My husband got home from work following the first day of lockdown to find me slumped on the kitchen sofa. I’d spent the day dealing with cancellations. Having put on a jovial tone for my clients and returned breezy emails stating ‘No worries. I understand completely. See you on the other side [of the pandemic]!’, I’d run out of cheeriness.
During lockdown I have experienced a myriad of emotions from disbelief, fear, panic, confusion, overwhelm and grief. Why grief? Because the company which I’d nurtured for 15 years practically died overnight. Business reduced by 85%.
As a sole director furloughing myself wasn’t an option. I needed to maintain what little work I had to pay the bills. Fear had set in.
I was getting a regular stream of messages from my furloughed friends who were sharing their ‘lockdown fun’. This included family games and jamming sessions. Photos of them lazing about in the garden, with a Prosecco in hand proclaiming that lockdown was like being at the spa! That wasn’t the way I felt; I was stressed up to the eyeballs.
One of my mottos in life is that there’s always something you can do, even if it’s choosing to do nothing. That way you feel back in control; you create your own certainty. I needed that. It felt like the world was going crazy as I heard about people fighting in shops over toilet rolls.
Because business was so poor I needed to pivot. (I’m so tired of hearing this word…unless it’s Ross from friends shifting a sofa). I’d watched countless webinars. Lost two hours of my life on the phone to a salesperson, who, having built fake rapport lost his rag when he realised I wasn’t going to buy. I’d been sucked down so many sales funnels that I’d forgotten what courses and apps I’d bought.
It felt like I was wading through treacle and was still stuck in it, with nothing to show for my busyness at the end of each day.
Normally quite a focused person, I’d developed the attention span of a flea. I was jumping from one topic to another. Mind you, it didn’t help that I was trying to be a surrogate teacher to my beautiful inside and out daughter. I felt like I’d got a woodpecker on the side of my head interrupting what little bit of concentration I’d managed to build up.
My life’s motto became my downfall. It had bitten me on the bum. I was being a busy fool. I’d gone into action overdrive and a large proportion of it was ineffective. A waste of time. Because here’s the thing; when we get stressed, we make less rational decisions. In fact the amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for regulating our emotions gets bigger, which makes us more efficient at being stressed.
Then one Friday night with gin in hand, (I was kind of living the furloughed dream), whilst watching another crap webinar, I thought what the hell am I doing? I exited. I realised I needed to do for myself, what I do for my clients.
1. Shrink Your Amygdala
I had to make my amygdala less proficient at triggering the fight or flight response, so that I was less stressed and able to focus on doing the right things. In a study MRI scans showed that the amygdala shrunk after an 8 week mindfulness course. As the amygdala shrinks, the pre-frontal cortex becomes thicker. This part of the brain is linked to higher order brain functions such as awareness, concentration and decision-making.
To calm my mind and switch the rest and digest response on I adopted a daily yoga and meditation routine. My daughter and I also listened to the ‘Spa Playlist’ on the office Alexa. When things got tough and we needed to concentrate, (seemingly me tapping on the keyboard gets on her nerves) we’d put our headphones on. Life saver. We listen to Weightless by Marconi Union, which is apparently the ‘World’s most relaxing song’ used to calm patients before surgery.
2. Refocus on Your End Game
Another reason I felt as though I wasn’t making any progress and was hopping from one activity to another, was that I was unclear about my direction of travel. What was the destination I was trying to journey towards? What was my BHAG, (big hairy audacious goal) or vision? What was I trying to pivot towards? What was the outcome I wanted?
3. Align Towards What’s Important
Once I’d clarified my vision, I then had to do a sense check. It’s no good pivoting towards a new direction if there’s a values conflict. Did I really want what was involved during the journey towards my vision, or was my vision laced with musts, oughts and shoulds?
One of the things I say to my coaching clients is that work and home life are inextricably linked — one impacts on the other and visa versa. For example, do I really want large public speaking events, if this takes me away from my family (value) during the week? The answer was nope. What I really want (my vision) is a business that generates passive income, (value), where I can work with clients online in any location (value), so that I have more time (value) with my husband and daughter.
4. Create a Simple Plan
Part of the reason I felt so overwhelmed during the early stages of lockdown and pivoting, was that I had so many options in my head and missing bits of information. I couldn’t see the wood for the trees. I don’t know why I didn’t spot it, as this is how I help my clients!! I needed a simple one page plan.
First, I broke my vision down into 4 specific GOALS — this is WHAT I needed to achieve in order to attain my vision.
Then, I broke down each goal into 3 specific TASKS. This was HOW I was going to accomplish the goal. Your tasks are the physical actions you are going to take. Limiting the number of goals and tasks, helps to keep you focused on the priorities, as opposed to getting distracted by other activities.
The beauty of this method is that you can fit your strategic plan on one page. I like to use Excel. Then, once you’ve achieved your first set of tasks, you simply repopulate the plan with new ones until you reach your vision.
This focus and clarity has helped my business to grow again and take on new clients – and at a time when I didn’t think people and businesses had money to spend. What do I know?!
