4 Proven Ways to Cultivate Adaptability at Work (and in Life)

Adaptability in human beings is first and foremost about change and how to deal with it. If you dig a little deeper, especially by way of research around the science of adaptability, mastering this trait reads, well, more like an art form. 

After all, to be highly adaptable requires frequent creativity as well as experimentation, not much unlike the requirements of an artist.

Adaptability is a nuanced quality, a ‘soft skill’ if you will. That means it’s something that can be learned, but it’s difficult to teach it on paper. 

The last article about the 8 dimensions of adaptability explained how adaptability at work can be measured through certain metrics.

Building on that scientific research and other resources I uncovered in my quest to learn more about this soft skill, here’s what I found to be the most proven ways to elevate your adaptability at work, specifically. 

However, you’ll quickly discern that these tips don’t just translate to work life, but life at large. Enjoy the brain food 🙂

1. Practice emotional self-regulation

When circumstances change quickly and a deadline lurks around the corner, stress can cause emotions to get the best of people. It’s common knowledge that people don’t make the best decisions when in a heightened emotional state. 

It’s natural to feel emotions when things take a weird turn at work, but how can you make sure these natural feelings don’t hinder your ability to adapt to the situation at hand?

The answer is emotional self-regulation. 

Emotional self-regulation refers to the skill to effectively manage emotions and impulses. Although there are countless ways to help boost your emotional self-regulation, i.e. deep breathing, meditation, and the like, the basic process is extremely simple:

• Note when there’s an increase in emotional response.
• Consider the consequences of any response.
• Choose the response(s) that promote a positive result, regardless of possibly feeling negative emotions.

A group of researchers wrote a book about how you can practice emotional self-regulation at work and thus, become more adaptable. It’s called Deliberate Calm and it takes the above steps into more detail with strategies backed up with studies, etc. Though I haven’t read it yet, there’s a great synopsis of the tools it has to offer here. 

No matter how you slice it, maintaining emotional control is one of the secrets to navigating challenging situations. And coming out on top. This makes emotional self-regulation a necessary practice of any highly adaptable individual. 

2. Focus most on creating value

When the focus is kept steady on delivering value, the rest becomes noise. Creating value may mean you have to totally redesign a process. It may mean you have to bring in new people, new roles that you have little experience with.

All these actions are examples of adaptability. Rather than seeing change as scary, keeping the focus on value means you’ll do anything to delight the customer. You’ll adapt because that’s what the customer needs. 

To keep value front and center, first, you need to build a strong relationship with your customers. Understand what they need and what their pain points are. 

The customer relationship is a dynamic one, with needs consistently shifting. Keeping your clients happy and coming back for more requires intentional adaptability, which will happen more organically for businesses that focus on value creation. 

3. Become more resilient

Adaptability and resilience are closely related. They’re both qualities that society agrees successful people have or somehow obtain. But they’re not entirely the same thing.

Adaptability refers to the ability to change as circumstances shift, in order to produce a positive result. Resilience is more about being able to weather the storm, being able to endure hardships, and still produce a positive result.

As you can see, there’s a lot of overlap here. Becoming more resilient will help you become more adaptable and vice versa.

However, you don’t usually get an opportunity to be resilient without some kind of negative disruption. Instead of waiting for that to happen, you can cultivate resilience in the following ways:

• Change the narrative– Reframe ‘negative’ situations into positive or neutral ones by choosing a different perspective. For example, you can reflect on a past work project where something went ‘wrong’. Assess your response. And consider how this ‘negative’ experience may have manifested positive results, no matter how small.
• Be kind to yourself– Practicing self-compassion is a key stepping stone on the path to resilience. People think they should be hard on themselves to be more resilient, but the opposite is true. The kinder and more understanding you are with your inner self, the better you’ll be able to adapt and weather storms without letting them take you down.
• Meditate– It seems like meditation provides an answer to almost everything these days. In the interest of resilience, meditation will help by providing a healthy stress outlet. The more you can handle stress in a healthy way, the more resilient you become because you can take on more things. 

4. Learn a new skill (doesn’t have to be work-related)

It turns out, you can teach an old dog new tricks. This is thanks to what’s called neuroplasticity, aka the ability of the human brain to create new pathways.

The key is not to do something well, but to learn to do something differently or something entirely different altogether. To become more adaptable means you will have to get comfortable learning new things, so here’s your chance to get started.

Commit to learning a new skill, something small, that doesn’t have to be work-related. If you love to cook, for example, you could take a master class on knife skills.

Or you can do my favorite neuroplasticity exercise, and simply do things differently for a couple weeks. Simple things, like brushing your teeth with the other hand. Starting down the stairs with a different foot than usual. These micro-actions can help your brain become more adaptable without much effort on your part. 

Adaptability as a superpower

“What’s the secret to not only surviving but succeeding in this rich yet demanding field? How do social workers move things forward? We adapt. We reinvent ourselves as necessary. We recreate the situation in a way that better serves us, so we can better serve others. I consider this ability to be a social worker superpower.” 

- Karen M. Carlucci, LCSW, CPC

I want to close with the above quote from The New Social Worker magazine since it perfectly sums up what adapting at work (successfully) entails. When adaptability is honed, this skill helps individuals better serve others, in work and in life.

Cultivating adaptability means that you’ll be more ready to take on changing circumstances and deliver fantastic results. According to the available research, to get better at this art form, your greatest allies are emotional regulation, value creation, resilience, and learning new things.