Panic is a good thing

Panic is a good thing, yep that’s right, I’m convinced that it is. I’ll explain why is just a sec, but first lets take a look at a related development model that suggests that “panic” is to be avoided…

Developed by Karl Rohnke’s and simply titled the Comfort, Stretch, Panic model

In short, the Comfort Zone is where we feel completely safe, in full control, relaxed without a hint of complexity, challenge or anxiety.

The Stretch Zone is where a degree of anxiety and sometimes positive stress comes in, the type of stress whereby we know that we have to step up a gear and we also know that we can do it. This is where we do our best work and you may have heard of this being referred to as being “in the zone”.

The Panic Zone is where we become overwhelmed, our emotions drive all decision making, typically driven by fear, we enter into fight or flight and want to get back to being in control, or comfort as quickly as possible.

3 levels and all have enormous value in helping us to learn, progress and do some pretty amazing things.

I was always taught that when helping others learn to avoid taking people into the panic zone. I completed an Hon’s Degree in Outdoor Education and this was a model we used… But how do you really develop resilience?

In my own experience resilience has come from doing things that have absolutely taken me into the panic zone, such as being on a yacht in the Indian Ocean, stuck in a cyclone and being buzzed by the Australian Coast Guard every couple of hours. Trust me when I say that it scared the crap out of me!! Being one of 3 crew members and just trying to keep ourselves and the boat in one piece in raging seas was pretty intense. To be fair, the boat’s hull was steel so having the boat breaking up was un-likely. That said the 3 of us were merely flesh and bone, which when slung up against hard objects didn’t do much for our general well-being. But hey it all turned out OK.

This and other experiences taught me that there is tremendous value in being in the Panic Zone.

We all have those “finger tip moments”, you know those times when we feel as though we are just about hanging on and thinking that we will fall at any second. Hell, my first real career job where I really cut my teeth, those finger tip moments were pretty frequent; presenting to senior people, having courageous conversations and taking on challenging projects, where to be honest I didn’t know exactly what to do.

What did I tell myself;

“Dude, you’ve been stuck in a cyclone on a boat, living off crackers and processed cheese for 3 days, wedging yourself between two cupboards, down below in the galley (kitchen for my land hugging friends) to avoid being thrown across the boat.”

I wouldn’t have this narrative had I not have experienced the Panic Zone.

So how do you get the most from being in the Panic Zone… Now in my experience I think that there are 3 main criteria that need to be in place to get the most out of the experience…

Number 1;

Reflect. David Klob, a well known theorist in all things learning back in the 80’s says that “learning only really takes place when we have the space to reflect on the experience”. To avoid only picking out the crap learning some of the questions below could be useful…

Was the experience as bad, or even worst than I first thought?

If it was worse, what made it worse and be specific about what made it worse because then this helps with the next question…

What did I learn from the experience?

How could I use this in the future? and it’s cool if we cannot figure out quite yet how we could use the learning in the future. Being caught in a cyclone, west of Australia, in the Indian Ocean on a 42ft yacht, only some 5 years later when I entered into the corporate world did I figure out how I would draw on the life lessons of that time!

If I could go back in time and do one thing differently what would it be and why? The key thing here is to just pick one thing because overwise we’d dwell on all of the things we would want to do differently. Just pick one thing and really commit to changing how you would react next time.

What 2 things did I really nail? Even in a state of panic we get things right, hell I was in the middle of a cyclone, but I still managed to get all of the right things packed into a grab bag in case our boat went down. I also still managed to more than pull my weight and covered extra watch shifts as there were only 3 of us sailing the boat.

Number 2;

Recognise that sometimes, even though the event it’s self may have passed, we may still have yet to process it fully. By that I mean we are yet to look back on it and decide what the experience taught us. I’ve had one such event in my life and much of which is included in my blog; What a Nursing Assistant Taught me about Leadership. What I will mention here is that it took me a couple of weeks following the experience for me to be able to look back on it and consider what I had learned.

Number 3;

Survive the experience! Our boat didn’t sink and I and the crew didn’t drown or provide the sharks with a handy, although bony meal, so we need to physically survive the event. But second and most important in psychologically to survive. To be fair most situations that we are likely to encounter that cause a degree of panic will not be as extreme as bobbing around an Ocean. Even so, we have to come out of the other end of the experience and be ready to go back in, if need be.

At RICH Learning Solutions we are all about developing future leaders through designing and delivering real learning experiences that help pave the way for future leaders to be fantastic at their job!

If you want a fresh approach to developing your future talent, search RICH Learning Solutions and remember, Panic can be a good thing!