The Real Secrete is Stay Flexible

The world is certainly not short of uncertainties, oil price surge, a series of unrest in the Middle East and North Africa, and these budget fights in Washington. However, for each of us, the real secrete to achieve goals is to stay flexible.

There is few sure things in life, most of time, we deal only with probabilities; all you do is to do the right things to increase the odds, so the balance tilts towards your side.

When on a losing track, the plan is to firmly hold on the ground, and not giving in. Explore every possibility to turn the game around.

Risk is unavoidable, but there is a plan in place to mitigate it.

So is tennis. The point is not to hit home runs, but singles and doubles. The goal is to put the ball in the court, in play, and follow the rules, and be consistent.

It is the plan of the game, the strategy of the day.

How to act on each situation, make a judgment and still follow your rules?

1. Mentality wise, there are no sure thing and nothing new under the sun. ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN. Think all options, have several plans in place and keep an OPEN MIND, and when something unthinkable happens, ready to act upon PLAN B, or even PLAN C. There is never a perfect solution, you have to make a decision right there.

2. Ask. How experts stay flexible when things go unexpected? Tennis pro will be able to tell his game plan, and then adjust to the opponent’s levels.

3. Proactive. Don’t wait for the ball to drop, attack it while it is still in the mid air. Don’t wait when things have started going the other way when the best time has passed. When the things start changing, you change as well.

4. Calm down and focus, don’t get emotionally high and low. Trust own power to handle the situations. Keep the ultimate goal straight. The goal is to improve every aspect of games; it is not to feel good about self, not to get others’ complimentary.

5. Slow down if necessary, so you will have time to think through and come up some options to address a changing situation. Most of mistakes are made while rushing through things, especially when things start changing fast and you want to keep the pace. The situation could be worse when your originally planned strategy has been challenged and a new plan is not in place. The best solution is to take a break, change the pace and assess the emerging factors.

6. Lastly, Forget about being prefect. The desire to be the best one possibly can has sometimes paralyzed us to act when facing quickly changing environment. The perfectionist’s mantra, which is if there is no perfect solution, the best solution is doing nothing, would leave situation to eventually become uncontrollable. Do something, come up with something that is best address the issue, will be much better than doing nothing.