Nations experience crises which require making selective changes, and some nations are more successful solving them than others. We as individuals also experience personal crises, often associated with certain stages of life (teenage or midlife crises), or triggered by external shocks like relationship problems, the death of a loved one, or a health or job or financial blow. Solutions to personal crises also require adopting selective changes, which some of us are more successful at accomplishing than are others. Counselors and psychotherapists have identified many factors that make it more or less likely that an individual will overcome a personal crisis; similar considerations can help us understand the outcomes of national — and even global — crises.