What I am taking away from 2020

December offers a period of introspection, so I have been ruminating on what to share before I put the out of office on, sign out of LinkedIn and wave goodbye to an omnishambles of a year. Rather than share predictions for 2021 that will soon be redundant, I thought I would offer the five learnings from 2020 I will keep with me to deal with the volatility still to come.

Your mental health is as important as your physical wellbeing

This was the big one this year and factors into my other learnings. Over the summer I acknowledged that I was having challenges with my mental health.

I was suffering from crippling anxiety that was affecting every area of my life. Working from home meant it was easy to hide this from colleagues while lockdown meant my family and friends were not privy to my challenges.

After suffering in silence for far too long, I addressed my mental health and got assistance. Thanks to NABS (the support organisation for people working in media and advertising) I undertook a Cognitive Behavioural Therapy programme. It has been life changing. Sure, it was difficult, bruising and – at times – incredibly emotional but it has given me a clarity and calmness that have been missing for many months.

We all have roles to plays in breaking down the stigma surrounding mental health. This was the inspiration for joining two senior leaders in my company on International Men’s Day to openly discuss our mental health. This was one of the most challenging yet rewarding experiences of my career. I am immensely proud that our frankness kickstarted many conversations that extended far beyond our event.

I now listen to my body to identify signs of anxiety – turns out clenching my jaw and grinding my teeth are indicators, something my dentist has noticed on all my check-ups for the past five years (and I had dismissed entirely).

When I am feeling less than chipper, I step away to recharge and refocus. Those emails will still be there when I fire the laptop back up but they will be a lot easier to deal with.

Sprinkle social media with a liberal dose of salt

I made the decision to log out of all social platforms when my anxiety was at its peak. I came off from Facebook some years ago and have only logged into Twitter once all year but still had active profiles on Instagram and LinkedIn.

Instagram was reflecting a life I could not (or did not wish to) lead while the cacophony of humblebrags on LinkedIn was deafening.

Stepping away gave me a chance to reassess my relationship with social media and how I might want to use it in the future. I no longer have the Instagram app on my phone nor am I logged in to my account on any device. Consequentially I have only checked my account a handful of times since September and do not feel I am missing out – I am certainly happier for it.

LinkedIn is a different story. I enjoy perusing my feed to gain inspiration from my professional network and engage on topics I am passionate about however there were times this year when I felt insignificant and that I was somehow failing.

The antidote was simple – make the algorithm work for me. I muted people who were continually distributing content I found unhelpful or unhealthy. I blocked profiles who were posting likebait on an alarmingly regular basis. This helped my feed become a safe space again. I now only engage with the content I believe is going to benefit myself or my network. Some things still slip through the net, but I am making the platform what I want it to be.

Read more than one news source – and pay for it

Ours is a highly divisive world where compromise is often at a premium. I had the pleasure of reading the excellent ‘I Don’t Agree’ by Michael Brown which made me consider the art of negotiation and understanding all sides of the disagreement.

We live in echo chambers, fuelled by social media and the like-minded opinion of others. This confirms our prejudices, reducing our capacity to view counterpoints. These one-track voices are far from healthy and serve to entrench divisions. I went into this year with three news apps on my phone – I leave it with seven.

I subscribed to The Guardian, The Economist, The Telegraph and Financial Times to gain a wider view of political discourse and to review the deeper ramifications of the decisions being taken at individual, national and global levels. Receiving news from diverse sources helps me to better frame the challenges faced by my clients, society, and the economy.

Paid subscriptions mean supporting the integrity of journalism during a time when news publishers face an existential crisis. If we do not support the industry, platforms without editorial guidelines will dictate the news stories that we view. We are already experiencing the consequences of toxic myths and mistruths proliferating news feeds – and I think we all agree this is not great.

It is never too late to learn

This sustained period of self-reflection has allowed me to identify areas for personal and professional development.

I needed to broaden my personal understanding of a range of experiences. This led me to reading more this year than ever before. I alternated between fiction and non-fiction with graphic novels, autobiographies, pulp fiction, sociological texts and Booker Prize winners all devoured over the past 12 months. I started the year reading Stephen King’s epic tome ‘The Stand’, the apocalyptic novel about a pandemic that sweeps around the globe. Sound familiar?

Should I be fortunate enough to start a book club, I would propose ‘Redefining Realness’ by Janet Mock, ‘Why We Sleep’ by Matthew Walker, ‘Catch and Kill’ by Ronan Farrow, ‘The Testaments’ by Margaret Atwood and ‘Wolf Hall’ by Hilary Mantel. Go on, treat yourself.

Enforced working from home has given me the headspace I needed to identify my professional growth areas. I singled out the life changes I could make to make me more productive, presenting the capacity I need to realise dreams that have laid dormant in my mind for years. This means I start 2021 with a new personal development programme which is going to challenge me more than I can possibly imagine. It will ultimately make me a better teammate and person.

Perfect is the enemy of good

This is the first time I have quoted Voltaire on LinkedIn, but it seems apt to sum up 2020. Kids interrupting Zoom calls, a cat blocking the camera, “you’re on mute”, speaking to colleagues with dripping wet hair. All things that we experience on a daily basis, yet would have been cringe-inducing in 2019.

There is no need to portray the perfect life. 2020 has shown we are human and not everything will go smoothly. Mistakes are inevitable and people do understand.

Don’t sweat it, no-one else is.