What an appropriate title for these unprecedented times. What is adversity? What does it mean to all of us individually? There is a cycle that people do fall into the trap off. That is when faced with a tough situation (the adversity) we create a belief (usually negative), then the consequence is negative. You can change that cycle if you choose to do so, face the adversity, create a positive belief then the result is positive. The problem sometimes is that when you think it, then you believe it, and sadly you then start to act it. It is this cycle that if we are not careful, we fall into a self-fulfilling prophecy. I think as a starter you can start to think about your life and what you would like to change. Then I think a good thing to do is how have you dealt with adversity before, and how resilient are you already, how strong are you. A fantastic thing to do is to look at yourself and reflect on areas from the past, why you are the person you are. Think about times in your life that you have had to deal with adversity. What did you do about it? Writing helps, it always helps to put your thoughts down on paper. But it is essential that you think and write about the positive times, not the negative. Think about one key area and what you did about it. Dealing with adversity in life, we all have to deal with it; it is what grows us and develops us. Essential to understand how we have dealt with it in the past and how we have set our habits up to deal with it. Dealing with adversity can be a positive and encouraging experience. It can lead to huge growth and development if you take the learning from it. Sadly, people don’t see it this way; they see it as people are out to get them, they feel the victim, and everyone else is seen as the persecutor. This is set up in your mind and probably not true it is how your inner critic is leading you. Adversity can be severe, it teaches us lessons through life, but it moves us forward, we grow through adversity, it just sometimes hurts us in the process. I think we have to take the positive from our situations, and that is the crucial point when faced with tough situations. Remember writing your thoughts down does help; it will show you where your brain goes and then you can change it. Sometimes once you see visually where your brain goes it will give you the evidence you may need to show how you think. In the current world crisis, we are all having to deal with adversity and we have a webinar scheduled which you can read more about here.  Until further notice, we are offering all our 1:1 coaching and webinars free of charge to all NHS and Health and Social Care workers free of charge.  This isn't a gimmick to trap people in a clever marketing campaign, it is our genuine offer to help people who are helping others and we want to thank you. Claire Moody is our head coach at Target Training, and you can read more about her here.  She delivers training on all personal development, coaching and numerous training the trainer courses.