Get up, get over it and get going

The unwelcomed pandemic came at a great cost. Millions lost their jobs, and millions lost their lives. Many of us went home and stayed there. It was a sad sight to behold, and it can affect us heavily. We have never witnessed something like this happening at this magnitude and scale. Life became difficult, and everybody wished the year 2020 would quickly go away.

It’s gone now. Just because we flipped the calendar from Dec. 31, 2020, to Jan. 1, 2021, it doesn’t mean that some instant magic and cure would happen, that things will be well, and everything will go back to normal, this is not the case. 2021 can be and should be the year of transition as we hope that there would be no new “Black Swan” events or some other catastrophic disasters that will catch us by surprise. Above everything else, we need to first “Check-In” to the New Year. And we need to check-in now!

Many months of home detention, having gone through the stages of shock and recovery, eyes glued to the screen incessantly fed by “Breaking News” of rising cases, deaths, and increasing political turmoil can take its toll on us. But what individuals and businesses need to do is look forward to shaping their future rather than just grinding through the present.

Through all of these challenges, we may entertain the feeling that we cannot get up. But we need to get up and get over it. We need to realize that situations like these happen to the best of us. It is part of life’s seasons of life. I refer to this as a “situation” and not you as a person. I do not think that you were the cause of the pandemic. But you are now caught up in this situation caused by the pandemic, so if you look at it this way, this means this situation needs you to come up with a strategy to manage it. And when you do. You need to plan it carefully, pursue it relentlessly and persist consistently.

Here are a couple of ideas. I hope you find them useful and helpful:

1. Develop a healthy mindset.

There is a need to renew your mind and revise the way you think. Something you are doing may not be working at the moment, or it may need to be reviewed and repaired, or revamped. So, deal with the adjustments and move on. Stop wallowing in misery, lamenting what you have lost but get up and move on.

2. Create order.

Get your life in order! A well-developed and meaningful life requires a specific order, so you may want to start straightening out the things in your immediate reach. Fix up your place. Clean out the clutter. When things around you are out of order, your mind is out of order. And a mind that is not in order produces a life that is out of order.

3. Connect with reality.

Try to understand what is happening; this does not mean consuming the news endlessly, but this is a diligent search for reports and literature and discern and determine developments that are happening daily. Things are always changing. Opportunities may begin to open up. Things may turn out difficult, so before we can manage things, we need to know what is going on and learn how to deal with it.

4. Continue to learn and grow.

There is a saying I love. The quote says: “If you are green, you are growing. But if you are ripe, you are rotting. Where there is growth, there is life. Anything that stays stagnant will eventually die.” We need to expand our knowledge. Read books, listen to podcasts, attend webinars, and never stop learning. In a fast-changing world, we need to be unafraid of learning new things, but we should be fearful of becoming obsolescent.

COVID-19 has caused a great deal of turbulence. COVID-19 will pass, but the turbulence may be with us for a while. But we need to get up and get over the slump. Begin to make things happen now! So not only do you get up and get over it, you need to get up and get going too.

(Connect with Francis Kong at www.facebook.com/franciskong2. Or listen to “Business Matters” Monday to Friday at 8:00 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. over 98.7 DZFE-FM ‘The Master’s Touch,’ the classical music station.)