The landscape for marketing has changed in ways nobody could have predicted. This has often led to last minute rewrites for campaigns and entirely tossed marketing plans, with often a cobbled together solution at the end. Being adaptable is one of the biggest skills anyone can have in 2020.

This Year’s Changes

2019 taught people in advertising and marketing that they could no longer do business as they once did, by rolling out strong laws meant to protect privacy and give credit where due. Even prior to 2019, marketing underwent extreme changes.

What once worked, would never work again with something as small but significant as Google’s latest algorithm update, but that alone wasn’t the only cause. If a marketer could not adapt to the new environment, the changes, and what new things were required to be successful, or even to keep pace – they quickly fell behind.

Recent Past

The things which worked for some of the biggest names in marketing would never work quite the same again for any person new to the industry, thanks in part to the same laws referenced earlier, but also sweeping changes to social media platforms, the demise of SEO as it once was known, and the banning or penalizing of pages which had irritating ads like interstitials in place, obscuring the screen. This list is certainly not complete, and marketers have had to learn new ways to make things work, and plot a whole new course out there in a marketing landscape never seen before. 2020 stands to be even more radical – and it’s going to be important to be able to keep up.

Massive Strain

It’s hard to work in a landscape that constantly shifts and changes, where things are allowed one day and acceptable, but complete unacceptable and penalized the next. It’s hard to create entire marketing plans thinking one day it will all be thrown out and completely overhauled, and that ‘one day’ might be next week. It’s hard to keep trying things others say will work, and watch them fail, and decide to keep trying it. If any of these statements ring true, then the person who identifies with these is likely not all that adaptable, even if good at it – it may cause undue stress or strain. Some of it is a matter of mindset, and looking at things a bit differently, like the fact that one can learn this skill – it’s not a personality trait alone.

Best Skill for 2020

Adaptability is one of the biggest traits a person can have in any business, or even in their daily life. Life is ever-changing and often throws difficult things to solve one’s way while one is already dealing with another massive task, so the ability to ‘roll with it’ is essential for a whole variety of reasons. It’s a massive break from the cortisol released when a person is stressed, and cortisol is extremely bad for one’s health, especially over time.

It also nearly ensures the best possible outcome in most situations because the time a person reacts to new stimuli is lessened for people who are highly adaptable, leading them to solve the problem faster, and start trying solutions out sooner. This leads to less frustration, and less of the tension usually involved with facing a problem that seems impossible to fix.

Adaptable people don’t see problems, they see opportunities to get around, over, through, below, beside or otherwise pass the obstacle, and often learn much in the process.

Being adaptable leads to a great many other gifts, by simply being able to change as life dictates at times, and to sail rather than steer the boat.

It’s not the destination that enlightens a person, but the journey to get there,

…so if someone doesn’t think they’re a very adaptable person, they can learn to be! Just choosing to learn how to become more adaptable is adapting!