Uphill Hopes with Downhill Habits

I don’t think many of us could have foreseen a multi-month lock-down coming. When the whole pandemic thing started, I recall several people telling me that we would need to quarantine for a couple of weeks so we could get past this. Well, here we are at eight weeks (and counting). Some communities are talking about reopening, but there is a lot of fear and concern that it may still be too early.

Assessing Your Response

One thing for sure, each of us has been given an unprecedented opportunity to reassess our lives and decide what is important and what is not. We have each been able to enjoy time with lower demands (no social requirements, no driving to work (or anywhere), no running the kids to all their events), and increased time for other things (no sports on TV, no events to attend, etc.). The question we need to be asking ourselves is, what have we done with this opportunity? What have you learned about yourself as you have been given this amazing gift of time?

Here’s a short exercise for you:

Consider the last 8-weeks (so far) of the social distancing, social isolation, work-at-home world and answer these questions: (High 10, Low 1)

1.      How would you rate your overall performance during the quarantine? (1-10) ____

2.      Rate the progress have you made on the goals you had for this quieter time. (1-10) ____

3.      Rate your satisfaction with how much entertainment you have consumed. (1-10) ____

4.      Rate your satisfaction with how much education you have consumed. (1-10) ____

Your E2E Ratio

I know those last two questions could be taken differently than I intended them, as in, I am a 10 in entertainment, I have binge-watched every Netflix series I was hoping to watch. That’s not how I meant it. The last two questions speak to your Entertainment to Education (E2E) ratio. For every hour of entertainment, how much education (personal growth and development) time have you invested? Entertainment is not bad. Only when it is left unbalanced by the other E (education) that it becomes a problem.

Your Habits Are Being Revealed

Author and speaker, John Maxwell, commented recently that while we may have high hopes and expectations for our lives, we need to put in place the habits that will support that level of expectation. He also pointed out that everything worth doing or working toward in life is uphill. In crisis time, like we are in now, the hill got steeper. That’s when Dr. Maxwell said that we might find that we have uphill hopes, but downhill habits.

Most likely, these unusual times have revealed your true habits. You may be very pleased with what you have learned about yourself, or you may be looking back at the last eight weeks and have very little to show for it. Don’t be discouraged. Start now. Here’s how:

-        Decide on 1-3 things you want to accomplish in the time we have remaining until economies reopen

-        Decide what the actions you can take, DAILY, to move toward those three items are

-        Set aside a specific amount of time each day to work on the actions. This does not need to be hours and hours. In fact, make your daily goals small, but do them (See my article on Irreducible Minimums for ideas)

Don’t let this time pass without taking the actions you need to take to grow yourself, your family, and your business. All too soon, the rush and hurry of life will return. Now is the time for making progress on you!