Life in Crisis – Done is Better Than Perfect
With the world essentially turned upside down right now, maybe it’s a good time to forget about getting things perfect and instead simply concentrate on getting them done.
Whatever your specialty is, reach out to people on social media and see who you can help. I think you’ll find that people are much more open right now to receiving help from a kind stranger.
Offer two ears to listen and one mouth to offer solutions to whatever they are facing. In other words, do more listening than talking.
And when you find someone who needs more help than just a social media chat, offer your services. You don’t need fancy sales pages to do this, you simply need to be yourself and show that you can truly help them.
Whatever it is that you are choosing to do right now, focus far more on getting it done than getting it perfect.
And when the crisis is over, I think you’ll find this new skill of getting things done quickly by whatever means you have on hand will continue to reap rewards for you.
Upside Down World – Finding New Clarity
While the world as we know it is completely different than it was just a couple of months ago, this might be a good time to notice priorities.
Things that may have seemed crucial on January 1st might not make any sense at all now. And things you were neglecting might be what’s truly important after all.
This is an awesome time to get clear on what you want and what you want to achieve, both this month and in the coming year.
Spend some time each day just sitting quietly with a pad and pen and write down ideas as they come.
Notice which 20% of your efforts result in 80% of your positive outcomes and do more of that.
Get clear on what you want, where you want to go, and how you will get there.
Upside Down World – Lean into the Times
Now is the time to adjust your offers to suit the world situation. Don’t go forward with marketing as it always has been. Acknowledge what your customers are going through and help to ease their burden.
Do you offer a plan for people to start their own businesses? Offer them a much-needed discount to gain entry.
Do you offer a software as a service? Upgrade them for free for the next 3 months or 6 months.
Do you offer a service? Tailor that service to address the problems your customers are experiencing right now.
By meeting your customers where they are right now, you’ll come across as compassionate and caring – two things everyone needs right now.
Suffering from Pandemic Blues? Try This
We’re living in one of those movies where a virus threatens humanity, some of the leaders don’t pay attention to the scientists and everything looks hopeless while the protagonists race to save lives and find a cure despite the politicians best efforts to be total idiots.
Then the heroes save the day, all is well and we can leave the movie theater relieved it was ‘just a movie’.
Except that now we are trapped on the movie screen, the director is gone and there is no one to yell, “CUT!”
This stuff is REAL.
And it’s scary.
But do you know WHY it’s scary?
Because that’s what we’ve been told and that’s what we’ve decided to think and feel about it.
You’ve maybe heard this story before…
A farmer’s horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically.
“Maybe,” the farmer replied.
The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed.
“Maybe,” replied the old man.
The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy for what they called his “misfortune.”
“Maybe,” answered the farmer.
The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.
“Maybe,” said the farmer.
The farmer is detached from current events in a way that allows him to reserve judgment and see how things play out. He doesn’t emotionally invest in what is happening, but rather he observes it and moves on with his life.
If he had broken down and sobbed when the horse ran away, would it have brought the horse back? If he had been filled with anguish that his son’s leg was broken, would it have mended the leg?
If you are sad, depressed or angry over the pandemic, will that bring an end to it? Is there any emotion or state of mind you can use to make the pandemic vanish? Of course not.
The pandemic is here. It’s real. It’s happening. We cannot change any of that.
But what we can change is how we think about it and how we view it.
We can change the reality we live in with a simple shift of our thinking.
“That’s crazy! It’s stupid, nutty, impractical, short-sighted… do you SEE what’s HAPPENING in the world?”
I do. And I understand the emotions, too, because I’ve felt all of them.
But no matter what I think or feel, the pandemic will still be here.
And so I have a choice – the same choice you have – of how I will respond and what reality I will live in.
I could choose to focus on fear, being highly emotional and overwhelmed as I binge watch the news and hang on the edge of panic.
I could be unfocused, uncertain what to do and playing a wait and see game.
Or I can be strategy-focused on using this time as a massive growth opportunity for myself and the planet.
In my chosen reality, the pandemic is happening. I am social distancing and taking all precautions. But I am also looking at this as a time of renewal and rebirth, a time to choose my priorities and plan my future and take massive action in my own life.
I am choosing the reality I want to live in right now. We all choose our realities every day of our adult lives. My reality is that we are going through a new time that will result positive changes and a better world.
No birth labor is easy, but the result is worth the difficulty.
Just as I get to choose how I view my world, you also get to choose the reality you live in.
And you get to choose it every single moment of every single day.