MINDSET: How Chefs Can Navigate Through Adversity

Sometimes it feels like nothing is going well, everything is difficult, and every day is a never-ending challenge from hell. Maybe it’s a problem within your team, turbulence during dinner services, or administrative nightmares, it simply feels like you can’t get through it.

The hard choice during periods like this whether to keep going or put your apron in the bin. When the issues feel pervasive, the misconception is that there is no solution, and that nothing good can possibly come from current circumstances.

Sometimes the only way out, is through --- and getting through adversity takes a combination of strategy, perseverance, awareness and optimism. Don’t allow yourself to succumb to negativity. Just keep going.

Remain optimistic

Adversity can be painful, but keeping an optimistic perspective keeps your energy up and your mind on the right targets. It matters most when the chips are down. Pessimism is destructive, not inspiring and is repelling to most people. Many leaders can unknowingly demonstrate pessimistic attitudes when they complain about problems, their team or certain situations, which drains everyone’s energy. The best way forward is to remain optimistic, especially during adversity. The optimistic and pessimistic leaders can face the same situations, and the optimistic leader outperforms the downer at every turn.

The solution may take time to work

Not every solution is a light switch. Just because you don’t see immediate results, doesn’t mean what you’re doing to fix the problem isn’t working. Like seeds, sometimes it takes a little longer to see things grow, especially when you really need to see results, right now. The important aspect of working through adversity is to keep your birds eye view of the situation. This means that you can apply the right action to the right need, knowing it may take time for your plans to work.

Don’t always listen to your emotions

During times of pressure, stress can be overwhelming and can stir up other unhelpful emotions like fear and anger. Stress emotions work against you, are generally unsustainable in healthy ways, and can even cause you to unknowingly make more pessimistic decisions that come back to haunt you. Sometimes you may have a gut feeling that you need to consider, but usually, listening to a flood of either positive or negative emotions as a basis for achieving good outcomes takes you out of balance and off course.

Don’t be shortsighted

Stress puts us into a state of fight or flight, and in a state where we feel so threatened or fearful that we must act right now, we make short term choices for immediate changes that aren’t always best for long term results. This is a risky way to lead because it essentially determines whether or not you actually solve the problem. The risk in making short sighted decisions is that you could create more long term problems, keeping you in the weeds.

Shortsightedness is the basis for bad decision making and miscalculations. To be clear, sometimes you do need to act immediately during crucial situations, but shooting from the hip should never replace strategy. Whenever you’re facing adversity, before you settle on a solution, give yourself some time to ask yourself “...and then what?”. Be honest with yourself and try to follow that question through predictable potentials, towards the right future outcome.

Take an opportunity to root out a deeper issue

Sometimes when you experience periods of adversity, there’s a root cause that you don’t see that if you were to remove it, would solve a multitude of problems, and take you off the battlefield. The best way to find the root is to use the “...and then what?” method in reverse. Consider that everything that you experience is the result of something else, then think backward through good or bad results until you find the reason that created the ripple effect of issues. This isn’t to find someone or something to blame, this is to find the solution. As the leader, everything the light touches is up to you, so when you find the root cause, you have to apply the right solution.

Find the good

Trudging through difficulty can breed the viewpoint that everything sucks. Many chefs mistakenly adopt that mindset, convincing themselves that they always get screwed. The truth is that there is always something good to focus on. If you can’t see good things, or don’t count your wins along the way, then of course everything would suck because that’s all you focus on. It's so important to you and your team to acknowledge and celebrate the smallest wins along the way. It keeps morale up, and is equal part of your performance. You might even discover that things aren't as hard or bad as they seem, and that it was your perspective that skewed your evaluation. Gratitude has a great stabilizing effect.

Don’t allow adversity to change your mindset

You will eventually persevere through the current time of adversity, your solutions will make a difference and life will calm down. What you don’t want to to take a fatigued, embattled mindset into a new situation. Don’t let adversity dull your optimism, and don’t let difficulty change your mindset. If you win a hard game, you still won. It’s important not to let your love of the game dull because of the hard moments. After all, the hard moments are what make great players. If you carry a great attitude into the next game, you’ll be even more likely to win.