THE MIND THE READINESS GAP CONCEPT
Mind the Readiness Gap is a proactive process for teaching individuals how to cope with life challenges and trauma. We ALL face traumatic situations in life. The trick to maintaining happiness comes in learning how to handle that trauma, even before it happens…”readiness.” The Mind the Readiness Gap process introduces individual skills through the following:
- Readiness – Establish readiness
- Response – Respond to life challenges and trauma
- Recovery – Recover from challenges and once again find happiness
WHAT DOES MIND THE READINESS GAP LOOK LIKE?
There are three main components to the Mind the Gap process:
COMPONENT 1: RISK FACTORS
The line on the bottom of the diagram in blue represents your Risk Factors. These daily life factors increase or decrease your ability to respond well to trauma. We identify these as your daily habits. They can include sleep, nutrition, activity, productivity, positive or negative thinking, social habits, and many others. We will discuss these in detail in future blogs. For now, please recognize that high risk factors can result in challenges associated with rebounding from traumatic situations. So the overall goal is to keep the blue line towards the bottom of the chart.
COMPONENT 2: COPING THRESHOLD
The purple line at the top represents your Coping Threshold. This threshold identifies your ability to cope with a chaotic situation at any given point. When you are exposed to trauma, your coping threshold drops, leaving you more vulnerable to negative reactions. If you possess the tools and process through trauma, your coping threshold could rebound to an even stronger position than before the trauma resulting in “post-traumatic growth.” We will discuss the science of trauma and tools and strategies for processing through trauma in future blogs. For now, the overall goal is to keep your Coping Threshold as high as possible which means the purple line will be towards the top of the chart.
COMPONENT 3: READINESS
When we talk about minding the gap, we are referring to the gap that exists between your Risk Factors and your Coping Threshold. This represents your Readiness. Practicing good daily habits that keep your Risk Factors low AND building your coping capacity that keeps your Coping Threshold high, results in a Readiness Gap that enables you to handle life challenges and rebound quickly. Makes sense, right? Readiness is where you find the freedom to breathe. If your Readiness Gap is small, you end up spending most of your time focusing on and worrying about the Risk Factor and Coping Threshold compartments of life. If your Readiness Gap is large, you have more room to pursue dreams, foster relationships, find joy and follow your life purpose.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THEY INTERSECT?
Life is not simple and WE ARE ALL going to face challenges that will affect all three components of the Mind the Readiness Gap process. So let us show you what life could look like when we face these challenges with the right tools in place.
Notice that there is a solid Readiness Gap at the beginning of the chart. When this individual faces trauma, the Coping Threshold drops and intersects with the Risk Factors, leaving no Readiness Gap in the middle. At this point, the focus becomes getting good daily habits back in place, or “getting back into your routine,” and using effective tools to process through the trauma that was experienced. Once these steps are taken and the Risk Factors and Coping Threshold begin to separate again, Readiness returns and this individual can focus on identifying a new normal and finding happiness.
There are three scenarios that we would like for you to consider for future blogs.
We will go into each of these scenarios further in future blogs. For now, look at these three charts plus the ideal chart above and see which one you identify with most. We’ve even included a PDF chart so that you can draw where you think you fall and brainstorm what influences where you place yourself on the chart.
DON’T MISS NEXT WEEK – MtRG Process: Readiness
BETWEEN NOW AND THE NEXT BLOG, PLEASE:
- View the video for more detailed explanation on the three scenarios depicted above
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