Be Spontaneous - Make Uncertainty Your Friend

VUCA is suddenly so real for all of us. And it has speeded up. The news is old within hours. Whether it is personal or professional life - everything has become so volatile, so uncertain. The only thing certain is uncertainty.

It is a common topic in my coaching conversations these days. Recently I was exploring this with one of my coachees, and he enquired, which is the most important skill needed in this environment. And what came out was - spontaneity.

My coachee immediately asked: How to develop spontaneity? And as we dived deeper, we realised that developing spontaneity is an oxymoron. What you can develop or plan is no more spontaneity.

Spontaneity is not a matter of developing - it is about being. It comes from the confidence and trust in yourself that you can survive and thrive in any situation. Where does this trust come from? It is intrinsic to us. We are born with this trust. When we are born - was anything known about where we are going to land? We are all born in this world about which we didn't know anything and we had no training or preparation. We learned and survived on a day to day basis. Observe how every child learns to walk on her own, in her own way. There is no training required. It is learning by facing every new situation and responding spontaneously using our innate capability.

Over time we start thinking that we have learnt enough and now we can survive on what we have already learnt and then we stop learning. We start responding to every new situation by applying our past learnt knowledge.

Suddenly nature gives us a jolt like in present times and we realise that we can't rely too much on our past experience. This is the time to invoke our innate spontaneity.