Brexit chaos and how it can reflect our own lives

Blimey. It’s been an interesting week, to put it mildly!

I’m not going to rehash my many personal opinions about it. There are enough people on every social media platform known to man expressing their emotions, judgements and thoughts. So we don’t need to add another to that mix.

What I am going to focus on though is how the current political situation in the UK in some ways often mirrors that of our own lives - and what we can learn from it to help deal with our own personal chaos.

It’s probably fair to say that this country is now in an existential crisis. Divided by politics, geography and various demographics, we’re in for a long ride where various groups are effectively fighting for competing visions of what type of country we should be. Even though “remain” lost, having seen how government works from the inside, I’d be flabbergasted if there wasn’t a huge amount of further twisting and turning before we really know a) whether we indeed leave the EU and b) what kind of country we become.

The received wisdom is that many “leave” voters went that way because they felt that they’d been left behind economically and socially. Whatever your views about the tone of the campaign, the referendum provided them with an opportunity to register their discontentment with life. 

Most will agree that the result of the referendum has changed our country forever. A huge pot of issues and challenges, left unresolved and unaddressed, has suddenly boiled over in a single day. Which will have consequences for generations to come. 

And therein lies the crux in terms of lessons for us personally. The referendum result and expected chaos that is likely to follow, came about because we as a country didn’t properly address the many challenges we’ve been faced with. 

This is often what happens with us personally. We get to a point in our lives where we're desperate for change. Not necessarily desperate in health terms. But because we've had enough of the status-quo. Often that desperation is a result of not tackling challenges head-on sooner. Or in other words, sweeping things under the carpet. This isn't laziness or weakness - it is human nature to want to avoid pain, fear or confronting difficult situations. So if one can tolerate something (an unfulfilling job, bad relationship, low motivation, low confidence etc.) and carry on, then that’s what will happen.

Clients often come to me when they’ve reached the point where the pain of confronting a tough situation is no longer as bad as the pain of maintaining the status quo. Unsurprisingly, this is where coaching can be incredibly powerful in helping change lives.