The 4th option: Treading water

There are many seasons to life and business. If you’ve lived longer than 20 years you’ve no doubt seen some of these seasons. Over the last 40 years I’ve had several times in which outside things affected my life and business in large ways, ways that I couldn’t control. I’m a Virgo and a bit of a planner (not gonna say control-freak here), so when I can’t have control it is unsettling to say the least. I’ve noticed that I (and maybe you) have some tendencies towards how I react during these times.

Four ways to react during a tough season:

1- Keep my MO like nothing is happening. You get it. It’s the “What?! No, I’m fine and everything is great” face. When the sky seems to be falling and you just keep on working without an umbrella. Sometimes the move is to try to maintain our current mode of operation because, like our favorite socks or blanket, it brings us comfort. The reason the ‘ol “bury your head in the sand” technique won’t work is because it’s only external. Nice try. Outside you are pecking away at your emails like it’s a normal Monday while inside your body is yelling “AHHHHHHHH!” 

2- Go inside the turtle shell and hide. This is the self-protecting nature of who we are. When you hurt yourself, touch a stove or bump your shin on the bed, you cover it, rub it and put a bandage on it. When chaos interrupts our lives we recoil to protect. It’s our nature. The toughest thing about this move is its lonely inside the shell. Isolation, especially right now, can be even harder than the hurt. Think of when you got a bump as a kid. The first thing you’d do is run to someone to tell them. They’d share in that “ouchie” and cover it with you. Tell me, did the bandage help more or the sharing it with your parent or friend? Part of getting on through the hard seasons in life is to share your stuff. It’s okay to pop out of the shell and ask for a bandage.

3- Make yourself as busy as possible. This tends to be the one I fall back on most often. It’s kinda taking my current MO and pushing it into overdrive. If my normal mode of operation is a 7 then this is definitely an 11. It’s much easier to not deal with Stuff (fear, worry, my kids homeschool worksheets) when I’m squeezing 26 hours of work into a day and making up things to do. First of all that is not sustainable and second of all if you think you are avoiding all the things, you aren’t, you are just ignoring them. Stuff won’t be ignored, trust me. Stuff will come back. You will yell at your kids for a silly reason. You will react out of proportion on an email with a client. You will sleep poorly or drink too much. Stuff is much like a 7-year old with a plan to get what they want. They won’t be denied. They will just keep coming at you till you pay attention. Best to slow down and allow some space to pay attention to Stuff. Deal with Stuff. Then Stuff can go along for a few minutes and leave you alone. 

So, those three things are usually where I find myself, or a combination of them. I have realized in the last week that it's my first pandemic, how about you? We are kinda new to all of this and new to this, together. So let’s maybe try a fourth option for right now. I’m going to call it the “treading water” option. This option means that we are in maintenance mode.

4- The treading water option - This means we aren’t trying to crush it in our businesses. We are simplifying, doing an audit of where we are, finding ways to reduce spending, and staying connected to our clients and community. Just doing what we need to get done to keep it on the surface. We aren’t trying to blow-away Pinterest and Instagram with our amazing homeschooling skills. I have friends who are teachers and perma-homeschoolers and trust me, they’ve got big shoes to fill. Give yourself a break. Your kids are learning even if they don’t have you teaching them Mandarin through Masterclass. This is a good time to talk with your kids, be silly, let them choose some things, go with the flow. We don’t need to better ourselves at this point. I think you’re pretty great already. I love all the online options and I am definitely partaking in some, but just alleviate yourself from the pressure a bit. Ask yourself “Do I really want to spend time learning how to build WordPress sites right now or do I want to binge watch old Friends episodes?” Get your answer and be okay with it for today. A colleague said he adds one thing a day to accomplish on his list and when he gets that done - SUCCESS! I think that’s a great “treading water” technique to add here. Just add one thing. “I want to update that spreadsheet today.” Everything else is gravy. 

During this time it’s important to remember this is not a normal time. It’s the first, and hopefully the last time we will go through a pandemic, BUT it will not be the last time we go through a tough season. You can choose from any number of the ways above to manage through this and all of them are viable. I will probably find myself bouncing through all four of them. The biggest takeaway is to remember you are doing great where you are. You’re awesome. Take the pressure off yourself a little bit, okay? You aren’t alone. All of us are going through this together. The world is, just like you, doing this for the first time. We are all amateurs right now. Be kind. Since this is a totally new thing, give yourself and others some patience to figure it out. And finally, we will get through this and then it will be on to the next season of our lives and businesses, hopefully a season with better news, more food trucks, festivals, laughter and lots of “less-than-six-feet” hugs. 

Take care.