Learning how to do it later.
You've got this - Each of us possess strengths that we do not know that we possess until we truly need them. All of us are better and stronger than we think we are. Often, we wait and struggle alone until we are at our lowest until we finally realise this. And, it is in our lowest point that we find how good and how strong that we actually are. It is in the depths of despair that we learn about our self. That is where the magic can happen if we are open to taking on our challenge and move forward. We don't however have to wait until that low point.
Our mind is not set - It does take effort to make changes in our life but not as much effort as you think it might. All it takes is to change our mindset because our mind is not actually set. What a ridiculous term, mindset. It is simply that we to like to run in known patterns and we incorrectly think that things will get better if we stick to our known pattern. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is not insanity, it's how we are programmed, to keep us in the known where it is supposedly safe.
Take care when making comparisons - We are a species who spend all of our day comparing the future with our past, this is an unconscious action designed to spot any changes that might bring about risk. If our unconscious mind thinks that we should know about the danger ahead then the comparison becomes a conscious one. And, unless we find a solution to the negative thought, we worry. Then we catastrophise - expand the negative aspect to make it easier to fix - then we think about other negative events - because our only reference is our past - then we find ourselves in the worry spiral. Bringing our unconscious to our conscious allows us to readily identify the problem and to rectify it. However, It is simply ourselves taking to ourselves about our self.
Don't make excuses, make changes - When it is time to make changes, the excuses, or rather the reassurance, come to mind. "You've got through worse before", "Let's wait and see what happens", "It's never as bad as you think". We wait, ponder, ruminate, and regurgitate in the hope that things will resolve themselves. They probably won't. For they would have by now if they were ever going to! So, we make excuses. I can't because... and the list is endless. Don't make excuses, make changes. Do the opposite of your thoughts when they try to comfort and reassure you.
We are same but different - As a human species we are very similar in the way that we function. However, it is the environment in which we grow up in, the experiences that we have had, and the people who we have interacted with that provides each of us with differing abilities. And, we are each limited in that regard when it comes to fixing our seemingly unique problems. If we haven't been through the same situation before then we have no reference on our timeline. By talking with others we are extending the experiences, the differences, the solutions. There is a reason that talk therapy has lived as long as breathing itself, because it works to sustain us.
Now, is the right time to take action - Don't wait until a crisis negotiator answers your call for help, reach out now. Take on that challenge as soon as it arrives by talking, reading, then writing. Talk. Speak with others, not the ones who say "Stop worrying", "It's nothing to worry about", "Worry is simply a wasted energy", or the very worst thing they can say "What's the worst that can happen, it can't kill you?". Find someone else, someone who will sit, listen, and support. Read. Go to reputable sites and read about how others overcame their challenges. Write. Make a plan in writing with a pen on paper. It starts today, not tomorrow, for tomorrow is in the future and you are only ever in the present.
Let's talk!