A taste of normality

Right now a lot of people are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, the slow return to normalcy. Granted it’ll be a long time until things are back to how they were but as they say ‘slow progress is better than no progress’.

This normality will be positive for some and for others, something they are dreading.

There are people that have been furloughed from jobs they don’t want to back to.

There are people who have finally been able to live without feeling obligated to be social.

There are people who miss being in the presence of friends, family and lovers.

There are people who miss going to work.

But I think that what many are forgetting is that even when things go back to the normal, it won’t be same, too much has happened.

A pandemic is a pretty big deal.

It’s changed us.

Disrupting the plan

Most people have some kind of plan. Even if it’s just a loose idea of how they would like things to be.

You carry it around with you wherever you go, it influences the choices you make.

You say yes to doing that thing that will help you progress and hopefully make things easier in the long run. You say no to things that are fun, exciting and interesting because you consider them a distraction.

But then sometimes something or someone comes along and disrupts the plans you made.

It could be someone that makes you realise that you’re settling, a listing for an amazing kind of job that you didn’t even know existed or meeting someone that went down a non-traditional route and has managed to make a great life for themselves.

Your eyes become open to the possibilities of life. You realise that the plan you made was created to give you a safe and stable life rather than being something you were truly passionate about.

Finding your rhythm

Good things take time.

When you start something new you’re likely to be unpolished to begin with, you’re still learning afterall.

But that initial stage is what puts many people off. They get caught up in the idea that they’re not good enough. They play the comparison game, often looking at people with much more practice and experience.

The reality is that it takes time to find your rhythm. After a couple of weeks you can’t expect to be perfectly polished. That’s not even reasonable.

It’s so helpful and a much more enjoyable process, when you put the focus on doing the work instead of the end result.

Why it’s so hard to change

You spend a large amount of your formative years trying to figure yourself out. You’re favourite colour, what you like to eat and the kinds of movies you like to watch.

But it goes much deeper than that. Perhaps it’s what political party you want to support, your career path, whether you want to get married or have kids, who your friends are, your opinion on world issues and the sort of place you want to live.

However, sometimes these things change. Perhaps you wanted to be an Accountant at 19 but years later you now want to be a Visual Merchandiser.

Changing your path might feel difficult because it goes against the person you thought you were, the character of you that you created.

Suddenly other aspects of yourself may no longer seem to fit because one part of you has changed.

This is the point where many choose not to change.

I’ve wanted to be an accountant for long so I may as well stick with it.

It’s going to be so hard to become a Visual Merchandiser so I may as well stick with a more stable option.

The thing is though you’re allowed to change, not only from childhood to adulthood but day to day.

As you gain new experiences, your perspectives will change. Don’t reject your development and hold yourself back.

With an open mind

That thing that you’re not interested in, that you don’t think is for you, it might be one day.

It takes time for the mind to open up to things, especially when they’re different or new.

This could apply to the music you listen to, shows you watch or even the food that you eat.

One day you’re telling everyone that you don’t do comedy, you don’t find it funny and you much prefer a drama.

Then years later you’re sat at home watching the office (US), snorting with laughter thankful that you changed your mind about the kind of shows you watch.

The thing with your taste changing over time is that it’s part of your development. You don’t need to force yourself to be a certain way right now just because it’s something on the path you’re heading down.

Be patient, remain open and allow the changes to happen naturally.

Back to the drawing board

The plans you made a year ago, 6 months ago or even a few weeks ago may now be obsolete. You can time planning far in advance but when it comes to putting those plans into action, you never really know how things will go until you see the results.

Sometimes the results are as expected or better and other times the results are a learning curve, a growth point an opportunity to go back to the drawing board.

It can be disappointing when things don’t turn out as well as you’d hoped, you might feel like the time and effort you put in was wasted. In times like this it’s so important to not to dwell on what went wrong but instead to think about how you can move forward.

How can you improve?

How can you do things better?

What can you do differently?

Of course, going back to the drawing board is never part of the plan but if you use it as an opportunity to grow, experiment and explore, suddenly it might not seem so bad.

You don’t need to start something new

There is great pleasure in the beginning stages of a new project.

You’re full of energy and ideas, getting carried away with possibilities and potential.

But at that point, the real work hasn’t even started. You haven’t had to fully commit and you haven’t faced any challenges, those are 2 things that come with time.

So, often we get drawn into starting something new because it feels good in the beginning. However, that feeling won’t last.

It’s often much more useful to stick with what you’ve already started, commit to it and over come the challenges you face along the way.

If you can’t find a way to commit to one thing, you’ll find yourself starting over and starting something new any chance you get. You’ll even convince yourself that the projects you start aren’t worth following through.

At the end of it, you’ll have nothing to show for yourself because you didn’t commit to anything for long enough to really make a go of it.

On the other hand if you stick with one thing and give it your all, you’ll have a much higher chance of actually bringing your vision to life, which is the reason you started in the first place.