New Year's Day or Groundhog's Day?
New Year’s Day is a day of new beginnings, renewed commitments, and future planning, but how do we muster the energy to put on our New-Year-New-You-Pants when we are stuck in a seemingly endless COVID-loop? The day/week/month/year that seems to be on continuous repeat?
Regardless of how COVID has impacted you directly, we can all agree that there is currently a level of exhaustion on a global level that is unprecedented. For some of us, that exhaustion expresses as depression or anxiety. For some of us, it looks more like irritation. For others, apathy. If you are like, me, I cycle through those emotions (and probably more) on a weekly, if not daily, basis.
So how do we do it? How do we “get jazzed” for 2022?
If you have read this far, here is the spoiler alert - we don’t have any magical answers, but here are a few ideas to roll around in your head as you head into 2022.
You Are Not Broken.
Let’s say it again - just to make sure that you hear us. You are not broken. We encourage you to say it to yourself over and over again, even when you don’t believe it. You are an ordinary person navigating extraordinary times. The shit we are going through right now as a global community is messed up.
No One Has it Figured Out
We are all just trying our best. We are all experimenting, trial-and-erroring, and making shit up as we go along. Some days are good. Some days are bad. Some days are really bad. As you read articles (like this one) and scroll through social media, consume the content for what it is - a suggestion, an option, something to try, or maybe not. When it comes to “thriving during a global pandemic that has been going on for two years and doesn’t look like it is going anywhere” - NO ONE IS AN EXPERT. Try things on that feel like they might work. for you. If it works, great. If not, whatevs. Regroup. Try something else.
Be Gentle
Be gentle with yourself. Be gentle with others. Literally everyone is trying to figure out how to manage life right now, and that looks a lot different than it did a couple of years ago. Coping and living, living and coping are going to look different for every person. Hell, it is going to look different for every individual day-to-day.
At Failure Lab we talk a lot about the biological reactivity of Failure. How different people have different propensities to fight, flight, and freeze. This is true. We are all different. What is also true that while we may have a dominant response-style, we all contain the capacity for all three - fight, flight, and freeze. The last two years has likely triggered all of these responses for you at various times. Be gentle.
Keep Moving
This is a marathon. This is the “new normal” and the simple harsh truth is that we are going to have to figure out how to live and thrive (yes, thrive) in this new normal. This is definitely a “just keep swimming” kinda moment (reference to Dory from Finding Nemo, for those of you that are less well versed in Disney movies than I am).
There is an inspirational meme floating around that says something like:
“The goal is to make progress every day - no matter how small.”
That seems like a good philosophy. But let’s first acknowledge that progress and forward movement doesn’t move forward all the time. The goal is for the trend over time to move in a positive direction. You will backtrack. You will falter. It is a part of the process of growth.
Let’s expand the sentiment to define progress as anything that keeps you moving - intellectual stimulation, physical movement, rest, connection, community, feeling difficult feelings, extending grace, mindfulness, redefining of expectations, crying into your pillow, screaming into your pillow, coming back to sanity after screaming into your pillow….. all a part of progress, if we define progress as a journey and not a destination.
Silver Linings & Redefinings
Yeah, we know that redefinings isn’t a word, but you get what we mean, and it rhymes. One of the great things about great disruption is that it provides the perfect environment for honest assessment, re-centering, and the redefinition of success. Dramatic disruption forces us to look at life differently - assess what is important, how you spend your time, and analyze if your actions truly reflect your values and goals. We are seeing this happen in all sorts of ways. Social circles are becoming tighter. People are reassessing their professional goals and priorities. We are being forced to actually communicate with our families - in great ways and in challenging ways.
Failure Lab is an organization that exists to question and redefine our relationships, individually and collectively, with discomfort. Guess what? We are all experiencing a lot of discomfort right now. We would offer this question in closing: