Is it too early to fathom a life after the lockdown? How long will it take for things to finally normalise when life as we know it will change?
According to Martin Seligman in Authentic Happiness, “Positive Psychology is the scientific study of the strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive.”
Let’s look at how positive psychology and emotional intelligence can help us manoeuvre these times. The COVID- 19 pandemic has closed all boundaries be it international or the local districts within a country. It has changed the way the world functioned. Everyone is trying to deal with this situation in their own way.
People are experiencing heightened emotional states causing stress and leading to a sense of gloom as well as uncertainty. Somewhere the statistics and numbers shown in the media are having an impact on people; as it’s all there right on our faces.
To add to this the fear of job losses, pay cuts and the overall economic recession is looming in large proportions. But history is also a proof that every crisis has brought opportunity and change, mostly a positive one.
Some of the most successful organisations of our times such as the Microsoft or LinkedIn were founded during the times of economic recession. This gives us the hope to use the current opportunity to make the appropriate ‘shifts’ in your lives.
For that to happen we need to live in the present, in the ‘here and now’ where all possibilities lie. We have the opportunity to bring about that desired change in our lives now; the shift needs to start in our minds before it gets translated into emotions and actions. Mindsets grow in the fertility of our overall wellbeing, requiring us to strengthen our body, mind and spirit.
Increasing our wellbeing takes daily intentional efforts over long periods of time. Let the steps begin now. The science of psychology has many insights that can be applied to nudge people to adapt change.Can we look at the opportunities that have come into our lives? and then; can we utilise them to create win- wins for us, our families, friends and work teams?
It’s time for us to introspect and find our deliberated, logical and intelligent answers. It is important for us to make the appropriate shift in the way we have been living.
Knowing our highest strengths and using them for the greater good and in the service of others can give immense happiness; this is the time to feel the power of altruism. Nothing may seem to have been going your way; the goals you had set and KRAs articulated for the year and beyond. Realise that it was done in the past; the present is demanding something else and the future is yet to find its way into our lives.
We can’t even if we choose to, live in the past physically so why remain there even in our emotional state? Making the most of what we have is crucial and we have what was once the most scarce resource ‘time’. This time affluence gives us the opportunities to use our minds in the conscious state. We must make peace with the situation at hand and get innovative to offer a winning solution to not just to ourselves but also to our organisations and the society; taking it as our individual social responsibility. Thus we’d be making use of some of the greatest values of kindness, savouring and gratitude; giving meaning to our lives.
Human beings by nature turn everything into language. We draw meaning from every situation and experience. These meanings are linked to the words we use, giving them enormous power and control over our lives.Are we using positive words or are we engulfed in dis empowering negative ones?Let our vocabulary have words that are empowering such as opportunity, challenge, innovation, reset, reinvent and reopen instead of letting our focus be on the ones that add to the anxiety such as pandemic, lockdown, closure, recession, job losses etc.
Many webinars are being held on the future of business and most of them are talking about the number of jobs that will be lost or the revenue that will be gone for ever. That’s a given with the lockdown of this scale ongoing for months now; instead can’t our focus be on how to create the necessary shift to make our businesses sustainable.
The need of the hour is to win the trust of the customer who should be informed of what you as a business is doing to make the product and service safe for him. This message has to reach the customer loud and clear so that he can confidently come back to your business. That’s the partnership that requires strengthening at this moment. Having gone through the shake -up, being mindful makes things and perspectives clearer to us. Clarity of thought and purpose gives us the much larger picture to focus on; leaving aside the daily irritants.
This will prepare us to sail through and be ready for the grand reopening!
Are you ready?
Credits
This post of mine first appeared in Women’s web, sharing it here with due credits. Pictures courtesy Google
