Dare To Be Resilient

Why sugarcoat it — to say that 2020 has been a challenging year for all of us would be an understatement. All of us have faced unexpected adversities and disappointments in the past few months.

But here’s the thing: we are a highly adaptable species. Our ability to rebound from setbacks and keep moving forward is what we humans are known for. Fortunately, resilience is something you can build up though small steps that have a big impact.

In theory, we know that failing is a key part of life, but when we are in the middle of a tough time, we can lose sight of this truth. To really understand this message, it would help to make it concrete and think about the positive results of your past mistakes or setbacks. Doing this will build up your resilience and make it easier for you to bounce back from failures in the future.

“Grief and resilience live together” — Michelle Obama, Becoming

Resilience isn’t only key to maintaining stability, but it’s also key to creating success.

Even more than talent, resiliency is shared by the world’s most successful people. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team before becoming one of the greatest players of all time.

People who possess a “growth mindset” think of difficult times as a learning process, in which they can improve their abilities. People with a “fixed mindset” believe they are stuck with the abilities they already have, and no amount of practice will help this.

Thomas Edison conducted thousands of failed experiments before he invented the lightbulb.

Psychologist Barbara Fredrickson discovered that for a person to “flourish”, or have high levels of mental well-being, they need to experience about three positive emotions to neutralize just one negative emotion.

This means you cannot be slightly more positive than negative — you really have to tilt the tables.

Walt Disney was once fired by his newspaper editor for his supposed lack of imagination and good ideas.

What’s really important is that you shouldn’t let a few bumps discourage you from your dreams. Adversity is just an inevitable part of your journey to success. Resilience is the ability to bounce back from setbacks and keep going. It is a key determinant of success.

Living Intentionally Vs. Living Accidentally

Unfortunately, most people don’t believe you can live any way you want. They don’t believe you can shape your direction or change your present working and living situations.

On the surface, it looks like there are lots of reasons. But if you look deeper you’ll find that we all have 2 basic modes of operation that are responsible for the difference.

“Proactive Mode” and “Reactive Mode”

“Proactive Mode” looks like this — you are in control. You use your time, energy, imagination, and creativity to solve strategically-selected, high-priority problems.

For some reason, I relate “proactive” with “doomsday prepper” and I can’t help but laugh.

To be honest, being really good at using a bow and arrow like Katniss in The Hunger Games would be pretty cool!

The proactive mode would mean preparedness on a day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month basis. If you are running your own business it would mean you have to live connected to the details and be future-minded. You would be juggling the short term plan and the long term plan.

“Reactive Mode” would be the alternative. This is when life happens to you. It’s when conditions around you dictate how you need to live and what you spend your time on.

Most people spend most of their time between these two modes.

Reactive living is the default. It’s like an autopilot that hasn’t been programmed well. Like a GPS with an incomplete map and an unclear destination. A ship without a rudder. We all have way too much re-active living go on. And that is usually the reason we feel like we are living small, powerless lives.

In business, it can be really easy to become reactionary and respond primarily to what is directly in front of us, rather than employ some of our creativity, genius, or high-quality attention to being proactive.

The reality is that we are trading time for money, and we need to change that. Every time we take a break, we feel we are turning off the “faucet” of revenue — we are trying to figure out what kind of “loss” we are going to experience in our time off. Our muscles are so addicted to doing the work that they don’t feel ‘right’ taking a break.

It’s true that you can’t live in a proactive mode in all areas of your life, all the time. We only have so much time and attention to use. So you need to select the areas that are most important to you and focus your pro-activity towards them.

We should be working in order to live, not living to work. We need time to regroup, dream, idealize, strategize, and breathe!

Learning how to become proactive instead of reactive can be a major shift that changes everything for you. It’s the difference between living life intentionally and living life accidentally.

The Post Pandemic Abode

In just a few months, a lot has changed, and that includes the idea of what a ‘dream home’ looks like. Before the pandemic, home buyers were preferring smaller homes and open concept spaces conducive to entertaining. After spending the last few months cooped up inside, those features cease to be appealing.

Developers have taken note and are re-evaluating the existing in-unit looks and amenities.

Trends in home design may shift in the coming years

Size of the home. Homes were trending smaller and that may be over. With so many of us spending way more time around the house lately, there is more need for personal space. This means we should expect homes to grow in size accordingly.

Home office is now a priority. The home office will become a near-essential for many home buyers as more and more businesses relax their ‘work-from-home’ policies. For many companies there is also a shift to ‘full-time remote’ work entirely. This has forced many of us to create makeshift desks in the cramped spaces of our homes.

How interesting that a space that was once an after-thought will now need to offer privacy, good lighting and be pre-wired for telecommuting!

Return of the closed floor plan? The open-floor plan was already starting to trend down in the last year or two. The last few months have only made the reasons why more obvious. Spending more time and space at home requires more privacy for school work, hobbies and entertainment. An open-concept kitchen becomes the rowdy epicenter with more meals being cooked at home all day long.

Residential home builders are expecting a rise in the demand for closed floor plans with rooms partitioned for purpose.

Smart technology is a fast-growing trend. When it comes to home design, smart home technology will soon move from a ‘plus’ to a ‘must’. Controlling temperature and lighting can now be voice or motion-activated. Touchless faucets were once thought of as extravagant but are now a health conscious upgrade. Air filtering and monitoring systems will become more common and affordable.

While the history-defining coronavirus still rages on, it’s hard to predict what post-pandemic abodes might look like. Now that impromptu dashes to the store, drinks at the bar, celebrating birthdays with friends, holidays, gym classes, family visits, hugs and handshakes have been rescinded from our lives, we are forced to take ‘baby steps’ toward normality. In the meantime, developers continue to anticipate residents’ needs and preferences that Covid-19 will spur.

A New Vocabulary Word

It seems we have added a new word to our vocabulary: furlough. According to the American dictionary, it is a time allowed for a person to be absent. The word was borrowed from the Dutch verlof, which is related to the English word leave. Is a pandemic a good reason to furlough an employee? It seems so.

Companies impacted by the pandemic are resorting to many different sources to cut costs. This includes reducing working hours, mandating pay cuts, and laying off employees. Furloughs are a way to quickly cut operating costs now and minimize re-hiring costs later.

For key workers, there has been huge pressure applied to their jobs and monumental pressure in their daily duties. For those who have been on flexible furlough and working at home, the thought of returning to a crowded office via a packed commuter train and sharing a microwave in a small kitchen is unthinkable.

A lot of measures will have to be taken into account when the lock-down has been opened back up. Businesses will have to change work hours so that everyone doesn’t arrive at the same time and continue the practice of working from home, even if it’s for part of the week, to keep the number of office staff down to a minimum.

An external event like Coronavirus can change our employment status overnight. Our attitudes towards work are changing as a result of this too.

While some people are able to work from home during the pandemic, other people simply don’t have jobs that allow for that. Due to a fractious job market, some workers, flexibly furloughed or not, may not have any other option but to return to their old place of work. Especially if they’ve been treated well during the crisis and they’ve been shown care and concern by their employer. That’s good for them and their employer, because they are likely to be happier and more productive.

When it comes to working from home on an ongoing basis, it’s hard for employees to develop good relationships when they have to communicate online because virtual communication tends to be more formal. Those spontaneous opportunities to connect with others in the hall or over a pre-meeting coffee are a thing of the past. No matter how good your wifi connection is, we can’t look people directly in the eye or mirror their expressions. Both of these are important for developing trust.

In these uncertain times, one of the few post pandemic certainties is that COVID will have a lasting impact on how people work going forward.

How To Stay Positive In Difficult Times

With everything that is happening in the world, it can be challenging to remain positive and move forward.

It’s easy to be positive when things are going great. It’s much more difficult to manage our attitude and outlook when things are not so great; especially when we’re in today’s circumstances that are more difficult and concerning.

Regardless of who you are, what you do, or how successful you are, you will have challenges.

Our biggest challenge is to stay positive and productive regardless of the circumstances. When we're positive, we're more resourceful, more creative, more productive.  Besides, it just feels better! 

Here are 5 things we can do to stay positive in difficult times.

1. Keep The Perspective

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when problems arise. We tend to feel crushed by them. We tend to exaggerate the problem, turning a minor issue into a huge one. When we’re in the middle of a problem, it’s important to keep it in perspective. We must remember to look at the big picture. We shouldn’t let problems take on a magnitude greater than what they are. Even in our most difficult times, there are still positive things happening in our lives. It helps to remember that we’ve gotten through issues and challenges in the past, and we will get through this one too. Difficulties are a part of life.

2. Let’s Not Beat Ourselves Up

Beat ourselves up is often what we do! What good comes from chastising ourselves or wallowing in self-pity? If we maintain a “guilt free” approach to our setbacks, it will allow us to respond with your best self. Our thinking will be clear, we will have more energy and see possible solutions that are just not visible when we are in a “blame and shame” mentality. We can’t change the past, but we can learn from it.

3. Focus On What We Can Control

We must define our ideal outcome as we work through our challenges. It’s equally important to know what we can and can’t control. We don’t control the outcomes. While knowing what ideal outcome we desire is important, we need to focus our energy on the things we can control — such as our actions. If we put too much emphasis on the outcome it can become paralyzing.

4. Start & End Each Day With Gratitude

Whatever we focus on, whatever we think about, gets magnified. Be intentional about magnifying positive thoughts. Have a daily routine activity to trigger your gratitude. Keep a gratitude journal. It’s important that you fill your mind with positive and pleasant thoughts, especially in difficult times.

5. Connection To Our Vision And Goals

When we are in the middle of problems and feeling stressed, we tend to focus on the short term. In these times, it’s not difficult to lose track of our dreams and aspirations. We need to force ourselves to think about a better future. We can’t wait until we feel like engaging with our goals and this won’t happen when we are in the middle of some serious challenge. We need to remember that the problems we are currently experiencing are temporary, and that they will not hold us back from our destiny.

While we all face challenges, learning to stay positive in the midst of problems will position us for not only a faster, more productive recovery, but also a more joy filled life.

Intentional Imbalance

Lately, I’ve been  feeling  guilty because I don’t have a balance between work and play or business and personal.  

I’m beginning to think the concept of life balance is an illusion.  Somehow, I’ve been led to believe that we should spend equal time in all the areas of life - family, work, spouse, health, friends, and community.  That’s just not possible.  It can be really frustrating.  Mostly  because I’m trying to create something impossible. And if it were, I sincerely doubt it would create the joy and fulfillment that it promises. 

When it comes to work, technology has facilitated this trend, but the ongoing advances in technology are making it easier and more efficient for employees to work around the clock.

However, technology isn’t the only culprit. I think we have ourselves to blame. We all hope that the greater the input of hours, the higher the output of success.  I’m beginning to think this is an illusion as well. 

Seasons in life

There will be times in life - call them seasons if you will- when I will decide to spend more time in one area over another.  I don’t think there is anything wrong with that.  The key is that I intended it to be just that. 

I see “life balance” as different from that. Rather than seek life balance, I should strive for intentional imbalance.  It is my intention that matters most.  Sometimes I’ll want to spend more time with family.  Other times it will be work.  Still other times it will be quiet time for myself.

 There have been “seasons” when I’ve wanted to focus on work and career.  There have been other seasons when I’ve focused on my family - small kids, elderly parents, etc. 

I don’t believe any one of us can have it all in all the areas of our life, all at the same time. It doesn’t matter how I’ve spent my time.  I think what matters is that I’m intentional with it. So, it’s not necessarily balanced but it’s intentionally imbalanced.  It’s not important that I spend equal time in every area but that I spend time on what matters and that I’m spending the amount of time that is given where I am in life and what my priorities are. 

I’m getting rid of this notion of life balance and focusing on this “intentional imbalance”.  I’m going to look at the different areas of my life and decide what I want or need to dedicate my time and in which areas.  I will adjust my calendar and adjust my time to do so.  Harmony is possible. 

Woman Overwhelmed By Spirit of Kindness

I am losing my head trying to convince myself that this “new normal” is “real life”. It just can’t be. I want it to stop. All this talk of Covid, protests, looting, brutality. Somebody please make it stop!

According to Oxford Dictionary, a “new normal” is a previously unfamiliar or atypical situation that has become standard, usual, or expected.

History reveals that the aftermath of plagues have brought on radical transformations for societies. So what changes could come in the aftermath of Covid 19?

I met an 84 year old who spoke of living through Polio, diphtheria, Vietnam, protests and yet, he is still enchanted with life. He seemed surprised when I said that 2020 must be especially challenging for him. “No,” he said, looking at me straight in the eyes.

About a hundred years ago, right after World War I and the Spanish Flu, Warren Harding ran for president on the slogan “Return to Normalcy”. He won the election, but there wasn’t any normalcy. There was a thriving and turbulent decade that ended with a Depression.

My 84 year old friend went on to say “I learned a long time ago not to see the world through the printed headlines, I see the world through the people that surround me. I see the world with the realization that we love big. Therefore, I just choose to write my own headlines”:

“Husband Loves Wife Today”

“Family Drops Everything To Come To Grandmas Bedside”

We might speak, yearningly, of our pre-Covid existences, but life has changed abruptly, profoundly and irretrievably. We will, inevitably, go full throttle into a new era.

Are You Ready for 5D?
By Rosa Diazmedium.com

I think about this past New Year’s Eve heading into 2020, a number associated with perfect vision and clarity — how ironic.

What would my response have been upon being told that soon there would be no live sports or concerts or Broadway shows? That Grand Central Station at rush hour would be empty? That toilet paper might be more valuable than crude oil? That by spring, there would be food lines on the streets and more than 300,000 people worldwide will have died tragically.

My friend went on to say that there is a comfort history; we’ve been here before. And the real reason for optimism might come from knowing that the aftermath of plagues has always brought about some of the greatest transformations, leaving societies looking completely different. Order comes from chaos.

His words smash my worries, freeing them from the tether I had been holding tight. They float away and I am left with a renewed spirit. It was a reminder that our capacity to love is never ending.

My headline now reads “Woman Overwhelmed by Spirit of Kindness”.

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