2020 was all about resilience
“Do not judge me by my success, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.”
― Nelson Mandela
I started 2020 with a visit to my home town abroad in Jan’20 to rejoice the connections I had since childhood. If you spend 30+ years in one country and move & settle for rest of the life to another, it makes your bonding unbreakable to former place and it is always a treat to go back and visit your family and friends. When I was coming back by end of January and was at airport to catch the flight, I saw many of the travelers wearing face masks and distancing to others. This gave me a feeling that I couldn’t express as it sounded very uncomfortable and uneasy. Covid-19 had started spreading all across the world and Governments didn’t know what to do by then.
The next thing that happened was at my workplace where I was told my position had become redundant and in case there are no matching roles, I will have to take a redundancy package. It happened for the first time in my career and I never thought of such a time when I will be shocked in such a way when many businesses were beginning to shut down due to Covid-19. Gradually I put myself together and started reaching out to my connections within the workplace to understand if there is an internal opportunity but sooner it seemed certain that there will be more redundancies in upcoming months. My line manager told me that he has been made redundant four times in his 30+ years career which helped me realize it’s a norm in organizations and there is nothing to blame yourself.
What mattered most was the help that I was able to receive from some amazing colleagues at work as well as other connections on LinkedIn who not only reviewed my resume but also introduced me to recruitment consultants. Once I reached out to my connections, I was able to land on a new role even before my notice period was over and this happened at the start of a pandemic when companies had already started to plan on short sizing and lay offs.
Here are some of the lessons that I learned from the above episodes in my life in general and career in specific;
· Control your emotions and try to put yourself together
· Reach out to your connections who are empathetic
· Try to focus on things that are in your control
· Develop an action plan with a positive mindset
· Execute your plan whilst incorporating learnings from previous steps
· Realize that sometimes you have to step back to take a leap forward
· Practice gratitude for things you cherish the most
· Develop a habit of exercise (specially if in lockdown:)
· Start that hobby or accomplish the tasks that you’ve been thinking to do all past years
· Volunteer and help out a vulnerable community or contribute to a cause
Whether I would have landed on a new role or not, I had a plan to engage myself in volunteer activities that I went ahead with the new job. I participated in four different groups related to education / professional development, mentoring, bush fire relief and project management day of service for charities organized by PMI Melbourne chapter. I bought a DSLR camera to learn more about photography, read couple of books and passed three additional professional certifications. Looking back down the 2020 road, I realize it was possible because I took all those steps emanating from the philosophy of resilience and what Nelson Mandela said which is getting back up every time you fall down.
The amazing news of development of Covid-19 vaccines that we received in the later part of 2020 brought rays of hopes into our lives. What 2020 taught us was the realization that this world is a single unit and a conscious collective approach is required to solve the large scale problems we have been facing for decades on this beautiful planet. It is our utmost resilience that has brought the mankind to a civilization where we would put in all the needed efforts to contain the pandemics and fight tooth and nail safeguarding the vulnerable. Whilst I’m sitting in my TV lounge waiting for the 2021 fireworks to kick-off, I’m feeling quite optimistic what next year is going to bring into our lives. Are you too!
