Emotions in a time of COVID-19 – How’s your emotional state right now?

It’s not really like it was a few weeks ago, is it? If you’re anything like me, you probably are a bit up and down.

Sometimes you’re a bit flat — we’ve all lost some things as a result of this, haven’t we? And sometimes you might be appreciating the space and the slightly slower pace, that’s my experience. I was chatting to my partner, Michelle, about this.

I want to explore this a little to reassure you that your feelings are normal and okay. And for me, and for all my customers — all the ones I’ve been speaking to about this, we’ve lost the future we’re planning and the future we were building.

We’ve all been investing in our businesses to build a different future, a brighter future, a growing business.

I’m doing the same thing. I’m on the same journey. I’m growing my business, I’m building the systems — the marketing, the training, and the business coaching, to grow my business too so we’re on the same journey.

We’ve all been making progress. We’ve been celebrating the progress, measuring it and seeing the effects of our hard work. We might not be rich yet, but we’ve been seeing the effects. We were making progress.

It’s probably fair to say we’d all like to be seeing our progress be faster because I think that’s part of the human condition. It’s never as quick as you’d like.

We all think, ‘I’m doing well but I wish I was doing as well as that guy with his Ferrari.’

So this isn’t really surprising that the people I’m talking to were on an upward path with a vision of how we thought our businesses were going to be in the near future, and we’ve all had that vision whipped away by recent events.

You’re not clear. 

I don’t think our future has disappeared altogether, but there are many unknown factors and we are all still working and have some momentum. But the growth we’re expecting is looking like it will take a lot longer.

Is that how it feels for you? You’re not shattered or desperate yet, but the good future that you thought you might have, back in January, feels gone — uncertainty has replaced it.

It’s less than you thought, at least for a while. And I’m talking about months not weeks.

Why it’s okay to have these emotions

My first point is – these feelings are normal. 

We’ve all got them, we’ve all lost something and we’re all working to replace it, but we don’t have anything to replace it with yet.

You’ll be grieving that loss. 

We’re all going to be grieving and feeling loss – getting used to it, understanding it, coming to terms with it, will be angry about it, etc. 

You might be feeling grief for the future that you thought you had. And that uncertainty is disconcerting, isn’t it?

We were chasing a goal and we were making progress. 

Recommended Reading: Goal Setting For Tradies – Short Vs Long Term Goals

Now with everything changed those same actions might not feel like they’re going to give us the right results.

You’re probably worried about your people as well — your family, your elders, your kids. My parents are elderly, they live in Spain, they’re locked down, pissed off and bored.

My daughter is a nurse, she’s in an Emergency Department in a hospital in Melbourne. I’m worried about her because she’s on the frontline. 

Michelle, my partner — she’s a psychologist. She sits face to face with people all day long, and she’s an essential worker, but she’s likely to get a disease, so I imagine it’s something similar for you. I imagine you’ve all got somebody you’re worried about.

But then on the other side, there are ups.

I had a lovely weekend for Easter. It was relaxing, no commitments, there was nothing to do and I did relax and slow down and I enjoyed that. You might be feeling grateful for modern medicine and for the fact that most of us are in good shape. 

You might be grateful for the stimulus package and the support our Western governments are giving to us businesses. We’ll probably all see a drop in our recent living standards, but most of us can still feed ourselves.

The quiet is nice, isn’t it? Not going out and everything being shut has a certain appeal. I’ve enjoyed it. It takes me back to Saturday half-day closing in England or Sundays when everything was shut and the world slowed down. There was nothing to do in terms of going out spending money.

So, some ups and downs. 

I don’t have so many answers today in things you should do except to say we’re all feeling it and allow yourself to feel it. It’s a normal feeling. 

You’re not weird, you’re not weak, you’re not the only one.

Taking action does help 

I’ve been talking about what action I think you should take over the last few weeks so please do that. 

Watch the training video – the Survive and Thrive in COVID-19 video training – and take some action. Make yourself a plan and use the free tools I’ve put out there. 

You’ll feel more in control and you’ll get some agency back so you won’t feel so helpless.

So check that out, but mostly, keep your chin up.

Remember, this is temporary – this too shall pass.

Your goals may have receded into the future a bit, but they’re not dead and I hope this helps.

See you later.