The Key to Managing Life’s Unpredictability

While Forrest Gump thought that life was “like a box of chocolates,” we think it’s much more like a rollercoaster. A breathtaking mix of peaks and valleys, as you hold on for dear life. Every day can feel like strapping into that safety apparatus, beginning that ascent and enduring the twists and turns that can be equally thrilling and heart-stopping. On the homefront. At the office. Coaching youth soccer. The location and the audience may change, but the ride is equally unpredictable.

The challenge is managing this rollercoaster, managing life’s ups and downs without getting overwhelmed by them. It’s one of the areas in which the findings of the Harvard Study on Adult Development are particularly instructive. The Study, which continues into its ninth decade and which I’ve directed for the last 15 years, has found that great relationships act as something of a buffer, preventing life’s stressors such as pain from bringing us down. Our paper, What’s Love Got to Do With It? Social Functioning, Perceived Health, and Daily Happiness in Married Octogenarians, demonstrated the important role of marital satisfaction in protecting adults’ happiness from daily fluctuations in perceived health.

While the focus of our research looked specifically at married couples, we believe the findings are applicable to different ages and to many different types of relationships. Among them, the workplace, where we’re faced with a daily barrage of challenges and opportunities, of long journeys and short sprints – all while at the mercy of forces we can’t always control. Clients and customers. Bosses and co-workers. Markets and even weather. Some days they build you up, some days they pull you down. The key for leaders is developing frameworks and teams that trust and complement each other – not just with skills, but with emotional support.

At the Lifespan Research Foundation, we continue to develop content and exercises for individuals, teams, and managers that help them develop the satisfactory relationships central to success. This includes how, when and where to communicate effectively and fostering an environment where this can flourish.

Great success often requires long, turbulent journeys. Healthy, happy relationships can mitigate the extremes that threaten to derail or slow down this journey.