New Normal
It doesn’t feel real. Any of it. Are you feeling a similar vibe? I woke up Sunday morning and I felt lost which is very unlike me. For those of you that know me well, you know my Sundays are filled with purpose: grocery shopping, meal prepping for the week, laundry, running, designing my outfits for the week, writing my blog posts, and organizing my planner for the week ahead. I look forward to Sundays because my Type A personality loves putting things in order and I love the process. None of the above happened; I simply meandered through the day.
Whether we admit it outwardly or not, this pandemic is taking a mental toll on all of us. I’ve seen it show up in a handful of spots this past week. It’s at work with my coworkers, at home with my boyfriend, and in my life personally. I have a High Performance Planner by Brendon Burchard (courtesy of my trip to Influencer 2019) and there are some really great writing prompts each morning and each evening. I looked at one of my prompts from Friday and my answer said “Establish a new, temporary (but sustainable) normal”.
Let’s unpack what I mean by “temporary, but sustainable” for a moment. Two weeks ago, I wrote about some things we can do during this pandemic, and it was an outward reflection of what we can do to help others. What I neglected to talk about is what we can do for ourselves. No one knows how long this will last, hence the temporary part of the above phrase, but since we don’t know: how are we incorporating a sustainable element to this temporary normal? Outside of essential job roles, we are all “working from home” in some way. Everyone has taken their business digital with so much creativity, but how have you planned for a longer duration of success during this time? And the second part to this: how have you planned for a longer duration of differing self-care and focus during this time?
“Establish a new, temporary (but sustainable) normal.”
I have felt so lost at work this past week. I logged on to complete some tasks from when I was out of office for my move, and then I kind of wandered through the day answering emails as they came through and checked on things that I felt needed some attention. This is not me at work. Normally, I am up early creating my big 3 list in the morning and scheduling things around it, only checking email late morning and before I log off for the day. I am intentional with my meetings, take really good notes, and always try to add value where I can. But holy crap, last week was the exact opposite.
What is the weight of the pandemic doing to my work day? Well, most of the items we work on in business development revolve around launching service offerings with some sort of physical event, we speak at conferences, workshops, and tradeshows, and we travel a significant amount. With all of those things at a complete standstill until further notice, I realized that I needed to redefine my purpose. I took all of the initiatives we planned on this year and categorized them into: in progress, on hold, released content, and on deck.
Without all the travel, I could knock out a variety of these initiatives within the month of April – the catch was that some of these weren’t ready to even start execution on. So then what? I scheduled a brainstorming session into my calendar for myself and just researched other ways we could fill in the holes while also providing value to the industry. Man, did that make a difference in how I see this week coming up! I’m actually really excited to start some new projects that I can really devote some time to. This worked for me, but have you hit your “A-HA” moment yet? What was it for you?
Another way this pandemic is weighing on us mentally is my boyfriend’s career. With AJ so close to finishing flight school for his last few certifications, we are in the homestretch here. He just needs some flight time and one or two more quick check rides before he can be hired as a flight instructor at a school here in the DFW area. While the school is still allowing students to fly, most of the designated pilot examiners (DPE) are in the “at risk” category for the pandemic, so all of the check rides are postponed until further notice.
AJ and I had a long talk the other day. I could tell he was in a funk because he wasn’t his normal self. Granted, we had just moved me across the country and went from 0 to 100 on not seeing each other to now shelter-in-place together. Our conversation was much needed and there were a few things I think he didn’t know he needed to say out loud.
What’s crazy is that this pandemic is hitting hard literally right at the tail end of his training and he feels like it’s just his luck that everything is shutting down when he’s so close. Not knowing what the airline industry is going to look like after this is really scary for us right now. And while fear of the unknown is the fear we all hold right now, I choose to be optimistic about this.
Yes, there are layoffs at airlines right now, and yes, there is a reduction in flights based on our global current state… However, once this all blows over (whenever that might be) people are going to be so stir crazy that travel will ramp back up in no time. Personally, a lot of people gave up their vacations. Professionally, a lot of people need to visit their clients or their sites to hold meetings and conduct their business.
American Airlines just announced that they are honoring early retirement and a ton of pilots have just opted for this. This will help keep the talent moving from cadet status, to regionals, to the majors even with the pandemic. Cadets are still being added and it’ll be about 1.5-2 years as a cadet and instructor before he looks to get hired in at the regionals. My hope is that this will correct itself before then, and if we need to change course a bit, we can evaluate it at that time. We both feel a lot better after talking at length on this. We will keep doing what we can do during this time and we can tackle things as they come. Anticipating adversity, but keeping the worrying aspect out of it is our best plan of attack here.
Finally, the levity of this pandemic has taken its toll on me personally. I haven’t been that excited to train for the marathon. I haven’t wanted to read lately. I don’t really feel like getting dressed for the day. I’m stuck in this constant blah feeling. I blame my social media habits for this. While it’s important to stay updated on everything and it’s a great way to stay connected, now is the time that I need to take five steps back. When I open each app, all I see is something about this freaking pandemic. No one has anything new to say. The topic has been exhausted and in turn I have been exhausted.
I decided I’m making a few new personal goals for myself to keep me busy. I’m keeping a calendar of these things and progress plans for each. I know I feel better when I am being productive, so that’s what I need to focus on. Growing how I can with the extra time at home is a blessing, so being more intentional with how I spend that time is where I am refocusing my energy. Maybe I’ll take up Spanish again since I stopped learning after my trip to Spain in 2017. I plan on putting the pole back up, so maybe I’ll create a new piece of choreography to a song I love. Maybe I’ll bake a new type of dessert each week to challenge my baking skills. Maybe I’ll make time to advance my online marketing course.
The possibilities we have here are honestly endless to improve our skillsets. For me, it’s the only thing that I know will keep my spirits up and give me motivation each morning. While this isn’t something that will last forever, creating these intentional habits at home might be the key to unlocking some of our hidden potential for when the world returns back to normal. How are you choosing to show up each morning? How are you creating your own new temporary but sustainable normal? How are you putting your energy out into the world each day? And finally, how can you continue to make that impact when this all ends? I hope these questions inspire you to make some advancements of your own while we’re all in lockdown. Being honest with yourself sometimes isn’t easy, but it’ll be plenty worth it once you see how you are able to work through the constraints of this pandemic.
Cheers to navigating our mindsets during this uncertain times. You can do it.
