5 reasons to stay calm in crisis

Stay calm. Some days that is very hard. Yesterday, among other things, this website crashed. Interesting day to have it happen. I had read a friend’s post about stopping complaining.

How do we respond when we face crisis moments?

My Christian Business Leader’s Group monthly breakfast met. The leader, Ron, selected the topic of “how do we respond when we face crisis moments?” We discussed big issues, like job loss, serious injury or illness to ourselves or a loved one, and suicide in youth. We discussed smaller issues that still frustrate. I shared my friend’s challenge to try to stop complaining for 24 hours to the group. It fit the goal of the group, which focuses on applying Biblical principles to life and business problems.

Things that cause us to complain

Complaining is a very human response to trouble. We complain easily and often. I am no exception. However, I worked on this long before Brent’s post or my group meeting. I find things that frazzle me will be there all the time. But how I react is my choice.

What does a website crash mean?

For those who don’t blog, when a website crashes, it puts the owner into panic mode. My blog has 667 blog posts written over a span of about 5 years and 46 pages of content. If I see a warning label that says, “This site can not be accessed,” it scary! I can’t tell if it is a little problem or an infestation of serious malware that could mean rebuilding the site.

Last night, I checked designresumes.com as I was shutting down the computer. I noticed on Google Analytics that the number of visits to the blog was about half of what it should have been for a Wednesday. It had climbed nicely earlier in the day so to level off meant the site was down for a while.

It was 10:30pm. I am a morning person so I needed to let it go and come back in the morning to figure it out. A few years ago, I couldn’t have done that. I would have been bonkers trying to figure out what happened and who to call.

I also know that my wake-up time of 5:00am is a better time for me to think. Generally there is less traffic on my host’s phone system early in the morning than mid-day. With an 8am client in my office the next day, I had limited options.

I called the host and soon it was all fixed! It took 10 minutes to be back up. An old plug-in I updated the day before caused the crash. All I had to do is remove it. All is well.

5 reasons to stay calm in crisis

1. You can think more clearly when you leave emotion behind.
2. Staying calm lets you use your resources better to solve the problem.
3. You won’t make it better by freaking out. If you can’t change the circumstances, you can make the best of it and stay calm.
4. People are more willing to help you if you are calm. People who use the rant and rave strategy get less help from most people than the person who is calm and collected.
5. Your physical body reacts better when you are calm. Last thing you need is to push yourself into a heart attack mode.

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Image courtesy of Stuart Miles on FreeDigitalPhotos.net