Adaptability is a mental muscle that we can cultivate in our everyday life. We can train it and have it on standby to use when we need it most. Not only to take negative changes in stride but to seek out change and anticipate its effects so that we can flourish from it.

There’s a huge difference between mindlessly flip-flopping whenever we get stressed and knowing when to intentionally, purposefully adapt. In fact, building adaptability in ourselves is a matter of opening our minds, setting intentions, and repeating them until they become second nature.

Learn how to “un-learn”

When it comes to adopting new mindsets, identifying when it’s time to let go of one way of thinking is just as important as what you’re trying to begin doing.

Our lives are filled with examples of these — think of them as training wheels for your brain. When we first set out to ride a bike, they help us physically learn how to ride while, maybe most importantly, giving us a little bit of security that we won’t fall.

That’s great at first, but once we could ride without the training wheels they become a hindrance instead of a help. They hold us back and we might not recognize it because we’re used to them being there or we think we can’t succeed without them.

There will be times from your past where it feels like being stubborn or “sticking to your guns” helped you get past a problem. When you were less experienced or afraid of change, these attitudes assisted you, just like a training wheel.

Now that it’s time to grow beyond them, you need to recognize the behaviours that are no longer serving you and actively un-learn them. This will give you a clean slate where true adaptability can take over.

Become less afraid of risk

Change can feel frightening. Based on your personal experiences and need for control, it’s possible that your psychological defense systems will do everything they can do talk you out of boosting your adaptability.

A straightforward way to address that is to find safer, low-consequence ways to increase your tolerance to risk. Look for situations that can feel risky but don’t have real-world consequences.

Should you step out into a busy street and see how it feels? Definitely not.

Should you proactively look for times in your day-to-day life where you find yourself avoiding action and ask yourself why you’re doing it? Yes, please.

There are a few ways you can do this:

• Answer the phone, even if you don’t know who it is.
• Purposefully take a new route to the office or school.
• Go for a ten-minute walk without your phone or any digital device. Look around you and experience whatever you see or feel.
• Take one bite of food that you “don’t like” but have never actually tasted.
• Ask a friend or loved one to play devil’s advocate the next time you’re having a conversation. See their “opposition” as a constructive challenge to not defend how you already think, but to see their point of view and accept it as valid.

Start with your self-compassion

There are tons of reasons why we tend to be so hard on ourselves. But negative reinforcement naturally makes us more rigid and less able to cope with change. So, the opposite of adaptable.

Self-compassion is at the core of awareness and is one of the fundamental facets of adaptability. Becoming more able to change will inevitably lead us to face past feelings of failure and compromise. All those other times that we failed to adapt and it hurt us are a valuable part of our experience. We must be aware of them, but not use them as a trap to convince ourselves we’re unable to adapt at all.

When you’re beaten down, emotionally or physically, it’s much harder to build yourself back up with any new mindset. Rest and recovery give you a break that lays the groundwork for the positive shift you want to make.

Prioritize time for self-care each day and think of it not as an indulgence, but as an equal investment in the time you’re taking to learn this new skill.

Adaptability is a habit you can build over time

Meaningful, long-term adaptability doesn’t happen overnight. Just like any habit or skill, it’s the consequence of a series of small actions repeated over and over. Consistency is key.

Building our own adaptability requires setting an intention and then sticking to it. Each time you think differently, you make it a little bit easier to behave differently as well. As you keep at it, these fresh behaviours begin to impact how you think. It creates a self-reinforcing cycle where your thoughts and actions can shift in tandem toward the new mindset you’re looking to build.

The more you do it, the more automatic it will become. Yes, adaptability is an attitude you can foster in yourself, but it’s bolstered by your actions. It’s something you can both think of and do at the same time.

As you envision being more adaptable, and then take action with specific habits that back it up, in time you’ll be more flexible. Both your thoughts and actions will be ready to evolve with whatever comes your way, and adaptability will be a life-long power you’ll be able to tap into when you need it most.