Monday 23rd March 2020 was a life changing experience for the UK, although lockdown was done with good intention to try and protect us all from catching the virus, the massive impact to business owners and there people hadn’t even started to unfold.
Even if your business was fortunate enough to continue trading during the lockdown period, there will be at least one thing that will be different for all businesses going forward! Yes, you have got it, it is your people. Even if its only minor, each person will have been impacted by their unique experience of the pandemic.
At a time of crisis, we often go into many unhelpful states e.g. flight, fight, flee or freeze. These are natural reactions when we are faced with fear. I also relate to this and am therefore thankful for all my knowledge and skills. The biggest asset of all was knowing I had the right people around me who helped to support and challenging my thinking, which helped me at times of stress, return quickly to more resourceful states.
Emotions continue to run high right now and it might be helpful for you to know, that our emotions are not specifically from the direct stressful situation that we all found ourselves in, however they come from the irrational and false notions that we hold about them.
Let’s face it, I feel if I had hung on to every word that was being communicated daily through the media, my mind by now would be even more screwed up. That is because there is too much right now to take in, people are still confused and upset. Many people are still struggling and going to continue to struggle to see a way out of this in the immediate future.
This is leaving many feeling incredibly vulnerable and stuck.
At the beginning of lockdown, I attended one of my own supervision session’s, in this session I remember a psychotherapist saying, “You don’t send a psychotherapist into a burning building”. What they meant by this is, at the time of a crisis nobody wants to know about any supportive services, people are simply go into survival mode.
As a coach I was aware pf how this unique experience could impact us, so at the beginning of lockdown, I resided myself to stop and take some time out to reflect on how I was feeling. Then I started to consider, how I was going to pivot my business to go into the “New Way”.
This is when I came up with my lockdown mantra of “caring, sharing, learning, and earning.
The 1st step I took was to start with my own selfcare so that I could feel fit and well to care for others and then capable of sharing my own knowledge to support others with their own self-care.
Below are my 5 simple steps which may be useful to you, as you start to work out your “New Way” of living and working.
Step 1
I get up early and set my day up using my own “Agree my day Anotherway” strategy. By taking time each day to ask myself first thing in a morning “How are you feeling today Katy?”, it gives me clarity as to how I am going to approach the day. It also gives me the opportunity to change how I am feeling and then I am ready to focus on my plan for the day. I check out my body physiology and say my affirmation statement, for example “I am enough”. I have many affirmation statements written in my journal, I then do some meditation and some exercise, so I am ready to face the day.
Check point 1
What daily routine do you have in place?
Research also shows that valuing self is good practice and I encourage you to think about the values that you hold true to you.
Thrive Anotherway’s Programme’s number 1 key Principle is Praise. How good are you at praising yourself?
Step 2
As a great Leader you are going to have to become remarkably familiar with your own personality profile.
Why is this so important?
By knowing yourself you will know how you are feeling, and what you are fearing right now?
It is become apparent that by knowing how we feel, we can learn to show more love towards ourselves and this leads to us feeling more self-compassionate to self and others.
Knowing your profile also gives you the chance to know your strengths and development areas, so that you can use these to good effect. Then you can look at your development areas and set goals to work towards these.
Another main reason for knowing your own profile, is so that you can start to understand other’s profiles better. This is crucial to ensure you have the most open, honest conversations when people are needing you to be there to support them.
Say for example you are a dominant character; you might need to give some thought as to how your messages will land with a more sensitive person. So, when you are planning your messages for communication it is not always a straightforward task, it can be rather tricky if you are not considering all your characters in your business.
Check point 2
What do you know about your own profile?
If the answer is nothing, then I would highly recommend you start to understand more about yourself as it will result in you finding more ease when you have to have some of those challenging conversations.
That is why our Thrive Anotherway Programme’s 2nd Principle is to Prepare. How well do you know yourself?
Step 3
When you return to your workplace, it is important to engage your employees in making some of the decision as to how the business will work in the future. Many years ago, I worked in a large corporate business and they were incredibly good at engaging us in making decisions, we had a “You said, we did” approach. Listening and questioning skills are required to make sure your people feel engaged.
I do not know about you; however, I did not have a Listening Class at school. Given that this is one of the underused senses, it might be a good time to develop this sense now.
Check point 3
How good a listener are you? How good are you at asking great effective questions?
That is why our Thrive Anotherway Programme’s 3rd Principle is to plan. What steps have you taken to plan your own and your people’s development?
Step 4
Resilience and mental health plans are key to giving your employees the right start back in work. If they understand some basic coping strategies, they will then have these ready for use when they are not feeling at their best. There are some easy tools that they can use e.g. breathing exercises, reframing beliefs by stopping to ask the mind “What is really true about this situation?” How much of an issue will I be finding this problem in 6 months? What would be a better solution for me?
Check point 4
What resilience training have you got in place for your employees? It might be time now to make that plan.
As Leaders if we start learning more about ourselves, we can support and challenge others to learn more about themselves too. It sounds simple really, however, sometimes we cannot see the wood for the trees, generally due to the overwhelm of other business tasks. That is why our Thrive Anotherway Programme’s 4th Principle is to step into your Power!
Step 5
Let someone else support you with both your own and employee’s resilience plans. You might even find that you enjoy a personal development journey once you get started. In fact, you might just turn out to be a “personal development junkie” like me. Trust me it is better to know yourself and feel motivated about what you can control rather than what you cannot control.
Check point 5
Do you have someone in mind that can support you and your business going forward? Can I perhaps be of any help to you? If the answer is yes, I am more than happy to have a complimentary discovery call with you, no strings attached. That’s why our Thrive Anotherway Programme’s 5th Principle is to be on Purpose.
