When was the last time someone asked you, how do you really feel? And when was the last time you gave them an honest answer? 2021 is upon us and we know that 2020 was a different, challenging, and thought-provoking year for everyone. With that, we also know that everyone has felt so many different types of emotions.
How Are You Feeling?
So what are some of the emotions you have been feeling the past year and even today? Are you feeling:
- Calm
- In Control
- Content
- Alert
- Bored
- Stressed Out
- Frustrated
- Happy
- Hopeful
- Depressed
- Anxious
- Relaxed
Regardless of what you are feeling, the team here at Flow Coaching Institute hopes that you have been feeling better since the start of the new year. However, with everything that happened in 2020, we realized that there is a name for the uncertainty and confusion during the pandemic.
What is VUCA?
This is called the VUCA environment. VUCA stands for:
- Volatility
- Uncertainty
- Complexity
- Ambiguity
The VUCA environment is known to badly affect our decision-making skills, it makes us question everything we do, it becomes harder for us to navigate our day to day as well as being able to see what the future should look like for us. Put that all together and we know that your brain will get incredibly stressed out when it has to deal with all that uncertainty. It also becomes paralyzing when you are needed to make a big decision or even work on something mundane.
Waiting for the VUCA time to pass does get depressing and stress-inducing. You are constantly worried about the future, you can’t seem to see past what is happening today, there is a feeling of helplessness and anxiety. VUCA cripples you.
Relaxing As A Form of Moving Away From VUCA
This is why all our coaches are focusing on letting their students and clients know that they need to take the time to relax and find meaning in whatever is happening right now.
By relaxing and taking it all in while analyzing how it makes us feel and why we are feeling this way, will allow for a more relaxed mindset. We believe that you can see that as a meditation process or even as a spiritual practice - a cause to discipline your wild thoughts. It is also a good time to learn and explore what FLOW means to us and what being IN FLOW means to us.
Questions To Ask Yourself To Calm Your Mind
In times of chaos and uncertainty, we believe that you should always practice asking grounding questions. These questions will not only help you find clarity but also help you to move away from the VUCA environment.
- What am I learning?
- Who am I becoming?
- Who do I want to become?
- How do I discipline my mind to become more resilient?
- What does flow mean to me?
- Where do I find the meaning of flow and resilience?
- What does being strong mean to me?
- What grounds me?
- What can I do to ground myself?
- What does peace mean to me?
These questions are paramount in helping you find the light in your storm and for you to find what it means to be calm and happy in times of chaos.
Here at FLOW, we know that as change agents we are responsible for making way for these transformations to be made. We have been busy inspiring and changing lives to move the world in a more positive direction. We have had our fair share of frustrating VUCA moments but we decided to rely on our collective strengths to use our platforms and coaches to be part of this positive movement.
Getting out of the VUCA environment isn’t just another coaching session for us, it’s a life-changing event that we believe will carry on with you at every twist and turn of your life.
How Flow Coaching Institute Has Committed to Helping People Out of VUCA Environments
Here at Flow Coaching Institute, we certified hundreds of FLOW coaches from our online ICF coaching programs, but we also committed to ensuring we brought about a bigger change. We chose to support our Toronto and international communities all year long.
So, we partnered with the City of Toronto and Dixon Hall for the Wrap Around Support Program to provide emotional, mental and career coaching support to those who are badly influenced by the Covid-19 crisis.
We also partnered with Schulich Business School to help future female leaders build resilience and leadership capacity through Women in Leadership Program.
We know that waiting for the crisis to pass is not the best coping strategy. We know that action creates momentum. And nothing could have been better than supporting the STEM Women of WSTEM TO group, as we partnered with them for the MentorSHE project coaching women leaders in the STEM industry.
Along with these projects, FLOW joined hands with other renowned organizations like Henkel, ING Bank, and TEB to provide coaching to their management to help the organizations grow in the right direction during VUCA times.
We believe that as coaches, we are change agents. We are put on the planet to support, help you build resilience, take you out of your limiting beliefs, build leadership capacities, and also help people transform their lives for the better. And also to help them find their purpose and their flow.
All of us here at Flow Coaching Institute hopes that you find your flow amidst this chaos and VUCA.
Let us know how we can help you and we would love to step in.
If you have any ideas and suggestions on how to best ground yourself in trying times, please leave us a message as well!
Happy 2021!