Antifragility is defined as a unique property of systems where sometimes where instead of cracking, caving in, or getting destroyed, they increase their capacity to be resilient, bounce back and thrive as a result of small stressors, shocks, volatility, noise, mistakes, faults, attacks, or failures, etc.
This term is talked about extensively by the author Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book: Anti-Fragile. He shares how anti-fragile goes beyond being robust and resilient, as both are unaffected by the change. But, being anti-fragile embraces and learns from the stress test to come back even stronger.
Just like how our muscles when put against a little stress, a little volatility come back to grow stronger and bigger, and better, we too can use this concept in our lives and work.
So, how can we make ourselves, and our lives a little more anti-fragile, where a little shock and volatility helps to strengthen our whole rather than weaken it?
Stress Tests are crucial to developing anti-fragility in ourselves and our lives.
1. Find our vulnerabilities.
A simple and easy place to start is with ourselves, to self-reflect and take an assessment of perhaps one area of our lives, and explore that for what we may come up with as our strengths, our weak spots, our opportunities, and our imminent threats to the whole system or that area.
E.g., if we are looking at the financial area of our life, we may find that hey, we only have one month of emergency funds. This could be a key vulnerability that sticks out.
2. Push against our weak spots to know and stress test the breaking point.
A good way to test our vulnerabilities is by developing future scenarios and playing out end-game consequences, or we can also put ourselves in slightly smaller challenging situations to understand that vulnerability.
E.g. In the same financial situation example above, we can try to visualize and imagine or come up with a scenario where we face multiple emergencies at the same time together, and only having one month’s emergency fund at our disposal shows us that this may not be enough to meet those emergencies without having to borrow from someone at a high-interest rate or break into our savings and incurring a penalty.
This stress testing helps us plan and prepare for multiple situations beforehand, making us more anti-fragile.
3. Shoring up and strengthening the wall.
Once we have found the vulnerability or faced the challenge, the learnings and lessons are crucial. They can help us to shore up the wall to strengthen our lives, and our work.
E.g., If we live in a quiet, calm, secluded, or isolated area far away from people, for a long time, then our bodies and minds get so used to that slower pace of life that when are come near it, they might get overwhelmed and too frazzled and shut down.
A simple way to become anti-fragile in this area is to periodically go into the city and get accustomed to the sights, sounds, lights, and pace of it. This way your mind and body remember what it feels like and becomes more capable from that experience.
So, let’s take a little look at 1 area of our lives today, and see if there is something that we could stress test to get to anti-fragile.
Here’s to all of you,
Shine On, and wishing you the best to inspire and help others shine brighter as well! Remember, Shine starts with small, and if sustained daily, becomes significant over time.
From ShineVision Life.
Our daily mission is to help you on your own Shine Life Journey to be inspired, learn, grow, get better and shine a little brighter, not just in our own lives, but in our families and the world around us, in small, simple, and easy ways.
References:
Chicago. Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. 2013. Antifragile. Harlow, England: Penguin Books.
Comments