We live in a world that changes faster than our nervous systems can keep up with. This is a reflection on what it means to seek focus in a world defined by change.
How do we relate to an increasingly frantic world whose one irrefutable law is change?
How do we live in a world that is constantly shifting, with a self that is constantly evolving, when what we crave most—internally—is stability and predictability?
That is one of the core human dilemmas, isn’t it?
Our nervous systems crave stability — reality doesn’t
In systems theory, we learn that every system strives to maintain or regain equilibrium. As long as a system is stable, it will try to preserve that state—even if the conditions are far from ideal. We would often rather return to a familiar, unfortunate situation than venture into uncertainty.
This is not your fault or mine.
This is how we are wired: constantly scanning for predictability, familiarity, and control.
And I, for one, love a good plan.
I love to structure my day down to the minute—to consciously make space for silence, creativity, focused work, and movement. A well-planned day calms my nervous system. I allow myself to be a little weird that way. Rhythm and structure are the conditions under which I feel most free and most creative. And it is this constant inner reminder to focus that helps me return to what really matters—to not get lost in the enormity of the to-do list.
But that is only one side of the coin.
Because the world—the so-called outside circumstances—does not play along. The world is change. Life is change. There is no moment that is exactly like the one before. And depending on where we are in our lives, that can feel either comforting—or deeply challenging.
If our nervous system is wired for predictability, but reality is wired for change, then the real question is not whether we like change, but how we relate to it.
I started this year with a very clear intention: to grow my business into what I know it can be. Along with that intention came a plan—a mapped-out path, a step-by-step outline to follow.
And then there is everything that happens outside the cosy lines of a plan.
This is where I encountered the concept of antifragility.
When safety depends on things staying calm
According to Nassim Nicholas Taleb, there are three states: fragile, robust, and antifragile. And I’m sure we all know how fragility feels.
When we are fragile, we need protection. We can only function under safe, ideal conditions. When uncertainty appears, we try to escape it. We avoid risk, unpredictability, and exposure.
This resembles early childhood. Childhood is fragile. When something feels overwhelming, we run and hide in the arms of our parents.
And there are parts within us that were never fully allowed to grow up. Parts that learned early on that safety depends on calm surroundings, on protection, on things staying predictable. These parts often remain fragile long into adulthood. They can function—but only as long as life stays quiet, controlled, and safe.
In my work with organizations, I see fragility show up when people or systems can only perform under perfect conditions—and begin to break down the moment uncertainty, ambiguity, or pressure enters the picture.
Fragility holds a deep need for protection, an inability to stand on our own two feet when tension increases. But it also carries a tender trust—a hope to be saved.
Once this trust is disappointed, once we realize that we cannot forever rely on the protection of others, our own shield goes up. We armour ourselves against the world.
Strength as survival — and its quiet cost
The second stage is robustness, or strength.
This is the capacity to endure hardship, to resist pressure, to uphold the status quo.
It is all those moments when we have “just pushed through.” We are strong enough to absorb shocks for a while—but they leave traces. Eventually, there is one final push that breaks us.
Strength is a valuable quality. Being able to endure, to keep going with gritted teeth, to make sure we and our loved ones are safe, that there is food on the table, that the business keeps running—this matters.
In a way, this stage resembles adolescence or puberty.
Puberty is not calm. It is marked by tension, by proving oneself, by flexing muscles—physically and psychologically. It is the phase of I can handle this, even when something inside already feels overwhelmed.
And just like with childhood, there are parts within us that get stuck here. Parts that learned to survive by being strong, capable, unfazed. Parts that pretend everything is fine while quietly burning out underneath.
In my work with leaders and teams, I see robustness show up as chronic over-functioning: people holding everything together through sheer effort, resisting change instead of learning from it, staying “strong” long past the point where it is healthy. Functional—but exhausted. Impressive—but fragile underneath.
This shield of protection may work for a while, but it leaves us lonely underneath. It is the wide jump from naïve fragility into disenchanted protection mode—a growing up of sorts, where our soft inside can no longer keep up with the hard outer shell.
With increasing complexity and pressure in our surroundings, this coping mechanism is being deeply challenged.
Growing up in a world that won’t slow down
This is where the third stage, antifragility, comes into play.
Here, we don’t simply grow stronger—we grow up.
We stop fighting constant change and begin to accept it. More than that, we learn how to work with it. We recognize that stress, volatility, and disruption are not anomalies, but conditions of life.
Antifragility means understanding that the world is not designed to be calm and safe all the time—and that growth and evolution require exposure, learning, and recovery.
This is psychological adulthood.
We no longer need constant protection, nor do we rely solely on endurance. We develop discernment: which stress helps us grow, and which does not.
In my work with organizations, I see antifragility emerge when uncertainty is no longer treated as a threat, but as feedback—when responsibility is distributed, learning is encouraged, and adaptation becomes part of the culture rather than an emergency response.
So how do I—and my business—stay in a state of antifragility?
Focus as a practice of returning
My word of the year is focus.
Not as a demand to stay fixed on a goal no matter what,
but as a practice of returning—again and again.
Returning from the storm of frantic activity.
Returning from reactivity and overwhelm.
Returning to the simple question that cuts through the noise:
What is the most important thing right now?
Focus, to me, is the embodied antifragile response to constant change.
It doesn’t deny the storm—it interrupts it.
It turns struggle into information instead of accusation.
Not asking who or what is to blame,
but asking:
What can I learn here?
Where is my area of influence?
And how can I act from there—consciously, responsibly, one step at a time?
Focus is not rigidity.
It is the ability to come back.
Questions to ponder:
- Where in my life am I still pushing through instead of learning from what is happening?
- What kind of stability am I trying to protect right now—and at what cost?
- If focus were an act of returning, what would I come back to today?
Mehr dazu in meinem nächsten Newsletter → oder folge mir bei Substack und Instagram
Neueste Kommentare