Keeping Your Vision Alive in Lockdown

By Annie Rodgers

We could all be forgiven for tunnel vision at the moment. How do we get through the next days and weeks in lockdown? How do we assess the short to longer-term threats and opportunities for jobs, income streams and not least our mental and physical wellbeing? 

Such a state of flux and lack of control can throw us into a tail-spin of reaction, and short term decision making. We may default to behaviours and actions we pledged to mitigate against at the beginning of the year. But why should we lose sight of who we want to be, ditch our goals and forget our vision during this crisis?

As life literally suspends before us, we’ve never had such an opportunity to assess who we want to be, explore our values and chart a course towards our vision. For some of us, it may result in life-changing decisions, for many it will be a question of recalibrating, reflecting and recharging, but the process itself affords clarity and momentum.

Giving ourselves the time to examine our personal vision is the gift we all deserve, so let me help you start the process:

1.     Take an hour on your own: Start with three deep breaths to calm your parasympathetic nervous system.  

2. Take your journal and list how you wanted to develop a better you in 2020. If that’s not top of mind, take a fresh look at feedback from a recent appraisal or a personal assessment. What were the top three areas for development? Maybe it was building a network, raising your profile, broadening your experience, taking on something new, mastering a skill, dealing better with conflict, building trust or managing stress?

3. Ask yourself, how far have you come? What’s working? What could progress look like now? Manage your expectations and be realistic. What is the impact in the context of virtual meetings?

4. Draw up some actions: Be specific and, personal or professional. Clear some diary time every week, just 30 minutes and record how you have made progress and how you’re feeling. You might also consider visualisation – close your eyes and visualise yourself with whatever your new self has achieved, whether building the network, having mastered the new skill, mitigated stress. What does it look like and how do you feel? This serves as a powerful tool in making something real.

We will all get through this with compassion and kindness, creativity and innovation. Don’t forget you or your brightest of future in the ground-hog days of quarantine. If you need help reflecting on what you want that to be and how you get there, there’s a coach waiting to help you help yourself find the answers.