What If You Don’t Want to Go Back to Normal?

by | Best Life, Blog, Change, Goals, Mental Health, Planning, Preparation, Procrastination, Productivity, Stress Management, Time Management, Work-Life Balance

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I’ve written a lot recently about the unique challenges we’re all noticing during this one-of-a-kind moment in our lives. We had never lived through a global pandemic before, and we’ve also never been through a period like this one. There’s no roadmap that tells anyone exactly how to behave, how to feel or what to expect next. I’m seeing a lot of people struggling with simultaneous feelings of joy, relief, anxiety, guilt and overwhelm.  

On one hand, life is sure starting to look normal again! Depending on where you live, you may walk through stores and only see a few people wearing masks. Maybe you’re starting to meet with clients or your team in person again, or resuming your monthly game night or happy hour traditions with friends. Unlike last summer, you may be planning a full range of activities like traveling and hosting out-of-town guests. Maybe your schedule is already as full as it was before the pandemic. 

On the other hand… life sure is starting to look normal again, and it might not feel like a great thing. Normal wasn’t necessarily working for you before the pandemic. Normal might have involved a lot of habits and behaviors that didn’t serve you well, and didn’t support your work goals or time management and productivity goals. Normal might have involved you feeling over-scheduled and overwhelmed. Normal might have meant working yourself into exhaustion all week, then spending the weekend feeling burned out and dreading Monday morning.  

Yeah, normal life isn’t going to cut it anymore.  

Better Time Management Isn’t Just Going to Happen 

You’re smart and accomplished, and you were those things before the pandemic started. But you still struggled to solve your time management problems and maintain work-life balance. You worked hard, and things still fell through the cracks. You still felt like you could never really unplug from work or the important things wouldn’t get done.   

All those same challenges are still there. Now you’re facing them with 16 months of pandemic stress still affecting you. You’re worn out by all the changes and the ground still feels unsteady below your feet. You may still be concerned about the virus. Maybe you’re one of the millions of people whose businesses or mental health suffered during the pandemic, and now you feel a little worse off than you did before lockdown.  

With all of that working against you, what are the chances that you’re going to finally fix your time management problems on your own?  

I want to be clear: There’s so much reason to be excited and hopeful about this next chapter in our lives. We’re in a moment of great potential right now. Things are opening up enough that you’re getting to enjoy all the things you missed during lockdown, but your post-pandemic routines and habits are still being formed. THIS is the time to take action that keeps you from being pulled back into old behaviors. You don’t have to go back to the old normal if you don’t want to. 

The missing piece here—the extra factor that will help you create real, lasting change so your post-pandemic normal involves balance and peaceful productivity— is purposefully creating a plan that will set you up for success and allow you to truly create the New Normal that will serve you.  You might not be able to change deeply ingrained habits on your own, but that’s okay. You don’t need to do it alone.  I’m here to support you.  

The New Normal Summer Reset

I would love to see you join our True Focus Tribe Facebook Group. We discuss ways to create the roadmap so you can get things handled in a way that works for YOU this summer and through the fall.  Here’s some of the stuff we talk about:

  • Mindfully choosing your New Normal and keeping yourself from falling into old crazy busy habits that didn’t serve you. 
  • Keeping things from falling through the cracks this summer with all of the changes, 
  • Setting up routines that will support you NOW and allow you to thrive in the new post pandemic life. 
  • Having the summer you crave and set yourself up for a successful fall (no matter what comes). 

Let’s start by getting clear about what your time management and productivity challenges are right now…Join us!  All you have to do is click HERE and share. 

Gratefully,  

Sarah 

Sarah Reiff-Hekking
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