A personal reflection by Katy-Jane Mason
“For so many of my friends & family, the past year has been a time of uncertainty & adaptability.
This especially applies to those who are employed, self employed & or contactors who have found themselves either furloughed, made redundant or in the case of the self employed, in a complete state of limbo & stasis.
Covid19 has given many people opportunities that in the face of the fear of the pandemic, they may have initially missed. Strip away the fact that we have all found our lives restricted, we have missed family, friends & the freedoms associated with socialisation; for many over the past year they have been given a rare opportunity & that is time.
Throughout our various lockdown periods hundreds of thousands of us have taken up new exercise regimes, started cycling again, learnt new languages, taken online courses, topped up our qualifications, read books, taken up knitting…the list goes on. Although the pandemic has been extremely tough & yes, we have all suffered; one thing that Covid has taught us all is that we need to slow down, take stock, re-evaluate & most of all, remember who we are.
For many business owners, including myself, who have continued to work full time throughout the entirety of the pandemic; the opportunity to slow down & reflect has not necessarily been there.
Yes, we went into work a little later during the first lockdown, found time to tend to the garden – a wonderful treat & distraction, we went for long walks – often forsaken due to workloads & we (my partner in life & business) physically slowed down marginally.
However, this was offset by the fact that our customer base all of a sudden were unable to physically reach us, that we had to adapt & change our business model to be able to continue trading, our income was dramatically depleted & as we are in the automotive trade, we could not work from home!
The pandemic has been tough. It has challenged us all. Front line staff have been incredible, essential businesses have kept us all going, online businesses have flourished & we have above all else, endured.
Therefore, isn’t it time for a holiday? “A holiday!” I hear you cry, but we haven’t been able to fly anywhere, the green list, amber list, red list means ….well it’s complicated.
You don’t need to fly somewhere to get away. Last week we packed up the caravan & the dogs & headed out to The New Forest & we stopped. For five days we simply stopped. We didn’t check emails, phone messages, social media, none of it. We absolutely switched off. After nearly 15 months of the most challenging times as business owners, we needed to clear our minds & re-focus.
Although five days isn’t really long enough to completely unwind (maybe a month might do it!) the time away allowed us to re-boot, to sleep, to talk, to allow our minds to wander, to read, to walk in amongst the trees of the forest & above all, it allowed us time to take stock, to take a look at our lives & our business from afar & think.
These few days away have enabled us as business owners to consider our future plans. Before we went away, I won’t mind saying, I was metaphorically on my knees, juggling so very much & seemingly getting nowhere fast. Being away has enabled me to re-assess my priorities & the priorities of the business.
Although we are still in Covid recovery, we now have a better vision of what we want to achieve going forward, what we want to remove & change & how we want to bounce back & re-focus on a brighter future. Yes, we are both tired after two days back at work, but our long-term goals now seem closer, more tangible & more realistic having had a few days away from it all & being able to contemplate objectively about the future.
Over the past months I have spoken openly to those in the self-care industries, leisure & tourism & those hardest hit by the needs of Covid restrictions & for the most part they too have used the time to restructure, paint walls, build gardens, re-model, adapt, learn, spend time with family & create priorities (I am aware that not all businesses have survived)
However you have spent the past 15 months, furloughed, limbo or working flat out; try to get away now & again, plan something to look forward to, something to anchor excitement to. Allow yourself the time to make time; it is a powerful tool in your business arsenal & is all too often overlooked when in the thick of it.”
Note: This is a personal observation by me, a business owner & self-employed worker & is in no way intended to cause offence & or to depict the feelings of all business owners.
Reflections by Katy-Jane Mason, for & on behalf of Virtually Smart.
