How to become more adaptable
Adaptability is so important right now.
Conversations about politics, artificial intelligence, and the economy often find their way to a burning question: With everything changing so rapidly and potentially drastically, how do we prepare for the unpredictable?
This came up on a podcast I listened to recently. The interviewer asked the guest, “What is the skill I should double-down on that the robots and A.I. aren’t going to steal from me?”
The response:
“The only skill we can double-down on in the world of A.I. is the skill of learning and adapting.”
I’ve written before about why adaptability matters and what it looks like in action. Now it’s time for the how:
If adaptability is such an important skill, how do you go about mastering it?
I think this is a question a lot of us have more broadly, about so-called “soft” skills. Other examples include resilience, critical thinking, self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and empathy. We get they’re important, but how do we actually get better at them?
Adaptability and other soft skills can be developed in the same way you can improve at coding, swimming, or drawing. It’s about understanding the core components and then practicing them.
There are many ways this could be expressed but I tend to think about adaptability as having three core components: presence, curiosity, and trust.
Let’s break each one down and look at how they can be practiced.
Presence
Most of us respond to change by jumping to solutions—fixing, planning, analyzing. Skillful adaptability begins one step earlier, by being fully present with what’s happening before deciding what to do about it.
This doesn’t mean you don’t eventually take action. It means you take a beat first so you’re not approaching the situation from reactivity. This allows you to see things more clearly, expand your options, and respond with intention.
How to practice presence: Pick one situation this week that causes you tension, anxiety, or frustration. Before reacting, spend 30 seconds doing one of these:
Take one conscious breath
Relax your jaw
Drop your shoulders
Curiosity
Many of us reflexively avoid change or unknown situations. It’s usually an attempt to stay safe or comfortable. Ironically, this makes us feel extra not-safe and not-comfortable in new or unexpected circumstances.
One of the best ways to counteract the force of comfortability is to get curious. Where your comfortable survival brain says, “This shouldn’t be happening and I don’t know what to do so I’ve gotta get out of here,” your curious brain says something more like, “This has never happened before, what now?”
How to practice curiosity: Deliberately put yourself in situations where you can’t kick into autopilot mode. Choose activities, people, and places that require you to show up like a beginner and figure out next steps as you go.
Trust
Becoming more adaptable requires trust in your own resourcefulness. Figuring it out might mean doing research, tolerating discomfort, asking for help, or making another choice later, but you will figure it out.
You don’t build trust in yourself by having all the information ahead of time and needing things to go perfectly. You build it by noticing that even when things don’t go as planned, you’re still okay.
How to practice trust: Collect evidence that you can handle stuff. All those beginner experiments your curiosity led you to run? They count! So do all the times throughout your life when you’ve gotten creative and found a way forward.
Adaptability isn’t something you achieve and then have forever. It’s essentially a relationship with change, which means it’s a skill that needs to—well—adapt, depending on the situation.
As long as you keep returning to the core components with a willingness to practice, you can adapt to anything that comes your way.
Providence, RI
November 2025
