Cycles

Just like time transitions from night to day and from one season to the next, every element of life ebbs and flows in feast and famine cycles.

This is true for wealth as well, and it is not unnatural to experience fluctuations in your levels of affluence. This is especially the case if you are engaged in highly creative or innovative work where all of your energy and reserves are being expended upfront in hopes of reaping later rewards.

You might perceive this as a vicious “feast and famine” cycle where, for example, one month you have a notable influx of clients, customers, or contracts, but the next fail to attract any work at all. This inconsistency might have your finances in upheaval and make it hard for you to feel stable and secure.

Or perhaps you’ve decided to walk away from a high-earning job to pursue your passions or be a lady of leisure but haven’t gotten acclimated to the less-than-luxurious lifestyle you must adopt to sustain your new path. So you retain your champagne tastes even though you are on a beer budget, and your accounts are rapidly depleting as a result.

I understand how disruptive and demotivating it feels when you are thriving in one period but barely surviving in the next. However, if you know how to manage these natural cycles, you can smooth the oscillations and exert more control over how they impact you.

Accept cycles as inevitable

Everything we can observe in life operates according to some particular pattern, mostly natural though some manmade in accordance with nature. There are time cycles, economic cycles, agricultural cycles, human growth cycles, and other life cycles. We live according to various steps and sequences that shape our existence.

You'd become an outcast if you suddenly decided not to accept, for instance, that there were 24 hours in a day. Ignoring or resisting cycles rarely results in favorable outcomes. Acknowledging that life constantly changes, and observing and accepting how it changes, is key to empowerment.

Understand the cycle you’re in

Farmers are highly skilled at surveying their fields, noting weather patterns, and marking seasonal transitions. This allows them to sow, toil, harvest, or rest according to the agricultural cycle. Without this specialized knowledge, their land would lie dormant and not offer any fruit for their labor. Any effort they exerted would be in vain, and famine would result.

Likewise, you need to understand the characteristics of the cycle you are in. Add to your skill set the ability to survey situations and circumstances and uncover how and when they shift. Spot the conditional relationships and recurrent patterns. Draw up an if/then/else chart to identify what triggers specific outcomes in your life and work.

Adopt a counter-cyclical strategy

Armed with knowledge about the transitional phases of the cycle you are in, you can make informed decisions that either heighten or lessen their impact based on your desires. You may assume that acting in a way that positively correlates with a cycle is the best approach, but that's not always the case.

Sometimes acting counter-cyclically enables you to benefit from the positive aspects of a cycle while reducing its adverse effects. Countercyclical does not mean "anti" cyclical — you aren't trying to shop or change the cycle itself. It simply means that you move in the opposite direction of the trend. This approach is worth considering if your current actions aren't improving your situation.

For example, sometimes, when you are in a feasting period, that may be the time to reduce spend and save, especially since you have an abundance of resources that can be built up rapidly. When you are experiencing a famine, that could be a period when you must draw from your reserves to sustain your quality of life until additional resources come in.

Yet, some people exhaust their resources as soon as they get them or keep their coffers closed as soon as they experience the slightest bit of lack. They don't realize that this procyclical behavior is only intensifying the impact of the cycle they are in.

Your goal is not to try and stop the cycles that act on your life or business—they are inevitable. Instead, you want to become savvy at thriving in spite of them.