The Rule of Much More in Trying Times

About a week ago, I caught myself completely overwhelmed. I mean, I’m a pretty tough cookie. I've done a thing or two in my life and I do not get overwhelmed easily.

Still, I found myself close to a breaking point. Has the world gone completely mad? What happened to life as we know it? 

My initial thought was crawling into my bed and watching Netflix until the end of it all. Tempting thought. Then I said to myself, "No. This is not the way to handle a challenge. At times of challenge and fast changes, you don’t do less. You don’t crawl into your shell. You do much more in every possible aspect of your life."

I should know, I have been talking about it for years. I call that "The Rule of Much More in Trying Times."

We need to do much more as a community. We need to be there for each other and support local businesses, check-in with the elderly members of our communities, make sure families in need have enough food and necessary items.

We need to do much more as leaders in order to keep our teams motivated and engaged while working remotely. We need to work hard and do more in order to provide consistent platforms for communication.

We need to pay more attention to how team members are doing, recognize their efforts and support them so that they can do well, work well, and feel well under the current circumstances.

We need to make sure that roles, rules, and expectations are clear to everyone. Everything must be spelled out. This is not the time for ambiguity or lack of clarity. These will just add to the anxiety and make it hard for everyone to do what they need to do. 

We need to do much more as team members- at home and at work. Our families need to function as a team now more than ever. Our teams at work need to remain engaged and connected. We need to take leadership, be there for others, be present and attentive, and just as important- define to every team member, at home and at work, exactly how they can be helpful. This is not the time to let people guess what we want and then get disappointed if they let us down. This is the time to do much more as proactive communicators, clear communicators, and positive communicators. 

We need to do much more in terms of watching the language we use. Language creates reality. While we cannot impact what we are dealing with right now, other than being good team members by strictly adhering to social distancing, there is a lot that we can do in terms of our choice of words, both to our kids and with our remote teams. Choose to say ‘challenge’ rather than ‘catastrophe’, choose to use words that are hopeful and encouraging. Our words matter. Let’s all be much more focused in our choice of words these days. It really does make a difference.

Last but not at all least, let’s do much more in terms of taking care of ourselves, body and soul. Let’s take our vitamins, soak in some sun when we can, laugh together, enjoy the people we love, and forgive those that we may love a bit less. Let’s learn when to keep ourselves busy so that we don’t overthink everything, and when to rest and let ourselves refresh and regroup. 

This challenge is not about Netflix binge-watching. It is also not about stocking up on toilet paper. This challenge is about us learning to be much more and do much more at trying times of rapid changes and overall challenge in all fronts of our lives. Let’s rise to the challenge.

---

Book Dr. Michelle Rozen for your event at https://premierespeakers.com/michelle_rozen