13 Things to Remember in a New Normal
Many of our companies are living in a New Normal now.
Remember disruptions can show our true potential and give us the burst we need to see REAL success
Whenever we encounter changes to life and business, there is this period of time where we wish for what used to be. We see the sudden change as a disruption to our goals. We romanticize the drive we had before this thing came and interrupted our flow. We erroneously claim we were operating at our optimal level and if THIS hadn’t come, then everything would be perfect. Orrrr… we sit in the space where we know we weren’t doing all we could, but at LEAST it wasn’t this. We sit in the space of grace, saying things like, “At least we were ________.”
Where we “thought we should be by now” gets thrown off course and we find ourselves wondering how to stabilize. In fact sometimes we can even end up a little lost in this “new normal”d. We don’t feel like we can quite get a good bead on things. (If you’ve been part of the family for a while, we know you caught that reference to the Land of Should Have, but we’ll talk about that later) Eventually we are either able to recapture our before or we get to a place where we accept what now is, and begin to move forward.
Either way, as things begin to get back to “normal” (whatever that is), we will look for a way to quickly resume life in our business.
However, well too often we don’t take a moment to gather inventory on all we learned, discovered, acquired, and initiated while things were off. Most likely, when things weren’t the way we wanted them, or the way we thought they should be, we adapted. We made changes to the company, to our expectations, to our selves, and sometimes even to what we BELIEVE! Those adaptations should never be ignored simply because there is now an opportunity to get going again.
We want to take time to sift through the qualities of what we’ve seen and done during the shift. (yes those are key words, did you catch them?)
With that in mind, we took some time and reflected ourselves. Here is what we are taking into the new with us! Some are life based lessons, but even with those we can recognize the theme of what is being said and apply it to your business as well. Here we go!
A few things we decided to remember as revenue increases and income stabilizes post pandemic….
- That $150.00 steak we love costs $30.00 at Publix and tastes better with friends and family around a grill.
- Sometimes we spend too lots of time being “busy” in our businesses, and not enough time carrying out task that will bring value and produce.
- We can have 12 drinks for the cost of 2 when we buy the liquor and make them at home.
- Pushing the red line of cash flow in our business gives us a false sense of security in the same way amassing impractical debt gives us the same false security in our lives.
- We will never again buy season tickets to any sport unless the cost is 2% or less of our revenue… or if we can write the cost off as a business expense on our taxes. We don’t go to all the games anyway.
- What is essential, is subjective to perspective. Not only that, our perspective sways what we believe we must have for our company to succeed.
- I can spend $40.00 to maintain my natural curl pattern and love it instead of $250.00 to be “loved” by others. (this one is specific to Joy of course – LOL – but don’t sleep on Stefan’s curls)
- Movies eventually make it to Netflix, Hulu, Fire Stick and Apple TV. That 70 inch, 4K UHD Ultra, curved TV you have is just as amazing of an experience.
- Coloring is so much fun.
- Social media is more comical than crucial.
- Everything we did without because we had to, we can do without period.
- We did not “survive” this disruption. We LIVED through it.
- Our tribe is REAL!!!
Don’t just take our 13 things. Craft your own!
You’ve lived through this experience as well. Your business has weathered this storm (and may still be). Take a moment, or a few moments, to uncover the glorious gems that have been revealed in the middle of the disruption. And when it’s time to move forward, you can do so with more wisdom, understanding, and passion than ever before.