The incredible thing about learning is how it is not restricted to a classroom or lecture room. Everything that happens around us presents us with endless learning opportunities, this pandemic is no different. You are probably tired of hearing about the pandemic, every website you click on, every newsletter you are subscribed to, heck, every time you step out and see people in masks, enough already. A change of subject would be lovely, but the reality is we still have so much to gain from this thing that has caused us such incredible loss. We will move on and put it past us but not before we learn all we can from everything that has happened as a result of the infamous Covid19 aka Coronavirus. Why? Because those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. How long is your list of things you would have done differently, in hindsight?
Plans are great but remaining flexible is crucial
Who did not start this year with awesome personal and professional goals? This was going to be the year we finally achieve greatness, the year we kick some career growth butt. While we were strategizing on how we are going to nail our KPIs and gun for those promotions, we did not factor in the massive job losses that lay ahead, and how could we? Things may have not turned out the way we planned and that is ok, disappointing but ok. Don’t be set in your ways, commitment to the plan can be a wonderful thing, but at times, it can the one that destroys any possibility of salvaging things when circumstances change. Have a plan, if situations change, be agile.
There is always another way
The destination may remain the same but the path can and should change if needed. For years businesses ran a certain way and professionals showed up for work daily to do things that have now become apparent they can do perfectly fine remotely. Digital transformation has been in most company’s strategic plans for aeons now and most organisations thought they had attained it until they were catapulted into a Covid world that required social distancing, and all of sudden those remote working policies that were meant to apply to only a few individuals at a time had to be refined to accommodate an entire workforce. Goes to show, regardless of what we thought we knew, there are almost always alternatives that can be explored.
Prevention is better than cure
There are a lot of invadable things in life but there are also things that landed us in bad situations that we could have easily avoided had we done things a bit different. People that maintain good health and active lifestyles don’t have to work hard and spend big repairing the damage they caused to their bodies. If you constantly focused on gaining new skills and polishing the ones you have when the time for change comes or an opportunity arises, you will be far better positioned than people that got complacent in their jobs and now find themselves needing to start equipping themselves for career changes from scratch.
The incredible advantages of technology
Who ever thought that one day we would able to be in various places at the same time, or perform multiple tasks simultaneously! You can be in a store buying groceries while you work, and maybe even take a meeting with a client. If used correctly, technology allows us to be incredibly efficient. We have adopted ways to spend time with family and friends leveraging video technology. Students and scholars were able to continue classes without leaving home. Going forward professionals are going to continue to explore more ways technology can be utilised to enhance performance thanks to how the world was forced to adapt.
Remain cognizant of what really matters
When there are a lot of moving parts it is easy to get side-tracked and lose sight of what is important. Taking a moment daily to recenter and reground goes a long way towards remembering why we made the choices we did and why we wake up daily to fight another day. The biggest lesson of the pandemic is how quickly and drastically things can change so make your plans with this in mind.
