Encouragement

In the previous blog, I talked about the dangers of discouragement. While avoiding discouragement during a pandemic is hard, we don’t need to make things harder with unfair comparisons between now and our pre-pandemic lives.

“Pandemic fatigue” related to all the things that we cannot do or accomplish is a slippery slope to debilitating discouragement. The goals I encouraged you to set at the very beginning of the year likely have been obliterated. During the first six months of this unprecedented year, many of you have cycled through a few goal resets—from your original 2020 optimistic goals to coronavirus emergency/survival goals to pared-down 2020 “new normal” goals.

Don’t let this discourage you! Instead, be encouraged by your ability to adapt and pivot.

Here are a few more points I’d like to make about why you should be encouraged by what you’ve been through already this year and why you can be optimistic about the remainder of 2020.

• Everybody’s a good captain in a calm sea. This year has challenged most executives’ leadership skills more than any time I can remember in my almost 30 years of coaching. It has forced leaders to make hard decisions and make them quickly with very little information. Many of you have wisely learned to be creative in order to lead during these uncertain times.
• Seek opportunities. If you let this pandemic dominate your vision, all you will see are problems. The best of the best look for opportunities during down times. I am encouraging you to think outside every box and create opportunities if they don’t actually present themselves.
• Identify and correct weaknesses in your business. Success, profit and boom times can mask weaknesses in a business. Identify shortcomings or problems with your people, processes and leadership. In a down economy, whatever weakness you have will likely become painfully obvious. This pandemic has allowed (or forced) executives to recognize things they need to work on in order to have the greatest positive impact on their business.
• You might not be able to get bigger, but you can get better. Make sure that everyone at your company (yourself included) is working on professional development. Before the pandemic, most of us conducted little, if any, video conferencing aside from the occasional FaceTime with family and friends. Now nearly everyone has been forced to learn Zoom and the subtle art of speaking in front of a camera. (Google some tips if you are not happy with your background and camera angles; they matter.) Now, most of us can conduct virtual meetings with relative ease. That’s a useful skill! Why not cultivate others? How many books have you read or listened to lately? What informative podcasts are you following? A wealth of knowledge is readily available if you just look for it.
• Focus on your health! One of the most important things you can do right now is get healthier. Strengthen your heart and lungs, especially. Be kind to yourself, and focus on mental health, too. Exercise regularly (even if the coronavirus is keeping you from your regular gym routines). There are thousands of YouTube classes and apps available for yoga, meditation, strength training, running, dance cardio, cycling and more. Walking is excellent exercise. It takes willpower and discipline to do these things outside of a gym, but it has never been more important than now.
• Embrace quiet time. The pandemic has forced us to simplify our lives. If you are like me, I initially felt under-stimulated and frustrated by the lack of what I now recognize were mere distractions. I learned (grudgingly at first) to devote more time to reflection, study and especially prayer. Now my quiet time is a good, daily habit.
• Understand another’s point of view. Stephen Covey said it best: “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” The social unrest we’ve seen around the country and around the world has encouraged us to really listen to others and to strive to understand what they are feeling and going through—even if doing this makes us feel uncomfortable.
• And finally, appreciate the little things in life. Before the pandemic, I didn’t always fully appreciate the time I spent taking my children to school, watching their activities, the simple pleasure of eating in a restaurant. I didn’t really think about social interactions like handshakes and hugs until we weren’t doing that anymore. Missing these things now has given me a greater appreciation for what I do have—family and friends, my work and my connections with others.

I encourage you to cultivate encouragement. Think about the things you are grateful for (you might be surprised to realize you used to complain about some of them). In these challenging times, consider keeping a daily journal of gratitude.

I am grateful for that and for the opportunity to share my thoughts, dreams and worries through this blog in hopes that it helps all of us do what we do better.

Stay safe and well, my friends. I wish that for you and for your families.