Are You Tired of Resetting?

It’s a new month. For me, like many of you, the start of a new month tends to represent fresh beginnings, new opportunities… a time to reset and refocus. 

But this month is a little different. No it’s a lot different. Our world is just not the same place it was a short month ago. COVID-19 has changed all that.

Truth be told, as leader of a youth nonprofit, the whole coronavirus thing started for me at the end of February. By the first week of March, not only was I planning for so many unknowns but I was also beginning to need to calm the fears of those around me. But it wasn't until March 16th that it changed my life. 

That was the day I became temporarily unemployed. My husband had been working from home for about a week at that point. My girls attend a cyber charter school so they’ve been at home all along. But all of a sudden, we had four people and a dog and four workstations (yes, I said four… this crazy driven person is not about to sit still while she is unemployed).

April 1. New Month. New Opportunities. Fresh Beginnings. Reset. Refocus. 

Been there. Done that. For 17 days. 17 freakin days. I'm no longer motivated to refocus and I've grown tired of resetting.

Our family sat down that very first day and we talked through what we all needed… not just to complete our tasks for school and work but more importantly, what we all needed to keep our sanity… what projects we wanted to do, what we would do for fun, how we wanted to utilize and not waste this time. We had a great plan.

Maybe your family is like mine. Maybe you sat down together and came up with a plan. Maybe you are making a plan week-to-week. Maybe you made a plan and it has changed six times already. And maybe, just maybe, you're like me, and at some point during the last several weeks you've questioned why you even bothered to plan or wondered if you can even achieve 1/10 of what you set out to achieve. 

No matter where you find yourself today, if you are wondering what to do with this new month… I’d like to make a few suggestions: 

#1 Lower your expectations. 

#2 Don’t compare your game plan to anyone else’s. 

#3 Be flexible. 

Here’s the thing, it doesn’t matter if you’re working from home like my husband, essential personnel like my two sons or temporarily unemployed like me… this is tough. I message with people each day. Their emotions are all over the place, from anger to gratefulness, fear to hopefulness and optimism to sadness. These unprecedented times in our history are tough… physically and emotionally. To thrive, we are going to need to be kind to ourselves and those around us. We can’t expect to run at peak performance all the time, we have to understand that each of us need different things right now and we have to learn to roll with the day-to-day changes. 

So today, as you consider the new month and new opportunities, I want to encourage you to take a deep breath, take a walk or maybe just take a nap. As then as you reset for a new month, I want to encourage you to refocus your attention on grace and give yourself and everyone around you a little extra grace.