If you’re anything like me, the events of 2020 so far have left you reeling.

After starting the year with focus and enthusiasm, my plans and the work towards them got thrown into a spin by COVID-19.

My optimism, focus and progress were instantly replaced with uncertainty, shock, and fear as the familiar patterns of work and home life got taken away in a moment.

So many people lost their jobs, so many businesses were impacted, so many people started working from home, so many kids needed to be home schooled.  All while “social distancing” and isolation from friends, colleagues, and even family became a thing.

What was the outcome? Panic and a feeling of having no control.

While the physical risk of the virus hasn’t been an issue for most of us, the reaction to it has certainly had a huge impact on our way of life and mental health that will be with us for years to come.

How can we even begin to think about how to respond?

I know what it is like to have life changed in an instant.

When I was 12, I had a devastating accident that left me a quadriplegic and needing a wheelchair for the rest of my life.

The progress I had made towards achieving my dreams to be a vet and elite athlete were replaced with fear, grief, anger, uncertainty and constant change in the years that followed.

I hated life and hated myself. At the lowest points I didn’t want to be here at all.

Slowly, though, I overcame the setbacks, first learning to cope and survive, and then to use the adversity, change and uncertainty to evolve and grow.

Eventually I reverse-engineered how I did that, and how I was able to turn a disaster into a positive experience.

Over the years I’ve fine-tuned what I did to turn my life around into a framework – Rituals For Resilience – that you and your teams can use too to better cope with the current uncertainty and come out the other side, in a better position than you were before.

I’ve been using the same rituals that turned my life around every day and they’ve helped me again personally and professionally to grow through this pandemic rather than be shut down by it after the initial shock.

As restrictions are being eased and we are venturing back into our workplaces and our communities, there are new fears and new uncertainties coming up.

The reality is we’re in the midst of the ultramarathon of all ultramarathons that has no finish line in sight.

We’ve taken the hits, dealt with the shock and now it’s time to respond, recover and move forward.

With resilience and by creating individual rituals that work for you, you can not only learn to live through this, however long it lasts, and whatever it looks like, you can move forward into the uncertainty and be better prepared for future challenges as they arise. When nothing is certain, anything is possible.